Advertisers Say They Plan to Ignore Microsoft Do Not Track Plan

By emeadows
October 15, 2012

Microsoft’s much reported “Do Not Track” (DNT) plan for its forthcoming Internet Explorer 10 “will likely be ignored by the advertisers it is designed to curtail, an ad lobby group confirmed,” writes Business Insider.
A statement from the Digital Advertising Alliance, which represents some 5,000 major advertisers, said: “The DAA does not require companies to honor DNT signals fixed by the browser manufacturers.”
“The trade associations that lead the DAA do not believe that Microsoft’s IE10 browser settings are an appropriate standard for providing consumer choice,” explains the statement. “Machine-driven do not track does not represent user choice; it represents browser-manufacturer choice.”
“The DAA said that The Council of Better Business Bureaus had also promised not to sanction any company that ignored DNT,” reports Business Insider. “The statement is the second overt sign that Microsoft’s DNT signal will be widely ignored on the Web and that users who leave it on will be tracked against their will.”
The board of directors for the Association of National Advertisers described Microsoft’s actions as a “deliberate abuse of open standards” in a letter to CEO Steve Ballmer earlier this month.

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