The W3C's Tracking Protection Working Group -- which is trying to develop standards for implementing do-not-track headers -- apparently has realized that the various factions aren't going to agree on this issue any time soon. After spending months debating these issues, and unsuccessfully trying to forge a consensus, the group's leadership threw up its hands and proclaimed that consensus won't be the goal of the meeting this week in Amsterdam. Instead the new goal, as per the organization's latest agenda, posted today, is to arrive at a conclusion that "raises the least number of objections."

The Federal Trade Commission hopes to issue its long-awaited update to the dot-com disclosure guides by the end of the year, associate director Mary Engle said on Monday at the Better Business Bureau's National Advertising Self-Regulatory Council conference. The new guidelines will advise marketers how to convey key information to consumers -- including the terms and conditions of offers -- on mobile devices and social media platforms.