"It looks like they're iterating pretty quickly,"
Brookman said, referring to the bandwagon that
Mozilla and Google have joined in the last two
days. "We'll see this move very quickly."
Brookman saved his biggest praise for Mozilla,
and its Do Not Track HTTP header concept.
"It's very easy to do on the part of browser
makers," he said, echoing Mozilla's belief that the
technology -- which doesn't rely on a list, as does
Microsoft's approach, or on cookies, as does
Google's -- was the simplest solution.
Mozilla's assumption, of course, is that Web sites
and advertisers will buy into the idea.
"That's the chicken and the egg problem, that
sites and advertisers will build support [for the
header]," said Brookman. "But by putting a bug
fix out there means that there will be more
discussion of the approach. The three or four
months it will probably take Mozilla [to add the
feature to Firefox] means they can use the time to
build support."
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has
called on browser makers to add additional
privacy features to their software so users can
decide how much information to share with sites
and advertisers.
Ironically, Brookman credited concerns about
Facebook's information-sharing for jump-starting
the discussion about Do Not Track and browsers.
"A lot of it comes from Facebook," Brookman
argued. People can relate to tales of the popular
social networking service sharing their personal
data, he said, when they may not understand the
intricacies of personalized Web ads, and how
sites and advertisers monitor consumers'
movements on the Web.
"Consumers can internalize what goes on in
Facebook, and it's driven a far amount of the calls
for more privacy," said Brookman. "But all the
talk, whether it's from the FTC or in the series of
stories last year by the Wall Street Journal, has
had an aggregate effect," he added in explaining
why the pace has picked up.
Source: Http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9206061/Google_jumps_into_Do_Not_Track_debate_with_Chrome_add_on?taxonomyId=84&pageNumber=2
Brookman said, referring to the bandwagon that
Mozilla and Google have joined in the last two
days. "We'll see this move very quickly."
Brookman saved his biggest praise for Mozilla,
and its Do Not Track HTTP header concept.
"It's very easy to do on the part of browser
makers," he said, echoing Mozilla's belief that the
technology -- which doesn't rely on a list, as does
Microsoft's approach, or on cookies, as does
Google's -- was the simplest solution.
Mozilla's assumption, of course, is that Web sites
and advertisers will buy into the idea.
"That's the chicken and the egg problem, that
sites and advertisers will build support [for the
header]," said Brookman. "But by putting a bug
fix out there means that there will be more
discussion of the approach. The three or four
months it will probably take Mozilla [to add the
feature to Firefox] means they can use the time to
build support."
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has
called on browser makers to add additional
privacy features to their software so users can
decide how much information to share with sites
and advertisers.
Ironically, Brookman credited concerns about
Facebook's information-sharing for jump-starting
the discussion about Do Not Track and browsers.
"A lot of it comes from Facebook," Brookman
argued. People can relate to tales of the popular
social networking service sharing their personal
data, he said, when they may not understand the
intricacies of personalized Web ads, and how
sites and advertisers monitor consumers'
movements on the Web.
"Consumers can internalize what goes on in
Facebook, and it's driven a far amount of the calls
for more privacy," said Brookman. "But all the
talk, whether it's from the FTC or in the series of
stories last year by the Wall Street Journal, has
had an aggregate effect," he added in explaining
why the pace has picked up.
Source: Http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9206061/Google_jumps_into_Do_Not_Track_debate_with_Chrome_add_on?taxonomyId=84&pageNumber=2
