Media decoder: Google and Mozilla to announce new Privacy features

For the list of companies that intend to offer Web users new ways to control how we collect personal data online, add two largest producers of Internet browsers.

Monday, Mozilla and Google announced the features that enable users to Firefox and Chrome browser to opt-out of line caught by third-party advertisers. The companies made their ads a few weeks after the Federal Trade Commission has published a report that supported a mechanism of "track" that will allow consumers to choose if companies could monitor their online behavior.

In a blog post from Alex Fowler, Mozilla technology and privacy officer, the company presented a proposal for the Firefox browser functionality that would be a signal of third-party advertisers and commercial websites that indicates that a user would not be tracked. The mechanism, called an HTTP header do not trace, would rely on the companies who receive the information for the user agrees not to collect data.

The approach is different from other options currently available to users that rely on cookies or lists generated by the user. In December, Microsoft announced a feature called detection for Internet Explorer 9 that would rely on lists that users create that indicate which sites they don't want to share information with.

"We believe that the approach based on header has the potential to be better for the web in the long run, because it is a clearer and more universal mechanism to opt-out cookies or blacklists," said Mr. Fowler in the blog post.

In a statement, said the President of the Federal Trade Commission, Jon Leibowitz,: "initiative of Mozilla is to be commended. It recognises that consumers want a choice about who is tracking their movements online, and is a first step towards giving consumer choice about who will have access to your data. Also reports that Do not track options are technically feasible. "

Google's approach is based on a browser extension or plug-in, called Keep My Opt-out that work with all versions of its Chrome browser. The extension would allow users to opt-out permanently monitored online by advertisers that already offer opt-out options through self-regulatory programs, such as the Alliance of digital advertising and the Network Advertising Initiative.

In a blog post from Google, the company said it would offer the code for the extension developers on an open source and that you plan to make the functionality available to other browsers in the future.

Regarding the announcement of Google, said a spokesman for F.T.C., "we are pleased that Google is involved in the process, but Mozilla and Microsoft are clearly steps forward".

In a statement, Mike Zaneis, senior vice president and general counsel for the Interactive Advertising Bureau, an organization that supports self-regulation of the sector, said that the feature of Mozilla would require companies to voluntarily recognize consumer choice and that was not yet clear how users can protect their privacy.

"The first analogy that comes to mind is that if a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound?  Well, Google has guaranteed an audience to hear the sound of the tree falling, working with established industry, "said Mr. Zaneis.

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Features of Firefox-not-track seen as toothless

As the Incredibles, facing down a nefarious villain, underground, called "the Underminer" at the end of their film debut, Mozilla is facing down data miners, giving users of Firefox, a new, albeit less-than-impressive power.

The browser will give users the ability to opt-out of advertising based on behavior. Server Web sites and ad will receive a "do not disturb" via a click-track not transmitted "HTTP header," a better approach, the indications of Mozilla, from cookies or user-Blacklist of advertisers.

As a non-standard platform, the header approach will rely not only on Firefox, but also on the websites for the implementation. It follows a call December 2010 by United States Department of Commerce for an "online privacy bill of rights" and a set of data Internet code of conduct--red flags that suggest the new tool can simply be an attempt to fend off future privacy legislation.

"That must be an important motivating factor," Jennifer Bayuk, Program Director of Security Systems Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology (SIT), told TechNewsWorld.

Mozilla may also be against competitors by allowing greater customization, "said Darren Hayes, Ph.d., President of the computer program at Pace University information systems.

"This could be seen as a reaction to Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Internet Explorer Browsing In private and Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) customization options," he told TechNewsWorld.

While the new feature in Firefox does not block all advertisements, custom block ads that helped to carve out a unique niche advertising for advertising Internet giants such as Google.

The user-specific niche ad is often based on user ignorance of a "third report," Mozilla Labs principal engineer Mike Hanson explained in a blog post that Mozilla spokesperson Shannon first referred TechNewsWorld.

"For example, when you visit a news site that directs the user's browser to open an image from the site of an ad network, the report is the third," Hanson said. "In many cases, the user does not know that the relationship exists."

User-tracking is defined Similarly. "Third-party Tracking is intended to provide some persistence of a party relations," said Hanson. "The use, most people think is behavioral advertising, in which search keywords are identified and sent to a server, where they are used to select a display ads".

To escape the party behavioral advertising, Internet surfers have several options: opt-out registers; Web browser changes designed to prevent detection; blocking cookies and disabling.

These methods suffer from serious flaws, but Hanson wrote. Data registry of opt-out, for example, are stored in a cookie. Delete cookies, Delete the opt-out, and the ads start crackling once again.

Header-not-track Firefox explained Hanson, solves these problems of broadcasting "a clear declaration of intent of the user," enabling automatic tracking opt-out "mechanisms from around the Web in an easy-to-implement.

The concept is "nothing out of the ordinary" and represents a typical integration "challenge," explained Bayuk SIT. "The developers of interface between different software all the time."

"Powerful new tool for Firefox" persists through the cookies, requires no central register or the "black list" and "gives good actors in the information they need to treat users with respect," said Hanson.

At the top "With Hanson" list, however: "has no effect until the sites are incentivized to adopt it."

Incentives can be elusive.

"I see no incentive to participate without legislation," said Hayes, University of pace. "It is difficult to see the companies that advertise even trying to provide full co-operation to make this a success for Mozilla".

History tends to agree, the SIT Bayuk observed. "Other consortia, as a group that has promised to report a bug safety in 30 days or more, have it. I see no incentive to use the header window-not-track except the good press that could come with it. "

To put it bluntly, "this is a public relations ploy by the father of Firefox (Mozilla Foundation)," said public relations specialist Richard Laermer technology.

It is unlikely that they receive widespread adoption, told TechNewsWorld, "because most people don't understand even detect it."

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