In a bold move for enhancing online privacy, Microsoft has announced that Internet Explorer 10 in the Windows 8 Release Preview will have Do Not Track (DNT) enabled by default. Microsoft is claiming that Internet Explorer 10 is the first web browser to have DNT enabled by default, and it is still changeable by users if they so desire DNT to be disabled.
Do Not Track was added to Internet Explorer 9 in 2011 as a means of telling websites to not track a user's movements and actions on other websites; information which could be used to target advertising among other things. In an ideal world, when a website receives the DNT signal it will disable tracking cookies and other nasty tracking tools so that outside of the website, the user cannot be tracked or targeted. Unfortunately websites have to add support for DNT signals, which is a problem Microsoft has highlighted.
