, a private search engine and a vocal consumer advocate for digital privacy, for a possible law requiring websites to respond appropriately when receiving a Do Not Track HTTP header from browsers.". If the bill is passed in any state, it will require Internet companies to respect without any compromise the personal choice of users to track their activities on the World Wide Web.
Why is this bill important? In its current form, the “Do-Not-Track” header is a strictly voluntary signal sent by the browser to a web resource, and notifying that the user would not like the site to collect any data about him. Internet portals may equally respect or ignore this request. And, unfortunately, in the current reality, most large companies, from Google to Facebook, completely ignore it. In the event that the law is passed and enforced, web resources will be required to disable any user tracking methods in response to receiving a "Do-Not-Track" request, which will be a significant obstacle to targeted online marketing campaigns.
To a greater extent, this law will affect companies that have built their business around content personalization technologies. So, the main advantage of advertising on sites such as Google or Facebook is the ability to target it. For example, ads about vacuum cleaners or travel packages will only be shown to users who have recently searched for information on these or related topics or even mentioned them in their personal correspondence. If a user activates DNT, DuckDuckGo's law will prevent companies from using any information collected to optimize ad delivery.
DuckDuckGo also believes that the user must clearly understand who is tracking their actions and why. The company gives the example that if you use the WhatsApp messenger from the Facebook subsidiary of the same name, then Facebook should not use your WhatsApp data outside of projects related to it, for example, to display ads on Instagram, which is also owned by Facebook. This can make it difficult to coordinate ad campaigns across platforms that are currently cross-exchanging data about their users for this purpose.
While there is no indication yet that the law will be considered and passed by anyone, DuckDuckGo notes that DNT technology is already built into Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge, and Internet Explorer. With the passage of the GDPR (EU General Data Protection Regulation) and US Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren's proposed bill to "regulate large technology companies", the public is sufficiently prepared to take the next steps to protect their digital privacy. Thus, the adoption of a law on the mandatory support of the heading "Do-Not-Track" may well become a reality.
The draft law from DuckDuckGo addresses such important aspects as: the response of sites to the DNT header; the obligation to disable data collection by Internet companies, including tracking by third-party resources on their sites; transparency about what user data is collected and how it is used; penalties for violating this law.