I second this; I have never been "into" these problematics and as a user I generally just disallow everything I can, which can be a pain (I mean I do want to often don't store anything when I'm browsing the web, which leads to meeting a lot of "cookie banners").
While there are probably browser extensions that can perform the automatic opt-out, it would be nice if browsers provided an API as an unified and centralized way to communicate consentment as a set of privilege access to different browser features and APIs (you could e.g. forbid the use of canvas, or even JS entirely).
But that's only a small part of a huge legal frame, and as I said I don't know much about these problematics.
I don't think so. It was conceived on the user agent side AFAIK. The publishers decided not to honor it. At that point, there's not much point to keeping it on the UA side.
In no small part because the people who thought of it (the browser makers) had a powerful commercial incentive to ditch it, because they are funded by advertising.
Microsoft enabled Do Not Track by default. Advertisers said they would ignore it for this reason. Most of them never respected it. Apple removed it from Safari years later because it was used for tracking. Mozilla removed it from Firefox years after Safari. Chrome has it even now.
> Advertisers said they would ignore it for this reason
That was the missed opportunity. Had the EU stepped in and said "I'm sorry, the user expressed explicit intent to not be tracked and you're planning to ignore that? How about that's a fine?" it would have survived.
DNT headers are equivalent to those email signatures that pretend to be a legal document. You're just spamming the server with extra crap that does nothing and means nothing.
Actually it's worse, DNT headers are like posting a wall of text on facebook saying you do not consent to them using your images or posts for some purpose.
Track doesn't have a consistent definition across contexts, to regulate this you would have to fix it to something - what are your suggestions? DNT and the "deny optional" that foamed its way out of the GDPR aren't quite the same thing, and even if they are, it will take many court cases and years of time to figure that out.
If you have a better write on regulation lets hear it.
But that's only a small part of a huge legal frame, and as I said I don't know much about these problematics.