Think tank's website rejects browser do-not-track requests
Found on Network World on Sunday, 30 September 2012
The website for the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) now tells visitors it will not honor their browsers' do-not-track requests as a form of protest against the technology pushed by privacy groups and parts of the U.S. government.
Behavioral advertising, which tracks Web users in order to deliver relevant advertising to them, is a service in which "everyone wins," he added. "Ad-supported websites increase their revenue, users receive fewer irrelevant ads and more free content, and advertisers get to be in front of their target audiences."
Unfortunately, I don't want to "win". I won't buy some product just because an ad popped up on my screen for it; actually, it's the oppostite: I avoid products which are advertised. So while the ITIF is free to ignore DNT requests, I'm equally free to use Ghostery, Adblock, reject 3rd party cookies and flush my browser cache every time I close it. DNT was not created to annoy advertisers, but because tracking got so much out of control that users want to do something about it.