Rights group the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), privacy body Disconnect and a group of web companies this week launched a new “Do Not Track” (DNT) standard designed to persuade website owners and advertisers to respect netizens’ privacy online.
Those companies signing up to the new setting will have to agree not to store or share information on individuals visiting their web pages.
However, the policy itself may not accrue a huge amount of interest as it is opt-in and voluntary – meaning these firms are free to ignore it, as they have with previous versions.
Even major supporters like Microsoft and Yahoo have recently appeared to grow cold on the idea.
Redmond revealed in April that it was no longer enabling DNT as the default state in Windows Express settings.
And Yahoo said a year previously that DNT settings would no longer be enabled on its site, claiming: “we have yet to see a single standard emerge that is effective, easy to use and has been adopted by the broader tech industry.”
However, the web pioneer has agreed since to support DNT for Firefox users as part of its search deal with the browser.
Whether this latest iteration can buck the trend remains to be seen.
EFF’s launch partners this time around are publishing site Medium, analytics service Mixpanel, ad- and tracker-blocking extension AdBlock, and privacy search engine DuckDuckGo.
“We are greatly pleased that so many important web services are committed to this powerful new implementation of Do Not Track, giving their users a clear opt-out from stealthy online tracking and the exploitation of their reading history,” said EFF Chief Computer Scientist Peter Eckersley, in a statement.
“These companies understand that clear and fair practices around analytics and advertising are essential not only for privacy but for the future of online commerce.”
However, even EFF admitted that DNT is best coupled with privacy software if it is to effectively “protect users from sites that try to secretly follow and record their internet activity.”