Should People Be Able to Demand That Websites 'Do Not Track' Them?
Via Soylent
"A universal do-not-track feature has been advocated by privacy groups after being introduced by the Federal Trade Commission in 2010. But the World-Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - composed of software companies, academics, privacy groups, and others who determine international Web-browsing standards - has long struggled to develop a unified approach for the feature.
The somewhat-arcane debate over Internet tracking has mostly simmered quietly, but now some lawmakers are arguing that a working group the consortium set up to develop the standard has become overly influenced by tech industry concerns, putting those interests ahead of protecting consumers from the possibility of privacy invasion. The group is currently chaired by representatives from Adobe and Intel.
"Unfortunately, the group's composition no longer reflects the broad range of interests and perspectives needed to develop a strong privacy standard," Sen. Edward Markey (D) of Massachusetts, Sen. Al Franken (D) of Minnesota, and Rep. Joe Barton (R) of Texas wrote in a letter on Wednesday to the consortium. "The 'Do Not Track' standard should empower consumers to stop unwanted collection and use of their personal data. At the same time, the standard should not permit certain companies to evade important consumer protections and engage in anticompetitive practices."
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/10/internet-companies-confusing-consumers-profit
I'd say web browsers are to blame. They are built on the model of "trust everything", which is the source of so many problems. Popups and the blink tag are a thing of the past, because web browsers chose to eliminate them. They could just as easily eliminate most "web bugs" that allow user tracking and other annoyances. If privacy and security were primary considerations, instead of "Does this pixel show up EXACTLY where it was supposed to?" the web could be a far faster, safer, and more private place.
In the extreme case, imagine all web browsers only rendered basic HTML by default... If you want to accept cookies, load images, scripts, or 3rd party CSS on a given page, you just hit a toolbar button to do so, but otherwise you get the basic version (with placeholders) with no possibility of 3rd party tracking, no floating toolbars or overlay ads, no user-hostile scripts that disable right-clicking, etc. It would be slightly inonvenient for users, but has many advantages, and would be a strong incentive for sites to rely less on those web bugs.