Do Not Track is back in the US Senate. And this time it means business. As in, fining businesses that stalk you online New legislation that would put teeth into the web's Do Not Track option for internet users, by fining companies that ignore it, will be introduced this week in the US Senate. The Do Not Track Act will be put forward on Tuesday by Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) and promises to be "similar to the national 'Do Not Call' list," by …
And coming out of the woodwork in the senator's office I expect.
He wont be popular if this goes through.
Even GDPR is not functioning that well though, I find a lot of British sites are still making it almost impossible to opt out of cookie use.
I assume they are banking on Brexit happening soon enough that they will be out before Europe can catch them.
I find plenty of websites that, now, do make it easy, and even more than a few that default to only functional cookies.
So we know it's technically possible, and the law is not at fault here, only people willfully not respecting. I encourage you to contact and/or report to your local ICO.
Even after a Brexit deal is agreed upon, British laws won't change overnight, they'll just be a fork of the EU ones and will take a while to evolve away (if the deal allows for it)
promises to be "similar to the national 'Do Not Call' list,"...Hawley envisions a simple option in your browser or in an downloadable app.
All that is required is to force sites to obey the existing DoNotTrack browser setting. Not just with fines for non-compliance but jail time for the directors.
The chances of anything like this becoming law though are the same as the fate suffered by the IRS offering citizens the ability to upload their tax returns for free.
And, make web hosts legally liable for the behaviour of every bit of code run on their servers...
... or in the visitor's browser...
... hmm, actually that's not as simple as it sounds. Basically, it means every line of Javascript has to be vetted by the hosting company. That's maybe not a bad idea, but it certainly changes the landscape, and not all those changes will be for the better.
For instance, it will hand yet another solid competitive advantage to Google/Amazon/etc., who could maintain their own solid libraries of pre-approved scripts. Good luck to up-and-coming hosts trying to keep up with those.
> I'm not sure that's a comparison that he'd want to be making
True, but on the other hand that's the realistic comparison to make, isn't it.
You surely don't expect some efficient, silver bullet-type system, do you? It will at best be a framework of restricted applicability rules, heavily relying on voluntary restraint, and backed up by largely symbolic (if not voluntary) fines.
We don't want you following us, collecting every nanoscopic bit of data about us you can, cramming those bits into a file about us, & then selling that file to anyone with a penny to add to your coffers.
How would YOU like it if an army of voyeurs surrounded you, kept notes of your every action, recordings of your every word, video of your every nose pick, every site you visited, every purchase you make, every tv show you watch, every movie you stream, every song you listen to, every app on your SmartPhone, every time & for how long those apps were used, your physical location in real time with GPS tagging on a moment to moment basis, and every other aspect of your every living moment... all so we can broadcast it to the world+dog to enjoy on a PPV channel for our enrichment?
Because that's what you're doing & that's what we want to stop.
Stop tracking us. We may just decide to return the favor. You may be a multi billion corporation with thousands of employees, but We Are Legion & can storm your every structure to drag your asses outside & kick the shit out of by a mob of angry peasants armed with pitchforks, torches, & buckets of boiling pitch...
"How would YOU like it if an army of voyeurs surrounded you, kept notes of your every action..."
Why do you think the cameras are everywhere?
"We may just decide to return the favor. You may be a multi billion corporation with thousands of employees, but We Are Legion..."
...but they have the Terminators, and if you'll recall we LOST that war.
I'm just waiting for the Amazon delivery guy to drop off my newly ordered pitch fork.
Once its here, I'll update my FB status / check Twitter for which villager's house we're converging on...
Is there special uniform I should wear? (you're probably busy getting ready, I'll just Google it)
Has the world gone crazy? This is the second piece of consumer friendly, anti-big business legislation (the other being the Anti-Robocall one) to come out of republican senators in the last week! Whats going on here? Republicans backing the people over businesses?
Should I be watching out for the second coming of Jesus or perhaps the four horsemen of the Apocalypse?
"This is the second piece of consumer friendly, anti-big business legislation (the other being the Anti-Robocall one) to come out of republican senators in the last week!"
The world hasn't gone crazy. This is the second piece of legislation that will have no actual effect other than to convince some people that these politicians are "doing something". It's a con.
It's also important to realize that American parties aren't as unified as some parties in other countries. Although lots of other countries compete for internal chaos inside political parties, the parliamentary systems popular outside the Americas make consistent discord more fragile than does the presidential systems in the U.S. and many Latin American countries. One member of a party may be totally in favor of something that another member is extremely opposed to, and they can get into fights about whether it goes through or not before any other party gets involved. This particular lawmaker doesn't necessarily have the support of his party, and may not even have the support of many people in the legislature at all.
Really? It would be hard to find the screen space to show them, I guess...
Screen space enough for some strange reason, might have something to do with that Pi-Hole, which makes tracking also a lot less simplistic.
I set up a Pi-Hole about a month ago. What a wonderful use for an old Pi 2B I had kicking around. Apparently, it will run on a Pi Zero, too.
66% of almost 20,000 DNS lookups got no further than my Pi-Hole in the last 24 hours. They really make browsing for the whole network a lot faster, and I never see an ad on any device.
If you have an unused Raspberry Pi sat in a drawer, dig it out, and go for it.
"By preventing the use of interest-based ads, this bill will result in more ads, more paywalls, and less content,"
Actually the best way to interest-base an ad would be to place it on a web page whose content is directly related to the product being advertised.
From the advertising industry's PoV this has the massive disadvantage of lacking lucrative, allegedly value-adding services which they can sell. The fact that it might provide the client with a better result is irrelevant.
My problem with interest based ads is that those ads invariably are for products I just bought and won't need again for at least another year.MMy problem with interest based ads is that those ads invariably are for products I just bought and won't need again for at least another year.
Really? The ones I see are mostly for products that I researched and then decided not to buy because they were obviously crap.
If I had a product to sell, the last person I want to advertise it to is the person who is least likely to buy it. Old Brit saying.. "Like selling coal to Newcastle" springs to mind.
TBH, I think I would be very annoyed if someone pitched that advertisement model at me. Marketeers marketing marketeers' markets... (credit Grand-daughter for that one) or something like that.
Still, I suppose, it's a tax deductible expense at the end of the day to get brand recognition for the fashion conscious unimaginative and perhaps brain-dead fanbois amongst us.
Strange world we live in in. Can someone let me off now?
The reason is it will give far more value to the "content owner" - the site that would display ads, than to "ads brokers" siphoning data from other - often irrelevant - sources.
So, for example El Reg would have much more value to companies willingly to display IT/geek/nerd ads than DoubleClick or Facebook - and broker would be forced to share far more of the profits with content owners - exactly what they want to avoid.
"By preventing the use of interest-based ads, this bill will result in more ads, more paywalls, and less content"
Just like the demented argument of ad-things that using adblockers works against you and is SELF-HARMING, as ads will have to get even worse to compete.
.
Although it's difficult to see what difference that makes to you if you have an ad-blocker.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
