IT could usher in a new era of online privacy. Or it might bowdlerize the Internet as we know it.
Then again, it might do almost nothing at all.
The item in question is 's latest version of its Internet Explorer browser, scheduled to be available to consumers in late October, packaged with Windows 8. The browser comes with an option called “do not track.†It lets users indicate whether they'd like to see ads tailored to them by companies that track their online browsing histories - or whether they'd rather not have their online activities tracked, recorded, analyzed and stored for marketing purposes.
Of course, browsers like Firefox from Mozilla, Safari from Apple and even an earlier version of Internet Explorer already offered this choice for people who expressed a preference. But Microsoft is going further - by making privacy a more public issue. The new Internet Explorer 10 comes with the don't-track-me option automatically enabled, a fact that the software makes clear. During installation, a notice will appear giving users the choice to keep that preselected don't-track-me preference as is, or switch it off on a customization menu.
It's a radical move for a technology company, especially one like Microsoft, with an ad business of its own.
“No one says today, when a consumer first loads a product, ‘Hey, by the way, there are some privacy choices you may want to consider,' †says Alex Fowler, the global privacy and policy leader at Mozilla. He believes that this may be the first time that privacy features so prominently “in the first-run experience of a consumer software product.â€
Right now, however, people who raise the do-not-track flag are making a mostly symbolic choice, having their browsers send out a preference signal. Web sites that receive the signal can honor it - or simply disregard it.
Over the last few years, as tailored ads have become more personal and persistent - often pursuing users around the Web with pitches for products they recently viewed but elected not to buy - many consumers have sought ways to navigate an advertising system that can seem too close for comfort. To increase people's options, the Digital Advertising Alliance, an industry group, publicly introduced a self-regulatory program in 2010, and more recently an updated consumer site,
youradchoices.com. It explains how behavioral advertising works and gives consumers the choice to opt out of the practice by the group's members.
But now major browsers are flexing their muscles with an alternate option, the do-not-track button, hoping to gain traction with consumers who want to manage their Internet experience on their own devices.
“There is vast consumer awareness and concern about privacy,†says Fatemeh Khatibloo, a senior analyst in customer intelligence at Forrester Research. “If a browser can differentiate itself by saying ‘we provide you better privacy tools,' I think they'll increase adoptions.â€
But the specter of people opting out of tracking en masse presents a serious risk for marketers.
Consumer data, marketers say, is the fuel that powers the Internet, driving ads that support free content and e-mail services, search engines and social networks. If millions of consumers opted out of behavior-based advertising, industry representatives argue, many ad-sponsored sites could shut down or put up pay walls for people who elect not to see the ads. Internet Explorer 10 is only heightening their concerns. Because consumers tend not to change preset technology options, advertisers worry that the browser could shift millions of people to the do-not-track category.
“That would drastically skew the economic model underlying the Internet,†says Stuart Ingis, counsel to the Digital Advertising Alliance. “The choice is the Internet as we know it, or a much smaller, cannibalized Internet where you don't have the diversity.â€
