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W3C Solicits Feedback on Microsoft's Online Privacy Specification
The Worldwide Web Consortium has accepted Microsoft's browser tracking protection for consideration as an Internet standard and is soliciting feedback from community stakeholders. The W3C will meet to discuss the technology on April 28th and 29th at Princeton University.
Microsoft submitted its Web Tracking Protection specification to the consortium in mid-February with the goal of broader adoption as an W3C Recommendation. The proposed Web Tracking Protection differs somewhat from the Tracking Protection that is an optional feature in Internet Explorer 9. Users have to turn on tracking protection in IE 9 and subscribe to lists of URLs, according to Microsoft's scheme. The lists, which are maintained by independent parties, are designed to stop tracking by advertisers but they can also be used to opt into specific advertiser tracking, if the user so desires.
Under the "Web Tracking Protection" method proposed to the W3C, users express a do-not-track preference in a browser. This feature is not in Internet Explorer 9, according to Microsoft. The preference gets reflected in an HTTP header and a document object model property called "document.navigator.doNotTrack," according to the W3C's description.
Microsoft is not alone in providing browser tracking protection. Mozilla and Google recently introduced their own technologies, but it's not clear if the W3C is considering them.
Mozilla released a beta of Firefox 4 this month that incorporates a "Do Not Track" privacy feature. It too uses an HTTP header to signal the user's preference. Do Not Track needs to be turned on in the "advanced" screen under "options" in the Firefox 4 beta. Ads still get seen by users, but cross-site tracking is blocked, according to an explanation by Sid Stamm, a Mozilla security and privacy engineer.
Google introduced a feature for its Chrome browser last month called "Keep My Opt-Outs" that the company claims will let the user "opt out permanently from ad tracking cookies." The code for this feature is open source and Google plans to make it available for use in other browsers. Keep My Opt-Outs currently doesn't let users select which cookies to decline and accept, according to Google's description. It presently works only for U.S. market-based advertisers who have voluntarily joined a program that respects user opt-out choices.
In other W3C news, the Working Draft of HTML5 is said to be on schedule to become a final standard in 2014. Microsoft and other browser makers have been championing HTML5 as a way to create richer graphical experiences using native HTML5 code.
About the Author
Kurt Mackie is online news editor, Enterprise Group, at 1105 Media Inc.