{"id":994,"date":"2014-05-14T10:05:36","date_gmt":"2014-05-14T10:05:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?p=994"},"modified":"2020-08-26T15:17:34","modified_gmt":"2020-08-26T22:17:34","slug":"why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Why A “Do Not Track” Flag Cannot Possibly Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

The advertising industry has created a private mass-surveillance nightmare on the web, in addition to the government spooks. One resurfacing suggestion to solve this has been a \u201cno surveillance please\u201d option, known as the \u201cDo Not Track\u201d flag. Such a flag, even if legally mandated, cannot possibly work. Here\u2019s why.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Privacy remains a paramount topic on anything Internet-related. One problem that keeps resurfacing is that individuals can be easily tracked as they\u2019re moving between websites to build profiles of them, until the point where they\u2019re completely identitied at the individual level. When this happens en masse<\/em>, it\u2019s effectively another form of mass surveillance, but one invented and performed by the private sector.<\/p>\n

Advertisers were one of the first actors to track individuals in this way, with DoubleClick<\/em> being an infamous actor in this field, and where they would be laying a puzzle for every individual in the worst cloak-and-dagger style: if you submitted an email address there, they would remember it; a phone number here, a first name there. Your identity would gradually be completed by small bits and pieces that you gave away to what seemed to be completely different entities.<\/p>\n

In this way, every website you visited would know exactly who you were as soon as you landed on it.<\/strong> It was a Big Brother nightmare, but created by the advertising industry. To solve this, a \u201cDo Not Track\u201d flag has been repeatedly suggested, where you would simply request of the websites you visit to not track and identify you.<\/p>\n

The problem is that nobody on the Internet is required to honor any request, and that this is by design. This can be trivially observed with requests going in the other direction: anybody running an adblocker when surfing knows that they don\u2019t actually have to see the requested webpage in the way that the server asks it to be displayed \u2013 you can display the parts you want of the page and happily ignore the rest, not even showing unwanted parts (like advertisements). This is the case with pretty much every Internet protocol, and this is by design.<\/p>\n

Just as your web browser is free to ignore what the server asks for, such
\nas displaying ads on a web page, any webserver is always also free to ignore what the web browser asks for. Therefore, a \u201cdo not track\u201d flag cannot possibly work, because the Internet was not designed to honor that kind of forced behavior, and cannot be amended to have it without making a whole new Internet.<\/strong><\/p>\n

So the huge surveillance problem created by the advertising industry cannot be solved by regulation, and ironically, this is most easily illustrated by techniques to shut out advertisements and the advertising industry altogether from people\u2019s Internet experience.<\/p>\n

The problem boils down to this: there isn\u2019t, and cannot possibly be, a legal requirement for any computer to do what you want it to. (Anybody who has ever worked with a computer would recognize the impossibility of this.) <\/p>\n

In summary, you cannot ask somebody else to take responsibility for your privacy, and transmitting a \u201cDo Not Track\u201d flag as part of your commnication with web servers would be just such a question. The Internet wasn\u2019t designed that way, on purpose.<\/p>\n

Therefore, this column ends on a very familiar note:<\/p>\n

Privacy remains your own<\/em> responsibility.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The advertising industry has created a private mass-surveillance nightmare on the web, in addition to the government spooks. One resurfacing suggestion to solve this has been a \u201cno surveillance please\u201d option, known as the \u201cDo Not Track\u201d flag. Such a flag, even if legally mandated, cannot possibly work. Here\u2019s why. Privacy remains a paramount topic … Continue reading “Why A “Do Not Track” Flag Cannot Possibly Work”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-994","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"\nWhy A "Do Not Track" Flag Cannot Possibly Work<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The advertising industry has created a private mass-surveillance nightmare on the web, in addition to the government spooks. One resurfacing suggestion to\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Why A "Do Not Track" Flag Cannot Possibly Work\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The advertising industry has created a private mass-surveillance nightmare on the web, in addition to the government spooks. One resurfacing suggestion to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"PIA\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-05-14T10:05:36+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-08-26T22:17:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ogimage.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"630\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Rick Falkvinge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@buyvpnservice\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Rick Falkvinge\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Rick Falkvinge\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4\"},\"headline\":\"Why A “Do Not Track” Flag Cannot Possibly Work\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-05-14T10:05:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-26T22:17:34+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/\"},\"wordCount\":562,\"commentCount\":2,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"General Privacy News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/\",\"name\":\"Why A \\\"Do Not Track\\\" Flag Cannot Possibly Work\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2014-05-14T10:05:36+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2020-08-26T22:17:34+00:00\",\"description\":\"The advertising industry has created a private mass-surveillance nightmare on the web, in addition to the government spooks. One resurfacing suggestion to\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Why A “Do Not Track” Flag Cannot Possibly Work\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"PIA\",\"description\":\"Online privacy news from around the world.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Private Internet Access\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/pialogowhitekglogo.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/pialogowhitekglogo.png\",\"width\":1200,\"height\":1200,\"caption\":\"Private Internet Access\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/buyvpnservice\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/piavpn\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UClyJZ47Rizb1xnwuKXDI0_w\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4\",\"name\":\"Rick Falkvinge\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ad30e41b6591c75d90c6002e54553bdd55f419d89a54b72241efa308b84a7f03?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ad30e41b6591c75d90c6002e54553bdd55f419d89a54b72241efa308b84a7f03?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Rick Falkvinge\"},\"description\":\"Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and is a political evangelist, traveling around Europe and the world to talk and write about ideas of a sensible information policy. Additionally, he has a tech entrepreneur background and loves good whisky and fast motorcycles.\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/falkvinge.net\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/author\/rick\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Why A \"Do Not Track\" Flag Cannot Possibly Work","description":"The advertising industry has created a private mass-surveillance nightmare on the web, in addition to the government spooks. One resurfacing suggestion to","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Why A \"Do Not Track\" Flag Cannot Possibly Work","og_description":"The advertising industry has created a private mass-surveillance nightmare on the web, in addition to the government spooks. One resurfacing suggestion to","og_url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/","og_site_name":"PIA","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/","article_published_time":"2014-05-14T10:05:36+00:00","article_modified_time":"2020-08-26T22:17:34+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":630,"url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/ogimage.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Rick Falkvinge","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge","twitter_site":"@buyvpnservice","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Rick Falkvinge","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/"},"author":{"name":"Rick Falkvinge","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4"},"headline":"Why A “Do Not Track” Flag Cannot Possibly Work","datePublished":"2014-05-14T10:05:36+00:00","dateModified":"2020-08-26T22:17:34+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/"},"wordCount":562,"commentCount":2,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization"},"articleSection":["General Privacy News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/","url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/","name":"Why A \"Do Not Track\" Flag Cannot Possibly Work","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-05-14T10:05:36+00:00","dateModified":"2020-08-26T22:17:34+00:00","description":"The advertising industry has created a private mass-surveillance nightmare on the web, in addition to the government spooks. One resurfacing suggestion to","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/why-a-do-not-track-flag-cannot-possibly-work\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Why A “Do Not Track” Flag Cannot Possibly Work"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/","name":"PIA","description":"Online privacy news from around the world.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"Private Internet Access","url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/pialogowhitekglogo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/07\/pialogowhitekglogo.png","width":1200,"height":1200,"caption":"Private Internet Access"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/privateinternetaccess\/","https:\/\/x.com\/buyvpnservice","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/piavpn\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UClyJZ47Rizb1xnwuKXDI0_w"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8153559f44e1b6f9738dd6c7d33046a4","name":"Rick Falkvinge","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ad30e41b6591c75d90c6002e54553bdd55f419d89a54b72241efa308b84a7f03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ad30e41b6591c75d90c6002e54553bdd55f419d89a54b72241efa308b84a7f03?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Rick Falkvinge"},"description":"Rick is the founder of the first Pirate Party and is a political evangelist, traveling around Europe and the world to talk and write about ideas of a sensible information policy. Additionally, he has a tech entrepreneur background and loves good whisky and fast motorcycles.","sameAs":["https:\/\/falkvinge.net\/","https:\/\/x.com\/http:\/\/twitter.com\/Falkvinge"],"url":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/author\/rick\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=994"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":997,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/994\/revisions\/997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=994"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=994"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.privateinternetaccess.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=994"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}