Do-Not-Track on the Ropes as Ad Industry Ditches W3C
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The ad industry’s privacy group just may have sounded the death knell for the worldwide Do Not Track initiative. The Digital Advertising Alliance announced it will depart the World Wide Web Consortium’s (W3C) Tracking Protection Working Group. That’s the broad collective of privacy advocates, technologists, ad industry representatives and lawyers who have struggled over the past two years to define online tracking and determine a standard for a browser-based do-not-track mechanism, to no avail.
“If you measure it by progress, it’s dead,” said Lou Mastria, managing director of the DAA regarding the W3C project. “It has acheived nothing for privacy in two years.”
The decision could strike a fatal blow to an already injured process. W3C Co-Chair Peter Swire left the group less than a month ago. He’s now working with President Obama’s newly created Review Group on Intelligence and Communications Technologies. Insiders suggest it’s been difficult to find a replacement for what many say is a thankless position.
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