Will Do Not Track make a difference to web privacy?
Private signEarlier this week the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) released the first drafts of two new privacy standards aimed at simplifying and standardising how websites read and comply with web users’ privacy settings.
The Tracking Preference Expression and Tracking Compliance and Scope standards define a ‘Do Not Track’ (DNT) mechanism that will allow users to opt out of the sort of tracking increasingly used for web analytics and behavioural advertising.
The W3C working group who produced the draft included representatives from some of the web’s biggest companies including Apple, Google and Facebook. It's not unusual for these organisations to take part in drafting W3C standards but I wonder if some of them are feeling a slight conflict of interest. Agreeing to a Do Not Track standard could obviously have a negative impact on organisations like Google and Facebook who rely on targeted advertising.
