What that term actually means, however, is open to debate. For now, some Web companies say do-not-track means only that a consumer doesn't want to be subject to the kind of tracking done to facilitate online behavioral advertising. This definition encompasses gathering data about people's visits to unrelated sites in order to deduce the types of products that users might want to purchase. But it doesn't necessarily preclude collecting a host of other data, including a publisher's collection of information about pages viewed at its site, the search terms that brought people to its pages or IP addresses of visitors.
Consumers, however, appear to be taking a far broader view of do-not-track, according to research by privacy expert Aleecia McDonald presented last week at a workshop of the World Wide Web Consortium. McDonald reported that many people think do-not-track will eliminate a vast array of data collection.
Before the conference, McDonald conducted a preliminary study, still incomplete, of around 200 Web users. She asked them what type of information they thought would be collected if they clicked on a do-not-track button. Almost 40% responded that activating do-not-track meant that nothing at all about their Web use would be collected.
When asked how they would react if nothing changed after they clicked a do-not-track button, 51% said they wouldn't be surprised. Almost as many, 45%, said they would blame the browser company.
McDonald proposes that one solution to the apparent discrepancy between users' expectations and those of Web companies lies in clearly defining the term and then communicating that definition to users.
Whether that can happen remains to be seen.
Ok, so if someone does not want to be tracked, fine. Let them place tracking restrictions on their browser, BUT, since they are denying the web site advertising dollars and still getting the content, they should now pay for it. Since the internet economy is about leveraging content for advertising dollars by restricting a web site from garnering high rates generated by targeted advertising, users who opt-out are denying their content providers the ability to monetize their content. That said, I think that charging a premium CPM rate to users who opt-out is a reasonable solution. A mechanism can be put in place to have the service providers track users and bill them accordingly.
So simple: get tracked and see relevant advertising content or opt-out and pay to play. Just my $0.02.
Are you serious Warren? Blame the user for denying content providers ability to monetize because of opting out? When there is no BT, advertisers will still find their choices of content to get out their message and content providers will find ways, like they did before, to monetize.