Review Request: GUI configuration for the 'Do Not Track'?feature...

[Dawit A]

On Sun, Apr 17, 2011 at 5:43 AM, Oswald Buddenhagen <ossi at kde.org> wrote:
> On Sat, Apr 16, 2011 at 03:52:39PM -0400, Dawit Alemayehu wrote:
>> First, the idea that DNT affects most sites lively hood is something
>> that has already been dispelled. For most sites, there is no reason to
>> track your browsing habits to provide reasonable advertising on their
>> pages.
>>
> indeed. but not everybody is google. smaller sites use the services of
> dedicated data miners. the latter's own advertising actually sounds a
> lot like the eff's "scare pamphlets", except that they present it as
> something good.
>
>> The sites that want to ignore that header will ignore it anyhow
>> regardless.
>>
> it's reasonable to assume that there is a significant number of sites
> which will ignore it only if it has a non-trivial financial impact on
> them.
>
>> > do you realize that most people honestly couldn't care less? and they
>> > don't deserve better. let them enjoy their "free" internet.
>>
>> Well that seems like the perfect argument why the OPT-OUT should be
>> the default.
>>
> uhm, no. the header is meant as an explicit statement of the user.
> defaulting it to opt-out takes the concept ad absurdum, because it makes
> the ones who actually thought about the issue and the consequences
> indistinguishable from the mass, it entirely dilutes the meaning.
>
>> For the life of me, I cannot imagine of a single person that would
>> voluntarily opt-in to be tracked online.
>>
> and you think the data miners don't know that? what's the point of
> telling them with every HTTP request? just for good measure? symbolism?
>
> if you think that this is a matter worth pursuing, engage politically,
> or help others to do so.

I have no desire to engage in politics, but even if I was I would
personally want to bring a concrete proposal to the table before
asking governments to intervene. The fact that the DNT proposal is on
the table, amongst others, makes it easier to advocate for such
protection, specially when it is an honor system like DNT.

Anyhow, for the sake of ending this discussion, I will relent and
change the configuration to how it currently is set in Firefox 4 for
now. By default, it will not be set and no DNT header will be sent.
That is we will never send the "DNT:0" OPT-IN header at all since no
header means automatic OPT-IN according to the spec listed. It could
always be turned on by default in the future.