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Comment by Nursie | Hacker News Reader

>> His website.

Running in my browser.

>> On the other hand demanding of publishers to not track you while you're on their property is unreasonable.

I'm not on their property. I'm fairly happy for them to record what they can see at their end in terms of what pages I go to, but I find it very unreasonable to demand that I run whatever code the website operator asks me to run, to turn my computer into a machine that reports anything/everything about my site interaction to anyone the site owner feels like, and all on the basis of an implied social contract of some form.

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If you don't like it, don't use it - simple as that.

The only thing I find reasonable is for users to be warned that they are tracked, precisely for enabling them to move to alternatives that better respect their wishes.

His website is running in your browser by your choice, not his ;-)

>> If you don't like it, don't use it - simple as that.

>> His website is running in your browser by your choice, not his ;-)

Excellent, now how do I know ahead of time, or without digging through the source, which sites are going to try and run this stuff?

--edit-- Also, and here's the rub - again I just requested some data from his server, and it provided it to me. I made no promise to render or run it in the way he wants. If he has requirements about that sort of thing then maybe he needs to specify them.

Well, the "Do Not Track" option is too simplistic and probably needs improvements.

Ideally, the browser would start by making an OPTIONS request in which the server would reply with something like "yes, I'll track this user in spite of their preferences" (even with a link to their privacy policy) and then the browser could block the view with a warning, just like how Chrome and Firefox are giving warnings for insecure connections, giving users the option to add exceptions or to go somewhere else.

This would be fair to both users and publishers.

You're making a false dichotomy - you imply the only choices are a) allowing tracking, or b) not using sites that track.

As I implied in my other comment, this is a false dichotomy; by using browser extensions, I can and do control my browsing experience to benefit from sites that track while preventing them from tracking.

The very concept that I should subject myself to the whims of web sites is completely counter to the history and culture of the net.

If you don't like it, don't let him use it - simple as that.

True, this also works.

> simple as that.

Usually when someone says as simple as that, it clearly is not that simple.

Then return an error when requests with the DNT header are made. You can't expect people to magically know ahead of time that your website is being used to spy on them.

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