
Apple Is Removing 'Do Not Track' from Safari - Varcht
https://gizmodo.com/apple-is-removing-do-not-track-from-safari-1832400768
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NelsonMinar
The contempt that tracking companies showed to this feature killed it. But it
also provides the perfect ethical justification for me blocking trackers and
their ads. You didn't listen to me when I politely asked you to respect my
privacy, so now it's scorched earth.

~~~
apple4ever
That's how I feel. We warned them that they should either fix their ads or we
would take more drastic steps. They did not listen.

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chrischen
Save you from reading the article 1) Nobody obeys it 2) It's actually being
used as a heuristic to track users through fingerprinting

~~~
jimktrains2
If (2) was a huge issue for them, wouldn't removing the UA header help
tremendously as well?

(Sure, you'd know it was an apple device, but that's still less than
currently. It's also less if other browsers followed suit.)

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gruez
iOS user agents aren't very identifying. Despite having multiple version
numbers in them, all they pretty much tell you is 1) what type of ios device
it is (eg. iphone or ipad) and 2) what ios version it is (mobile safari is
updated along with ios, so the version numbers are pretty much the same for
the same ios release). Considering that most ios users are up to date, you'll
be hard pressed to squeeze more than a few bits of entropy from it.

~~~
maccard
>Considering that most ios users are up to date,

That's what makes it so valuable really. You get little to no entropy for a
large portion of users, but you get a huge amount of entropy about the people
who aren't.

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vegardx
So you get amazing entropy on my grandma, which is quite possibly not worth
the processing time you spent to track her, in terms of ad revenue or
marketing campaigns. Sure - that's probably not the case in most of the cases,
but it sure pollutes your otherwise good dataset.

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cronix
It was a stupid premise to begin with. "Oh, please, here's all of my stuff,
but I'm _asking_ you to not track me. I trust you won't" vs "I don't trust you
and block all 3rd party cookies and scripts from being accessed by my machine
except those I know and trust and explicitly allow through"

It's like leaving your door unlocked and with a sign on it asking criminals to
obey your privacy and not enter vs having a lock on the door and not allowing
them through until they knock, you can verify who they are and decide at that
point whether to open the door to them.

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stordoff
You can do both though - limit the amount of information you do send _and_ ask
those that do respect it not to track the information you _must_ send.

~~~
baroffoos
Its a completely pointless setting. No user would chose to be tracked and no
tracker wants to shut down their business. You don't need a setting for it
because everyone wants the same thing.

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fiddlerwoaroof
I have no issues with websites tracking my usage, as long as the tracking
scripts aren’t making my browsing experience miserable. And, especially for
things like affiliate links, I’d like to make sure that the people that
influence my decision to purchase an item get some credit for it.

~~~
baroffoos
>I’d like to make sure that the people that influence my decision to purchase
an item get some credit for it.

This is a negative user experience. Affiliate links mean that people try to
recommend things they get paid to recommend rather than what they actually
think is best

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Deimorz
W3C changed the DNT Candidate Recommendation to a "Note" now, and says that
the working group is closed:
[https://github.com/w3c/dnt/commit/5d85d6c3d116b5eb29fddc6935...](https://github.com/w3c/dnt/commit/5d85d6c3d116b5eb29fddc69352a77d87dfd2310)
(the page is here: [https://www.w3.org/TR/tracking-
dnt/](https://www.w3.org/TR/tracking-dnt/))

If the other major browsers follow suit in considering it "expired" and remove
it, I'm curious what effect this will have on the requirement in the
California Online Privacy Protection Act (CalOPPA) for sites to state how they
respond to the signal (more info: [https://iapp.org/news/a/how-should-i-
respond-to-californias-...](https://iapp.org/news/a/how-should-i-respond-to-
californias-do-not-track-requirements/)).

Will sites legally need to continue explaining how they respond to a signal
that effectively no longer exists? Most of them already just said "we don't do
anything based on this signal", but that will be even weirder.

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rubyfan
It was a well intentioned toothless innovation that didn’t work. I’m pretty
happy with Safari’s content filters (using FireFox Focus) that actually help
me from being tracked.

~~~
pdimitar
1Bocker X is more efficient. I tried both that and Firefox Focus.

Not affiliated, just a happy customer.

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kodablah
> almost no websites actually honor the request not to be tracked because the
> government never forced them to comply with it.

Damnit Gizmodo. You had the first part right, that the setting is ignored,
then you had to go and make up the reason. These blurred lines between
reporting and opinion are the embodiment of fake news. There is a primary fact
or two and then subjective garbage.

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kerng
The way this is written makes it obvious that the author has an agenda
altogether and dislikes the idea of this feature. It's written with a very
condescending undertone. Nothing wrong with that of course, just might be nice
to be transparent around it.

2 minutes I wont get back..

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eridius
People do tend to dislike features that don't work.

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frereubu
A shame, although I can see the logic behind the decision. We use this on
sites we build so we don't even need to show those visitors a cookie notice,
and just assume they don't want Google Analytics turned on.

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trumped
the "do not track" setting probably helps advertisers track users because it
creates a more unique configuration/fingerprint... personally, I still use it
in Firefox but probably should not since there are no consequences for them if
they don't honor it.

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wyxuan
Its true, I don't know why you are being downvoted

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nullandvoid
I haven't down voted but I would imagine it's because it's just repeating the
article and some what obvious

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trumped
if it is so obvious, why did hundreds of engineers decide to implement it
anyways?

