Do Not Track: has Microsoft outwitted competitors Google and Facebook?

[JMH]

With a deft side step, Microsoft appears to have outflanked Do Not Track opponents, like Google and Facebook who depend on tracking for their advertising.
In a recent Microsoft blog post, Chief Privacy Officer Brendon Lynch explained how IE10 would handle Do Not Track preferences:

DNT will be enabled in the "Express Settings" portion of the Windows 8 set-up experience. There, customers will also be given a “Customize” option, allowing them to easily switch DNT "off" if they'd like.
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http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/201...Feed:+nakedsecurity+(Naked+Security+-+Sophos)

 

[zigzag3143]

Nice find thanks. DH

 

[Kosh Vorlon]

That will be most welcome. I hope they will find a way to offer that feature to those of us stuck further in the past (prior to W8 & IE10) since that will remain to be a LOT of people for quite some time - preferably back to Vista & IE8.

 

[Corrine]

Windows Vista users should be updated to IE9 which has the DNT feature via optional Tracking Protection Lists.

 

[Kosh Vorlon]

Yes, I've been using the Albine add-on from the listing at http://www.iegallery.com/en-US/trackingprotectionlists with IE9 in Vista.

I had assumed the one being discussed in IE10 would be more tightly integrated and provide more customization, more options, a better maintained list that covered more than those currently available, and require less "overhead" - but perhaps I was reading more into the article than was there.

If it's no better than what already exists, why would MSFT have bothered to present it as a specific IE10 improvement?

 

[Corrine]

My guess is that it will be something along the lines of the Mozilla Firefox "Do Not Track" which is an opt-out of online behavioral advertising (OBA) by transmitting a Do Not Track HTTP header every time data is requested from the Web. With Firefox, this header notifies the website that the visitor wants to opt-out of third-party tracking for behavioral advertising.

 

[AceInfinity]

This is actually interesting, i'd be curious to see how this all unfolds.