Microsoft has been planning to make it's Do Not Track (DNT) settings default in IE10.
In the Windows 8 set-up experience, customers will be asked to choose between two ways of configuring a number of settings: “Express Settings” or “Customize.” By providing a simple experience that allows customers to set their preferences, we’ve sought to balance ease of use with choice and control. The recommended Express Settings are designed to expedite and streamline the overall set-up process, and, if selected, generally improve a customer’s privacy, security, and overall experience on the device.
As a result, the ad industry was outraged. Top ad agency executives reached out to Microsoft, encouraging the company to reconsider their plan to make DNT a default setting. It was clear that no one was arguing that DNT was a bad idea, but simply that the ad industry was furious that it would be default. The company seemed hell-bent on forcing the ad and publishing industries and everyone to conform to it's new standard, but...
Yahoo stepped in and decided to not respect DNT settings by Microsoft, which essentially ruins the setting, which some in the industry stated that DNT was "dead on arrival."
Yahoo! has been working with our partners in the Internet industry to come up with a standard that allows users to opt out of certain website analytics and ad targeting. In principle, we support "Do Not Track" (DNT).
Unfortunately, because discussions have not yet resulted in a final standard for how to implement DNT, the current DNT signal can easily be abused. Recently, Microsoft unilaterally decided to turn on DNT in Internet Explorer 10 by default, rather than at users’ direction.
In our view, this degrades the experience for the majority of users and makes it hard to deliver on our value proposition to them. It basically means that the DNT signal from IE10 doesn’t express user intent.
Yahoo's business model is built upon the capability of tracking a user's need and preferences. If Microsoft will make it default, then Yahoo will simply ignore DNT, which invalidates the new settings. Period. Done.
Some question whether Microsoft was really being naive or it may have ulterior motives.