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posted by Fnord666 on Wednesday May 08 2019, @10:19AM   Printer-friendly
from the next-up-is-the-unicorns-pooping-skittles-act dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Search engine and consumer privacy advocate DuckDuckGo has announced the "Do-Not-Track Act of 2019," a piece of draft legislation that would legally require sites to honor users' tracking preferences.

[...]If the act picks up steam and passes into law, sites would be required to cease certain user tracking methods, which means less data available to inform marketing and advertising campaigns.

The impact could also cascade into platforms that leverage consumer data, possibly making them less effective. For example, one of the advantages of advertising on a platform like Google or Facebook is the ability to target audiences. If a user enables DNT, the ads displayed to them when on browsing[sic] those websites won't be informed by their external browsing history.

[Ed Note: By proposed they mean "That's why we're announcing draft legislation that can serve as a starting point for legislators in America and beyond. "]

-- submitted from IRC


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @01:32PM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @01:32PM (#840747)

    Well, DDG says they don't do XYX. But they don't disclose the actual format of the data streams they sell to Yahoo et. al. So it may be true they don't track using their data. But that doesn't mean their data isn't used to track.

    Second, "do not track" was a bad standard to begin with. The HTTP header extensions spec would have allowed for negotiation of content terms prior to actual display of content. So there is a correct way to do this. "Do not track" isn't, nor will it ever be the correct way. Legislating based on it is a terrible idea . If DDG wants privacy, it certainly cheaper to write the code and the RFC to do this correctly, than it is to persue legislation to push a bad standard. Further, do not track does not account for the real time traffic analysis that ISP's are doing, which are far more intrusive than single website tracking.

    Really OSI layer 5 needs to be transposed between OSI layer 3, and layer 4, and the content terms and contract negotiation needs to happen at that layer, independently and preceding ALL transmission of content. This is not an HTTP problem. This is a whole Internet problem.

  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday May 08 2019, @02:18PM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday May 08 2019, @02:18PM (#840771) Journal

    If DDG wants privacy, it certainly cheaper to write the code and the RFC to do this correctly, than it is to persue legislation to push a bad standard.

    If you can support the maintenance of an independent browser, by all means. Otherwise, with all the 3 major browsers dependent (directly or, FF, indirectly) on data raping behaviour, the RFC will be superfluous from the start, nobody will implement it.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @07:40PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday May 08 2019, @07:40PM (#840952)

      From the server side an apache module, and that can be written in damned near anything. From the client side, headers can be modified by plugins so it doesn't even need to be embedded code, though that would be better.

      "If you can support the maintenance of an independent browser, by all means".

      There are dozens of FOSS browsers out there right now with their own maintenance staff already. Probably you wouldn't even have to write the patch, just offer some funding to one of them for supporting the standard. Once the prototype is working on at least two browsers, (all it takes to go from draft to RFC) then you have a de facto standard.

      There is a correct way to do this. Mandating "do not track" is like mandating a that "do not enter" should be tattooed on a hookers ass. The browsers are fundamentally designed to leak data. That is the only reason they are free.