A month and a half after Microsoft made a splash announcing the Tracking Protection feature for its upcoming Internet Explorer 9 browser, Mozilla's Global Privacy and Public Policy Leader, Alex Fowler, published a post on his personal blog announcing a Firefox 4 feature with the same intent—protecting users from being tracked for targeted ads. Like IE9, Firefox 4 is still at the beta stage, and is expected to be released early this year.
To clarify this privacy strategy for end users, Firefox has published a Do Not Track FAQ on its wiki.
The Mozilla solution to the practice of online behavioral advertising (OBA), however, differs from Microsoft's in a couple of significant ways. Instead of merely being a browser option, Mozilla's feature wants websites to adopt a new approach when it comes to tracking their visitors. Fowler envisions each page request from the browser including a special Do Not Track header that will tell the sites just that.
"We believe the header-based approach has the potential to be better for the Web in the long run because it is a clearer and more universal opt-out mechanism than cookies or blacklists," writes Fowler. The idea stands in contrast to IE9's approach of using a block list of known ad trackers to protect users' privacy.
Both initiatives were likely prompted by an FTC report urging the Web industry to come up with tracking protections, and Fowler claims that the Mozilla solution better meets the FTC's desires. "The advantages to the header technique are that it is less complex and simple to locate and use, it is more persistent than cookie-based solutions, and it doesn't rely on user's finding and loading lists of ad networks and advertisers to work."
Of course, Mozilla's strategy comes with a big question mark: Will the advertisers buy in and respect the Do Not Track header? Fowler writes, "The challenge with adding this to the header is that it requires both browsers and sites to implement it to be fully effective. Mozilla recognizes the chicken and egg problem....We ask that sites and advertisers join with us to recognize this new header and honor people's privacy choices just as they are with opt-outs for OBA."
Between the need for site owner buy-in and the very fledgling state of the project, Microsoft's Tracking Protection seems like a better bet in the short term. Fowler's post includes an illustration entitled, "How Firefox's Do Not Track HTTP Header Might Work." The key word here is might. The strategy is reminiscent of the Do Not Call lists consumers have been able to enter themselves on to avoid being pestered by telemarketers. But that's backed up by national legislation, rather than based on an expectation of good will on the part of advertisers.