Published in News

Mozilla pushes do-not-track tech

by on24 June 2013

Taking on the advertisers

Mozilla is pushing ahead with plans to have its Firefox browser block tracking cookies by default. The move, which is about as popular with advertisers as the Boston Strangler, is designed to change the dynamic so that trackers behave better.

According to Brendan Eich, CTO of Mozilla the blocking technology, which is still being refined, will go live in the next few months. It is similar to that being used on Apple's Safari browser, which blocks all third-party cookies. But advertisers have slammed the move claiming that it is disrupting a business model under the guise of protecting privacy.

Lou Mastria, the managing director for the Digital Advertising Alliance which runs a self-regulated industry program called Ad Choices, which allows consumers to opt out of some types of targeted advertising. After all the best people to help you opt out of advertisers spying on you are the very people who aim to make a lot of dosh spying on you online. Mozilla will be using the Cookie Clearinghouse lists to act as cookie blocks.

The Cookie Clearinghouse is a six-person advisory panel, which includes representatives from Mozilla, Opera and the Future of Privacy Forum, who will help develop an "allow list" and a "block list" of cookies. This does mean that not all cookies will be blocked by the Firefox patch. Instead there will be a cookie-analysis logic engine to Firefox.

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