If you read one thing today on “Do Not Track” (well, apart from Chris Hoofnagle’s great study), make it this post by Ed Bott on ZDNet. Ed writes:
The debate over the Do Not Track standard has officially moved beyond Alice in Wonderland. These days, I’m not sure whether it’s 1984 or Brazil.
In a sane world, telling a website “do not track me” would result in behavior that assumed the person making the request did not want to have unnecessary data collected about them.
But to the online advertising industry, that DNT:1 signal means, “Right, you’re one of those idiots who thinks this is about privacy. Now give me all your data. You’re welcome.”
I cannot make this stuff up.
The remainder of his column quotes correspondence and statements of involved parties and if I wasn’t already familiar with the parties’ positions and irrational statements, I’d be mind-boggled. Even knowing their positions, it’s still somewhat mind-boggling. Go read it.
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