The Electronic Frontier Foundation wants more privacy on the Internet and plans on revising standards for browsers and apps that have "do not track" settings.
As it stands, most browsers come with "do not track" (DNT) features, but the problem with those features is that they don't always work the way they're supposed to and often still leave users open to having their Internet activity tracked by advertisers.
Tracking happens when a user visits a website and, without their knowledge, that website and its advertisers monitor how that user interacts with the website, as well as records that user's online activity. However, the EFF believes that users should decide if their Internet activity gets tracked or not.
That's why the EFF wants to change the standards so that these "do not track" features do a better job of preventing unwanted tracking: the agency announced that it has partnered with companies that promote improved privacy standards, such as AdBlock, Medium and DuckDuckGo. The EFF is also working with Disconnect, a company of online privacy experts.
The biggest challenge the EFF faces in promoting these new standards, though, is in getting advertisers to honor them. Of course, advertisers have an ulterior motive: they use tracking to show users relevant ads, which helps ad revenue. However, because of these tracking activities, more and more users are blocking ads completely, which means advertisers and websites aren't making the revenue they need to fund their businesses and sites.
"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," said Disconnect CEO Casey Oppenheim in a press statement. "Our hope is that this new DNT approach will protect a consumer's right to privacy and incentivize advertisers to respect user choice, paving a path that allows privacy and advertising to coexist."
The EFF's new DNT policy works with ad blocking and privacy software by figuring out how much blocking needs to happen on any particular website. It also allows for websites to indicate if they support DNT or not.
"The new DNT standard is not an ad- or tracker-blocker, but it works in tandem with these technologies," writes the EFF on its website.
The full EFF DNT policy is available online.
Photo: Rob Pongsajapan | Flickr
