[dse1982]

As far as I understand it, they were not forced to respect the DNT header in their processes. They were only forbidden to claim that the DNT header would not be legally binding and therefore not respected.

The court did not force LinkedIn in any way to actually respect or at least consider the DNT-header in their processes.

This is how I (being a German native-speaker) understood this article by the usually very reliable heise online: https://www.heise.de/news/Do-Not-Track-LinkedIn-darf-nicht-m...

[suyjuris]

The full decision can be found here [1]. The consumer protection agency did also seek that LinkedIn be forced to respect DNT, but the court did not grant this relief, reasoning that it was overly broad in two ways. First, it did not specify precisely enough what is meant by DNT — in particular, the suit did not limit itself to the DNT header, but referred to any kind of configured signals sent by the browser. Second, it described the behaviour that LinkedIn is supposed to cease when encountering such a signal in an overly broad manner.

If upheld, the judgement certainly seems to open the door for future litigation, and one might even hope for potential targets to adjust their behaviour in anticipation of it, but I would not hold my breath there.

[1] https://www.vzbv.de/sites/default/files/2023-10/23-10-10_Stn...

[Aachen]

To read that article, you need to pay or "freely consent" to personalised tracking. Sometimes I wonder if the people writing for that site, who no doubt have an IP whitelist or are logged in all the time, even realise the irony anymore

[wobfan]

While that's true, the court also said, that DNT is legally binding. That's also in the article from heise that you linked, in the second to last paragraph.

But you're right. It sounds like the court interpreted it that way, but anyways, the ruling is only about the claim, not about whether they respect DNT or not.