Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Should People Be Able to Demand That Websites 'Do Not Track' Them?

posted by cmn32480 on Monday October 12 2015, @08:35PM   Printer-friendly
from the leave-me-alone dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

A universal do-not-track feature has been advocated by privacy groups after being introduced by the Federal Trade Commission in 2010. But the World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C) – composed of software companies, academics, privacy groups, and others who determine international Web-browsing standards – has long struggled to develop a unified approach for the feature.

The somewhat-arcane debate over Internet tracking has mostly simmered quietly, but now some lawmakers are arguing that a working group the consortium set up to develop the standard has become overly influenced by tech industry concerns, putting those interests ahead of protecting consumers from the possibility of privacy invasion. The group is currently chaired by representatives from Adobe and Intel.

"Unfortunately, the group's composition no longer reflects the broad range of interests and perspectives needed to develop a strong privacy standard," Sen. Edward Markey (D) of Massachusetts, Sen. Al Franken (D) of Minnesota, and Rep. Joe Barton (R) of Texas wrote in a letter on Wednesday to the consortium. "The 'Do Not Track' standard should empower consumers to stop unwanted collection and use of their personal data. At the same time, the standard should not permit certain companies to evade important consumer protections and engage in anticompetitive practices."

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Should People Be Able to Demand That Websites 'Do Not Track' Them? | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 38 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 12 2015, @10:26PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 12 2015, @10:26PM (#248658)

    The icon dis-appeared from the toolbar and it no longer appears to replace facebook "like" icons.

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 12 2015, @10:32PM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Monday October 12 2015, @10:32PM (#248661) Journal

    If you are in privacy/incognito mode, you may have to check a box to ensure that the extension runs in that mode.

    I don't see why it would disappear from the toolbar, unless there are too many things on the toolbar and it got hidden. There is a tab in the options for the extension that allows you to disable "Social Widget Replacement".

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @09:14AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 13 2015, @09:14AM (#248784)

    I've noticed the same thing here.

    Using PaleMoon (always updated to latest v.), it shows as enabled (all 4 'option' checkboxes selected, including 'social widget replacement') when looking at extensions, but the icon that usually sits in the status-bar/navigation-toolbar has gone awol, not even appearing in the 'customize' window for said bars. Also social widgets are not being replaced anymore.

    I'm only hoping it's actually still working, not sure how to check that it is - though obviously it is not as regards social widgets.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 14 2015, @06:07AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 14 2015, @06:07AM (#249298)

      Well, I added to The bug report on the issue [github.com].