Mozilla is planning to take its own shot at improving user privacy controls online.
The company is looking to add a new feature to its Firefox
browser that would enable users to opt-out of online behavioral
tracking by advertisers. The move follows a December report from
the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) that endorsed the idea of
a "Do Not Track" mechanism that would allow Web users to choose whether
they want to be tracked online.
At the time, the FTC suggested a setting similar to a persistent
cookie on a consumer’s browser and communicating that setting to sites
that the browser visits. In response to the situation, Mozilla is
proposing the creation of a Do Not Track HTTP header that will be
transmitted "with every click or page view in Firefox," blogged Alex Fowler, Mozilla’s Technology and Privacy Officer.
"When the feature is enabled and users turn it on, web sites will be
told by Firefox that a user would like to opt-out of OBA (online
behavioral advertising)," Fowler wrote. "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."
For more, read the eWeek article: Mozilla Proposes Firefox ‘Do Not Track’ Feature.
