Yahoo Announces it Will Ignore Do Not Track in Microsoft IE10
By Rob Scott
November 2, 2012
November 2, 2012
- Yahoo announced on Friday it will not support Microsoft’s “Do Not Track” feature on Internet Explorer 10 since the anti-monitoring signal is activated by default.
- “All other browsers require users to turn DNT on themselves — which is just how the advertising industry likes it,” reports Digital Trends. “Do Not Track is currently an option in all major Web browsers. When turned on, DNT tells websites’ third-party advertisers that the user does not what his or her Web activity monitored for the purpose of receiving targeted advertisements.”
- However, only a fraction of users take advantage of DNT. Since IE10 automatically turns the DNT signal on, Yahoo is “calling foul.”
- “Recently, Microsoft unilaterally decided to turn on DNT in Internet Explorer 10 by default, rather than at users’ direction,” wrote Yahoo in a blog post. “In our view, this degrades the experience for the majority of users and makes it hard to deliver on our value proposition to them. It basically means that the DNT signal from IE10 doesn’t express user intent.”
- Therefore, Yahoo will ignore any DNT signal from IE10 “in order to preserve that coveted personalized user experience,” explains the post.
- “Our users have come to expect a personalized Yahoo! experience tailor-made for their lives — whether they’re checking local weather, sports scores, stock quotes, daily news, or viewing ads on our site,” wrote Yahoo. “We fundamentally believe that the online experience is better when it is personalized.”
- “Just because the signal is turned on doesn’t mean that a consumer wants no services that involve tracking,” countered Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith.
- Instead, Digital Trends recommends installing third-party tracker blockers such as Privacy Fix, Ghostery or Do Not Track Plus.
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