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Comment by ghshephard | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft effectively destroyed "Do Not Track" by making it the default in their browser, and therefore destroying any notion of "intent" by the user. The day Microsoft made it the default was the day I immediately knew that the Yahoo/Google's of the world would stop supporting it in the future. Clever move by Microsoft in the embrace/extend/extinguish cycle.

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Why does one choice of default "destroy intent," while the other doesn't? Why do you assume the default setting of allowing tracking is the correct one?

More importantly, why is "on by default" supposed to be "bad" when the entire system is designed to protect people's privacy?

Microsoft don't sound like the problem.

DNT is not designed to protect everyone's privacy, it was meant a way to grow a clear sign that people don't want to be tracked. If browsers really wanted to protect people's privacy, they'd block 3rd party cookies by default and show 1st party cookies as a warning.

All good points.

Because one choice of default was the agreed to by the parties that decided on DNT as a mechanism, and one was the opposite of that. That is, the choice of default was a central part of the intent.

Its not a matter of "correct", its a matter of what people bought into when the initially decided to support DNT.

The default setting should be "No Intent" - I neither make claims as to whether I wish to be tracked/have personalization, nor do I make claims as to whether I do not. A browser should not bake in any claims about what I desire.

A browser should protect my privacy, give me tools to filter out content (images, ads, off site material), protect my browsing history, etc...

This is all besides the point - when every browser sends a flag that states "Do Not Track" - then "Do Not Track" loses all meaning.

Do you mean that when average users use a web site, they intend to be tracked?

The setting has to be either on or off by default. I think that most users, if asked, would like for it to be off. The only reason to leave it to "on" involves advertising doublethink, a.k.a. bullshit.

The reason to be off by default is that you needed the advertisers and publishers to voluntarily agree to honor the DNT flag. They can signficantlly make more money by targeting users based on tracking data (a targeted ad might be worth 10X a non targeted ad). Now you might not like that but, DNT is not a law, following it is completely 100% optional. You could probably even lie and say you follow when you really don't and there is little that could be done (I'm not a lawyer btw).

The advertisers agreed that as long as the flag had to be set manually by the user the would honor it. They made that agreement because it would not impact their revenue significantly. It would be very presumptuous to expect them to voluntarily destroy their own business. Because DNT is optional you need the advertisers and publishers to agree about it. So by making DNT on by default in IE advertisers walked away from the agreement and their is nothing we could do to stop them effectively killing DNT.

Now you mention most users don't want to be tracked, but what are they getting in exchange for being tracked? If you asked the average user would you allow your self to be tracked online to use Facebook I be most would say yes. How about you allow yourself to be tracked on line for 1 free latte at Starbucks/month? Again I think most would say yes.

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