Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said that Twitter’s announcement “proves that exercising respect for people’s choices on how, when, and where to have their information collected is something that responsible, competitive companies can do. I hope others will follow.”
Rep. Mary Bono Mack (D-Calif.) tweeted: “Twitter to allow users to ‘opt out’ of being tracked online. Good. Responsible thing to do.”
Actually, the announcement was made first by the Federal Trade Commission’s chief technology officer, Ed Felten, at an event in New York Thursday. Twitter then confirmed the news, appropriately, in a tweet. “The Federal Trade Commission's CTO, Ed Felten, just mentioned Twitter now supports Do Not Track. We applaud the FTC's leadership on DNT.”
Twitter explained on its website how it supports DNT. “We are committed to providing you with meaningful choices about the information we collect to improve your Twitter experience. We support DNT for our test of the tailored suggestions feature. Here’s how: When you turn on DNT in your browser, we stop collecting the information that allows us to tailor Twitter based on your recent visits to websites that have integrated our buttons or widgets. Specifically, we remove from your browser the unique cookie that links your browser to visits to websites in the Twitter ecosystem. We then cannot provide tailored suggestions for you.”