Do Not Track Makes No Sense

There are some ideas that are sure-fire crowd pleasers, like hating on Windows Vista. Similarly, the idea of a do-not-track list or policy administered by ... someone ... is good enough to get a populist politician elected. If only it made sense.The federal government manages do-not-call, which is simplified by the fact that they only need one thing -- a phone number. The people making annoying calls can then know they shouldn't call your number if it is on that list, since they are making the calls. Even then, it seems somewhat ironic that the only way you can protect your privacy is to give away your phone number. But that's the way it is.

Do-not-track is infinitely more complex; it's even difficult to define. The people asking not to be tracked are going to sites all over the Internet, spread across multiple countries and continents. How will users signal that they don't want to be tracked? What does it mean to be "tracked"? If I go to amazon.com and am asking not to be tracked, are they allowed to remember what's in my shopping cart as I move from page to page? That requires cookies, and cookies are used for tracking.

If you're concerned about Internet privacy, there are plenty of tools you can use to reduce tracking. AdBlock can prevent third-party scripts from running on your favorite sites. You can block or redirect specific domains on a PC using a hosts file, or do it for your entire organization through firewall rules. Even a simple act like occasionally clearing browser cookies can be enough to confound any long-term tracking that a web site or ad network tries to do.

"Internet tracking raises all sorts of new issues," say the proponents of do-not-track. Not really. Go into any brick-and-mortar store and your every move is likely to be tracked by cameras. If you use any payment method other than cash, the store has your credit card or bank information in their system. Use a store loyalty card, which is often mandatory to get reasonable pricing, and the store can track you that way as well. Those stores can track you at least as well, and probably better, than any web site on the Internet.

When I decide to protect my privacy by not using a grocery store loyalty card, I pay with my wallet; it costs real money. With the Internet, at least I have the ability to block a lot of the tracking with no financial punishment. And I can do it without putting myself on some do-not-track list.