Last week Yahoo announced that it would no longer be honoring Do Not Track requests from browsers accessing the search engine and associated services. The move comes as the company attempts to provide a more personal experience to users, bringing policies in line with other companies that ignore Do Not Track requests such as Facebook and Google. This comes as a reversal to previous statements made by the company who claims to be “the first major tech company to implement Do Not Track.”
Yahoo has pulled the plug on their ‘Do Not Track’ settings. Starting today, Yahoo will automatically track users, regardless of if they have Do Not Track enabled in their browsers or not. For those who aren’t familiar, Do Not Track is a HTTP privacy setting that tells advertisers and browsers whether the user does or does not want to be tracked while they are on a website. The default for Do Not Track is “off” in most browsers, so users who desire protection must opt-in. DNT is also more of a suggestion, than a guarantee. There is nothing regulatory forcing advertisers to honor it. As Andrew Rose, principal security and risk analyst at Forrester, told PC Pro, “DNT is, at best, a polite request from the browser that the host site pay no attention to them and kindly forget them once they leave. Laudable as this is, the browser has zero ability to ensure that this happens.”
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