[jeroenhd]

DNT failed because advertising and online stalking companies refused to abide by it when browsers enabled it by default. The GPC spec tries to work around this by having the spec disable the feature by default.

This new spec is necessary because American legislation requires opt-out signals not to be the browser default. That means DNT, as browsers used it, is not legally an opt-out signal, because browsers default to it.

What this is doing is throwing out the header that had legal backing in Europe for a slightly worse copy that hopefully has legal backing in America in the future.

It's a silly specification, but if it gets companies to actually respect this iteration of the DNT spec then I'll accept it.

As for DNT, Firefox may have removed it but addons can still set it. As useless as that may be, because the spec is marked as outright deprecated (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Reference/...), you can still send the signal.

[joker99]

There are dozens of ways how browser devs could make it default, without making it default - by way of malicious compliance. Example: The first time the browser is opened, display a big fat page asking "DO YOU WANT TO BE TRACKED & SURVEILLED ON THE INTERNET??? NO (highlight in nice colour) / YES (add dark pattern here) / learn more (in tiny font)". Pretty sure most people would click "NO". Every couple of weeks it could pop up again with a similarly phrased question "ARE YOU SURE YOU STILL DON'T WANT TO BE TRACKED?" but this time with a nice UI element where the user can specify that the answer to this rhetorical question will stay the same for the next n days/months/years/decades/centuries/millenia.

[salawat]

Allowing assholes to continue being assholes is the crux of the problem. Companies ignoring DNT on as a default should have been met with massive punitive fines and liability. Instead, we're not doing anything to curtail the behavior.

[luckylion]

Wasn't this just microsoft back in the day that enabled it by default, and they were already a small player at that point (Chrome was the leader and even Firefox had more market-share back then iirc).

In other words: "browsers" didn't make it the default, one small browser did.

And so if _any_ browser, whatever tiny percentage they might have of the market, will make this new proposal the default, advertisers can again say "see? totally unreasonable, we won't follow that".

But it being made default by Microsoft was never the problem, ad-companies just didn't care.

[pseudalopex]

Internet Explorer's market share was a little more to a little less than Chrome's in mid 2012. It was the only significant browser to enable Do Not Track by default as far as I know.

Advertisers wouldn't have cared until laws forced them to care. Microsoft enabling it by default ensured there would be no laws.

[luckylion]

You are right, my memory was off by a few years. In 2012 Chrome first overtook IE, in 2014 Safari overtook them, in 2015 they crossed 10% and by the end of 2016 dropped under 5%.

Microsoft's final gift to advertisers before dropping of into obscurity.

[inetknght]

> American legislation requires opt-out signals not to be the browser default

Can you site the legislation stating that?