[mtgx]

So use Adblock then. That's your choice. But don't turn it on by default for everyone. What if every ISP in the world decided to block all ads by default within 5 years. How many Internet businesses it would kill? Most of them?

This is why I never liked IE's DNT on by default solution either, which besides being mostly pointless, and making it even more pointless by activating it for everyone and making advertisers not even consider it, I think it's a really bad idea to get gatekeepers like these (ISP's, browser vendors, etc) to block ads for everyone by default - all ads.

Imagine if cable companies blocked and skipped all TV ads by default. There would literally be a revolution from the networks.

I'm pretty sure Google can win a lawsuit against this ISP if they sue them, and they should. However, France is also pretty weird about Internet stuff. They forced Google to offer paid Maps instead of free before, and other such silly backwards things.

[rrschch]

You know there is a huge difference between TV ads an web ones: passivity. TV announcers don't have the possibility to "personalize" ad content according to what they could learn from their audience individual habits. When you own a huge database of personal information on your users, you should have a lot of responsibility towards your users. Data mining is the business of most advertising companies on the web, that's how they make money, so no wonder ethics become a bit blurred there.

Here are the real questions:

- how can we mitigate the use of tracking, make sure that harnessed data is not misused?

- if it is not possible, why not enforcing on the web an advertising system similar to the TV one, to get rid of the tracking nightmare we're building? We should seriously think about that fallback solution, because we're going to get it in our face (or some other place) anyway (the mandatory ad spot is becoming a reality on many sites now), and we still have tracking on full speed.

[kvb]

DNT doesn't block ads, it prevents tracking (ideally). Other ad-supported businesses (e.g. most TV in the US) seem to get by fine without needing tracking cookies.

[bloubi]

You mean, by spamming you every ten minutes with random ads between crappy shows? The premium content (Netflix, HBO, Hulu...), people are willing to pay for it.

It's the same trade-off for the web: if you want good content, either you pay for it (NYTimes), or you have to deal with targeted ads.

TV networks don't target ads not because they don't want and prefer their own business model. They don't do it because they can't.

And anyway: targeted ads are also way better for the user experience. If the advertiser know you're blind, it won't show you 1000 times an ad for sunglasses.

Tracking and ad targeting mean less ads across the web.

[kvb]

Sure, there are definitely benefits to tracking, and if TV advertisers could do it I'm sure they would. I just wanted to address the contention that DNT implied that ads would be blocked. And I wonder how much benefit tracking cookies really have - even without them you can target based on a site's rough demographics, just not on a particular user's. Personally I find it creepy when ads follow me around after searching for a product, for instance.