A coalition lead by the US privacy pressure group the Electronic Frontier Foundation has announced a stronger Do Not Track standard (DNT), which it says is needed as current schemes allow advertisers to still track users who have opted out.



The idea of a DNT setting within desktop browsers has been in the works for a decade. Most mainstream browsers support it, sending a DNT message to the websites the users visit, with Microsoft’s latest browser, Edge, the exception. But following a user’s DNT choice is voluntary, allowing sites and advertisers to simply ignore it.

The EFF hopes this new, stronger DNT standard, coupled with software, will help better protect users’ privacy and stop their activity being unknowingly tracked across the web.

EFF chief computer scientist Peter Eckersley said: “We are greatly pleased that so many important Web services are committed to this powerful new implementation of Do Not Track, giving their users a clear opt-out from stealthy online tracking and the exploitation of their reading history.”

The new DNT coalition includes privacy company Disconnect, the Adblock browser extension, privacy-centric search engine DuckDuckGo, analytics service Mixpanel, and the website Medium.

Resistance from the advertising industry to DNT practices has held back its implementation in the past.

DNT essentially neuters an advertiser’s ability to profile users and serve ads based on their interests and behaviour. Google, Facebook, Yahoo and many others have built their advertising businesses on being able to serve ads to users that they are more likely to be interested in and therefore click on.

Disconnect chief executive Casey Oppenheim said: “The failure of the ad industry and privacy groups to reach a compromise on DNT has led to a viral surge in ad blocking, massive losses for internet companies dependent on ad revenue, and increasingly malicious methods of tracking users and surfacing advertisements online.”

The new DNT standard is still voluntary. The coalition is hoping that it will be enough to pressure advertisers to accept user wishes or risk a surge of users moving to privacy protecting software that both stops their ability to track browsing activity but also serve them ads.



• How your smartphone’s battery life can be used to invade your privacy

• Cybersecurity bill could ‘sweep away’ internet users’ privacy, agency warns

• Windows 10: Microsoft under attack over privacy