IE10: Privacy Protection is frustrated

In the social network era, user privacy has always been a matter of concern. A few days ago, Microsoft set the "Do Not Track" feature to be enabled by default in its browser IE10, which is the first in mainstream browsers. Microsoft's practice was aborted in just six days because it touched the interests of the Internet advertising industry. To solve network privacy problems, Microsoft added a privacy protection function "Do Not Track (DNT)" In its IE10 )". Last Thursday, Microsoft announced that this feature was enabled by default, which was under a strong blow and pressure and was not recognized by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C:

W3C believes that IE10 does not comply with their standards. Without W3C's acknowledgment, the website can continue to track users by ignoring the DNT signal sent by IE10.

W3C pointed out in the latest DNT proposal that the DNT service must be enabled or not based on the user's opinion. The user agent must ensure the user's autonomy.

If Microsoft enables DNT by default in IE10, it will have a strong impact on network advertisers. The main purpose of tracking user information is to provide accurate user information for online advertisers to publish more precise personalized ads. The larger the information, the more precise the advertisement, the more profitable the advertisers will be. By default, DNT brings a threat to the entire online advertising industry, which is also interpreted as an attack by Microsoft against its old rival and the online advertising giant Google. The DNT service has responded to increasing demands for network privacy protection. However, due to time issues, it has not been officially recognized by any party in browser developers, technology-based enterprises, online advertising companies, and privacy protection advocates. The DNT service represents the voice of the times and is believed to be universally recognized and accepted in the near future. The reason why Microsoft IE10 is not officially recognized is that "the default settings do not receive users' opinions ."

In a draft settlement agreement on DNT in June 6, it was noted that:

The tracing user must obtain the user's consent.

Note:The DNT service has been available for a short time. It is still in the testing stage and needs to be fully considered and discussed.

The user agent shall not trace the user before obtaining a clear consent from the user. This practice must include but is not limited to the following two items:

-The browser should set the user privacy tab to allow users to select whether to activate DNT.

-When using the browser for the first time, the browser should prompt the user to select whether to activate the DNT function.

If it is not clearly stated here, a W3C Working Group teleconference summary sent out on Wednesday makes it clearer:

(1) Today, we reiterate that no user agent can enable or disable the DNT service for users by default. Whether or not the DNT service is enabled must reflect the customer's subjective wishes. We have reached an agreement on this point...

Example A: Microsoft's IE browser, as one of the mainstream user agents, must comply with the content provided in the suggestions after W3C releases the DNT implementation solution proposal. Because DNT services do not yet have clear legal provisions, Microsoft may not change their default settings, but in this case, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other third parties have the right to intervene ."

In the summary of this meeting, we can see that although Microsoft's IE10 does not comply with the rules, it does not explicitly indicate whether the website can ignore the DNT signal sent by ie10. Jonathan Mayer, an individual privacy researcher at Stanford University and a member of the Conference, emailed the Wired website Reporter: "Google, Yahoo, and Adobe strongly demanded that clear text rules for the DNT signals sent by IE10 be ignored, but Mozilla, apple, and other privacy protection advocates gave objections."

How does the DNT Service ensure that users are not tracked? In fact, DNT does not use any means to filter or prevent Cookies from being tracked. When a user initiates a "Do not track" request, a browser with the "Do not track" function will add a "headers" in http data transmission ), this header indicates to the commercial website server that the user does not want to be tracked. This was originally an option for sites and Internet advertising companies, but after Twitter accepts this rule, DNT's status will not be the same day. The proposal was supported by the Federal Trade Commission. The Federal Trade Commission expressed doubts about whether online advertising companies would treat DNT Rules fairly and fairly, and threatened to pass legislation to ensure its implementation. In this case, Internet advertising companies begin to seek a settlement after changing their long-standing attitude, hoping to relax their rules on the premise of adhering to the rules. They believe that most users are not aware of the existence of DNT, so that the profit model of the entire industry will not be greatly affected.

Microsoft's move blew up the calm situation. around 25% of Internet users around the world will use IE10 as their browsers, and they will all be able to enable DNT by default. As one of the Rules makers, Mayr told reporters that the entire working group had spent a lot of time and the Privacy Protection Support Team had made great concessions and finally provided solutions to the three core issues, it covers how to handle the default browser settings. Meyer wrote in the email: "when reading this draft settlement, don't forget that this is just a draft and the document remains to be improved; we can find that the supporter of privacy protection has made a big concession. Two of the three basic principles have skewed the Internet advertising industry. For this reason, many participants believed that the draft was not well balanced and showed an unsupported attitude ."

They discussedThree core issuesAs follows:

-Does the user agent have the right to enable the DNT service by default?

-Does the website owner have the right To connect his or her own information with his or her siblings?

-Can third-party websites continue to set user tracking cookies (or use other technologies to obtain user browsing records )?

For Three ProblemsAnswerThey are:

-The User Agent requires the user's opinion.

-The website owner can continue to communicate with each other.

-Do not set the user tracing Cookie.

From the results of the discussion, we can see that no browser, including IE10, can set the DNT service to be enabled by default, but they can provide users with a very convenient way to enable it. In terms of user privacy protection, Apple's Safari directly blocks user tracing cookies by default. This practice has lasted for several years and has not been discussed in this document.

Although IE10, which enables DNT services by default, has been hit by the peak in just six days, we can expect this default enabling method to be the mainstream in the future.