Google Now Includes Do-Not-Track Support for Chrome Developer Build

Google Now Includes Do-Not-Track Support for Chrome Developer Build

Google has just released the latest developer build of Chrome, and with it comes a feature that every other major browser already has -- Do-Not-Track (DNT). This makes Google the slowest out of all the major browser providers to make this change.

Google spokesman Rob Shilkin said in an emailed statement, “We undertook to honor an agreement on DNT that the industry reached with the White House early this year. To that end we’re making this setting visible in our Chromium developer channel, so that it will be available in upcoming versions of Chrome by year's end.

According to All Things D, when the feature is switched on, all it does is add a "DNT:1" code to the user's request for a website. The problem is websites (or rather their developers) can ignore the DNT request. The browser does nothing to ensure that the user is indeed, free from being tracked. 

Think of it as a user issuing a notice to people around him, telling them not to look at him. But the onus is on these people not to look. Which doesn't really help users, considering it is usually in the advertisers' (or websites') interests to look long and hard at your data and surfing habits.

For instance, since Microsoft decided to turn on DNT by default in Internet Explorer 10, developers of the Apache Web server are now saying they will ignore Do Not Track requests from IE visitors because it goes against the spirit of DNT being a choice. Also, even though Facebook is doing its own ad exchange, it hasn’t agreed to participate in Do Not Track at all.

Source: All Things D