It has been almost a year since advertisers, browser makers, privacy advocates and the Obama administration agreed to create a "Do Not Track" option for web site visiters, the functionality is not close to reality. Nor are the various constituents even working on it. They meet every Wednesday trying to reach a consensus on how a Do Not Track button would be implemented. But after months they still can't come to an agreement on what "tracking" means.
"The advertisers have been extraordinarily obstructionist, raising the same issues over and over again, forcing new issues that were not on the agenda, adding new issues that have been closed, and launching personal attacks," said Jonathan Mayer, a Stanford privacy researcher and Do Not Track technology developer who is involved in the negotiations. We have made, maybe, inches of progress," he said. "This continues to be a stalemate."
The Advertising industry claims that privacy supporters are trying to impose overly restrictive changes. "We have a real concern about using a sledgehammer for a flyswatter problem," said Marc Groman, executive director of the National Advertising Initiative, a coalition of online advertisers. "Do Not Track will have a disproportionate effect on our stakeholders."
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is moderating the impasse. Most browsers include a Do Not Track button, but without any agreement on how it should work, the button doesn't do anything. Part of the problem is the number of stakeholders with competing interests. Smaller advertisers argue that Do Not Track favors large advertisers like AOL, Google and Yahoo each with a significant network of their own. Even with Do Not Track turned on, the big players will be able to track behaviors on their own sites.
Now Microsoft announced it intends to turn Do Not Track on by default in its latest version of Internet Explorer which started a new debate over whether "on" or "off" by default is the best setting, never mind the disagreement iover whether the advertising industry will still remain involved if the Do Not Track default setting is "on."
"Why is this taking so long? Because people don't want to budge," said Ian Jacobs, spokesman for the W3C. The W3C is determined to break the deadlock, and they believe the have a solution. The W3C plans to start pushing all parties forward on regardless of individual agendas. "We always seek consensus, but when we can't, we get votes and make decisions," Jacobs said. "Saying 'I don't like this' is not going to be considered a strong objection. We're not going to be held hostage when a group can't make progress."
But even the W3C acknowledges that all parties will have to voluntarily agree to honor Do Not Track. Some may choose to simply ignore Do Not Track protocols. That's why some privacy proponents are advocating for a more nuclear option: ad blocking. "Do Not Track was supposed to be the olive branch. It was the polite solution," said Stanford's Mayer. "If we don't get an agreement, then we'll just start blocking those guys."
