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.
i ticked the “do not track” box on my firefox web searcher and since then, an annoying little box keeps popping up that says ” this address wants to store something on your computer do you agree or deny? i have to repeatedly press ‘deny’ to make it go away, but it does not appear to be very happy about my decision. The reason why i decided to tick the ‘do not track’ box on firefox was because i hoped it would make my web browsing quicker and more efficient and not “freeze” every time an advertiser wanted to get my attention…sometimes I sit waiting while all the interested data collection parties are downloading statistics or whatever from my laptop…the different names keep flashing in and out on the bottom left hand corner of my screen….(i thought i would mention this because i may be incorrect in assuming this and it may be something quite innocent…like trying to open the locks to where i want to go to….)trying to get my husbands yahoo e mail open is horrible for this very reason…one has to wait for adverts to download before one can actually read the mail.
As far as I am concerned, web tracking should be allowed for free to all government agencies interested in protecting innocent children or vulnerable people from abuse…I am not sure if they are able to, because of all the scams coming out of nigeria for instance, where little old ladies and others are hoodwinked into parting with their money and their bank account details. the government in our nation sends people from door to door to collect statistics for scientific research on how much i buy and what i buy and who i am and where i live etc….i dont think i have ever been contacted for statistical research by a govt dept on the internet yet. i have however been fooled into clicking open a “You are the one millionth visitor to this site” advert, which promises me a huge prize if I give them my reference number…but when i phone in, i am asked to buy time share on a continent that is not very near to my continent….and not in a place i have any family or friends even…..I dont really care if people collect stats from me. I do care if my internet experience becomes annoying or slow because of them. I do care if they disable my adobe reader for instance and then request me to purchase an updated one….?? I do care if innocent people are scammed or lured somewhere to be hurt, or conned or deceived or lied to on line, especially little kids. I think the WWW Web is an amazing tool to connect mindsets accross our planet. I am grateful for its existence because it allows me to see my children and my family every day and keep updated about what they are up to and what they are doing plus many more amazing things like buying stuff on line or looking up advise on what to do if your cupboards smell moldy or learning and studying and being able to access lectures on you tube from Harvard Professors etc…Lastly, I am not educated in Legal matters, like 99.9% of our planet? So I think that the clever people deciding on these matters should all be above board and trustworthy enough to do the best job they can for the little people like me and seven billion others out there who possibly dont understand the implications and applications of immense decisions like this one.