Establishing the Meaning of Do Not Track

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Today, the co-chairs of the Tracking Protection Working Group released the group's decision on base text for continued work. In progressing toward a draft that could move the multi-stakeholder work on a consensus standard for Do Not Track forward, the group reviewed and rejected a package change proposal offered by the Digital Advertising Alliance and its supporters. The decision re-affirms the Working Group's mission to "improve user privacy and user control by defining mechanisms for expressing user preferences around Web tracking" in a consensus-based multi-stakeholder process, and takes a significant step in focusing the group's further work toward a consensus Do Not Track standard.

As the chairs write, "the group has rejected that change proposal, finding it at odds with our chartered aims and the weight of group consensus. [...] We conclude, based on the comments submitted, that the June Draft provides a better basis from which to address the criteria for a W3C standard, as understood in the Working Group, than does the DAA Proposal."

We thank all the participants in the group for their dedicated work to develop the options and to work through them toward a meaningful, workable standard by which users can choose to accept or limit online tracking. The W3C process operates on consensus, but consensus does not mean unanimity. The group has decided that continuing to work from the June Draft provides the best path toward a consensus standard.

In their upcoming calls, the group will continue to work through other change proposals, without revisiting the elements addressed in this call for objections. The group will continue to base its work on the June Draft.

The multi-stakeholder process of the Tracking Protection Working Group will continue to drive toward a consensus-based definition of Do Not Track.

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