Yahoo to ignore IE10's "Do Not Track"

I think it is perfectly reasonable to assume that users intend to not be tracked by the very large number of third parties they are involuntarily exposed to on the web.<p>Yahoo are resorting to this whole buzzword-laden meaningless rhetoric around ~user experience~ and ~value proposition~. That just reinforces the impression that the only reason anyone was prepared to go along with DNT was that they assumed that 99% of users weren't going to be in a position to express their ~user intent~ to not be tracked. Since, you know, most people have better things to do than to learn how to teach their computer about obvious preferences like "please don't spy on me".<p>Microsoft is simply making the benefits of the DNT scheme more accessible to its users. It's pretty telling that Yahoo is already backpedaling from respecting the users' intent, faced with the possibility that more than an insignificant fraction of users might actually be enabled to benefit from DNT by this decision.<p>(Edit: Personally I think rather than squabbling about DNT, browser vendors should be taking much more aggressive, technical steps to make tracking users harder, instead of having a default configuration that stops just short of transmitting the user's SSN via request header. Disabling features like user agent and referer headers for and quickly discarding cookies from untrusted (by individual user "intent", not based on SSL certs or anything) hosts would be a start.)

&#62; Recently, Microsoft unilaterally decided to turn on DNT in Internet Explorer 10 by default, rather than at users’ direction.<p>&#62; It basically means that the DNT signal from IE10 doesn’t express user intent.<p>Blatantly false. Not only are you presented with the option to turn off DNT on first use (that takes up the entire screen), but I'd imagine users would choose to have advertisers track them about 1-10% of the time if made to choose. So a default On setting does represent the consumer to a degree that you can't ignore.

In all the comments here, I can't find anybody who thinks that Yahoo is doing the right thing here. Well, I do. I think what Yahoo is doing is the right thing for them, for their users, and for the web.<p>If the web is going to be ad supported, then its going to have to be targeted advertising or its going to be both shit and annoying. Remember "punch the monkey", or ads that took over the entire screen? Now, through tracking, we are able to get really really good ads - things you might even be interested to see and buy.<p>If DNT was supported by everybody and on by default, that's the end of online advertising in its current form. So we can choose from the following options: ignore DNT, ignore DNT for IE10, or go back to non-targeted advertising.<p>Let's assume the last of those, which leads us to the following options: revert to shit ads, make users pay for content directly, or pack up your content-producing company and go home. None of these are best for the users or the web.<p>The DNT founders know this - that's why it was default null in the spec and in Firefox. IE10 is doing this deliberately even though they know it can't work, and there are choices here: they are trying to improve the world but are incredibly wonderfully naive, they want to undermine Google, or they want to undermine DNT. I'd love to believe its the first, but no-one has ever claimed that about MS.

I know people celebrated Microsoft's decision to do this in IE10, but this is what many of us were saying would happen. The relationship with the Do Not Track flag was always tenuous so flagrantly ignoring the spec (which indicates that default on is wrong) was simply going to cause companies to ignore the flag completely.<p>Regardless, this whole thing is silliness in the extreme. I wonder if this means yahoo is going to start allowing requests with the evil bit set as well :).<p>(<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_bit</a>)<p><i></i>EDIT<i></i>: also, didn't IE revert this change?<p><a href="http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2012/08/07/do-not-track-in-the-windows-8-set-up-experience.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://blogs.technet.com/b/microsoft_on_the_issues/archive/2...</a><p>Well ... Sort of<p>&#62; DNT fits naturally into this process. Customers will receive prominent notice that their selection of Express Settings turns DNT “on.” In addition, by using the Customize approach, users will be able to independently turn “on” and “off” a number of settings, including the setting for the DNT signal.

Maybe Yahoo should respect IE10's DNT defaults, but display huge modal screens that tell the user "Your browser vendor is inhibiting our value proposition. Please allow us to track your behavior for maximum value extraction."

Took me a second to figure out this whole DNT business.<p>So basically it is just an HTTP header your browser sends to the server that tells it not to track. Seems kind of like the wrong way to do it. If I was some nefarious website wouldn't I have straight up ignore it? There isn't any incentive for me to not track a user. In fact aren't a lot of companies around advertising based on the fact that you CAN track users?<p>More info here: <a href="http://donottrack.us/" rel="nofollow">http://donottrack.us/</a>

They key thing to understand is that if IE10 did not have DNT enabled, that the default setting would be _just as arbitrary_ and would still therefore not "map to user intent" in their words. There has to be a default in one direction or the other.<p>That, and many users will use IE10 knowing that it ships with DNT pre-enabled. To ignore this is totally immoral and unethical. This is totally shameful.

&#62; In our view, this degrades the experience for the majority of users and makes it hard to deliver on our value proposition to them.<p>I know Yahoo! has to maintain their business which depends on things like ads and content delivery; but to say it with such sterile marketing jargon just makes me nauseous.<p>How about you guys do what everyone else has had to do since the beginning; create something awesome and let people use it with a minimal barrier to entry. Right now, Yahoo! is like a giant skyscraper tenented only by iPhone case kiosks.

Issue aside, I'm curious about this site itself. The first thing I noticed is that they're running a pretty old version of WordPress. They're on 3.0.3 (December 2010) when the latest version is 3.4.2. For security purposes, I'm surprised they don't stay on top of that.<p>Also I was really confused if this was an official Yahoo site. No real mention anywhere on it. After some quick digging, it appears to be. But I'm surprised it's not hosted under the Yahoo.com domain somewhere.

The only reason Microsoft is making DNT the default is because it will directly impact Google's bottom line (and Microsoft loses money in its online division, so they won't hurt as much). Since when did Microsoft really start caring about the users?

<i>I left this as a comment on their blog which I assume will never be approved:</i><p><pre><code> "We fundamentally believe that the online experience is better when it is personalized" </code></pre> Um, doing so is not impeded by DNT as that does not relate to ads. That a bit of a white-lie to imply that it is they way you've worded that first paragraph.<p><pre><code> "It basically means that the DNT signal from IE10 doesn’t express user intent." </code></pre> Actually I think it does - you think your average person on the street wants targeted ads? Seriously - who is writing this.<p><pre><code> "In principle, we support “Do Not Track” (DNT)" </code></pre> In principle China, Syria, Iran etc support Human Rights...<p><pre><code> "Ultimately, we believe that DNT must map to user intent — not to the intent of one browser creator, plug-in writer, or third- party software service." </code></pre> Again - seriously - what reality are you apart of?<p>I had hoped for a Yahoo turn-around of sorts, I really did. You've lost me.

This is surprising, given that Microsoft is the provider of ads on Yahoo Search (and perhaps other properties).

It's obvious that Microsoft doesn't have as much to lose with a DNT default setting in IE10 when their profit center is tied to Windows and business software. They have MSN.com and Bing but both are money losers and at this point, hurting Google and Yahoo might be a better strategy even if it means "cutting off your nose to smite your face". They also hope that this will stem the defects from IE and help sell more Windows 8 upgrades and Surface tablets in general.<p>In regards to how people feel about tracking, people are always asked in isolation about tracking and of course everyone say's they hate it and they don't want to be tracked. The better question is asking them if they will accept the alternative. Scared of Facebook? Put a $5 fee per month to replace lost ad revenues and users will depart en masse. The reality is a big chunk of the internet and the services people rely on, love, and use daily are ad supported and if given the alternative of a free ad supported model vs. a paid model, they would choose ad supported.

To be honest, i actually don't care if yahoo tracks me on yahoo properties - in fact, i <i>expect</i> them to. What i DO NOT want is for them to track me across the entire internet through injected javascript, iframes and dedicated tracking domains that serve same-origin analytic scripts from hundreds of sites - that is unethical.<p>Currently using adblock plus, noscript and ghostery on my FF setup with specific additional controls in ABE for Twitter and FB domains.

Am I mistaken or did the FTC not just fine Google $22.5 million over the exact same behavior for a considerably smaller share of web users.<p>If I'm Microsoft I am making a very public appeal to the FTC over this Monday morning. $22.5 million is a lot more money to Y! than Google. And as wary as consumers are of Microsoft long term they've got to degrade the Google/Firefox brand to start gaining any traction. Why not go full bore on tracking/creepiness?

No comments on the post? Hmm... I'm curious what they are getting but haven't approved.