Privacy: Do Not Track is Global – But can it ever be Local?
by Peter
Yes… (read on)
Today Mozilla proposed a new “Three state setting for “Do Not Track” The current standard is either Allow Tracking or Do Nott Track (binary). However this doesn’t satisfy all the use cases on the Web nor fit well with laws in Europe. (The three-state setting for Do Not Track will consist of “no preference,” “do not track,” and “allow tracking.”)
Here’s the idea around the three states…
- In the US
- DNT = 1 – Do Not Track
- DNT = 0 – Allow Tracking
- DNT = “” – Null. This means users did not make a choice, keep tracking
- In the EU
- DNT = 1 – Do Not Track
- DNT = 0 – Allow Tracking
- DNT = “” – Null. Users have NOT consented, Do Not Track
Ok so lets dig in and see what the issues are.
In the US and the EU we’re in perfect alignment when the DNT header is set to 1 or 0. The complication (the third state) appears in the case of the “Null” condition. It means different things in different countries i.e. it’s regional. So what happens if I set my browser to “No Preference”. Well I have insufficient data to resolve the condition. What I need to know in real time, is the current location of the user so I can determine the best solution. In other words if someone sets the browser to “No Preference” then every time they connect to the Web they have to be constantly sharing their location.
In theory this is not a big deal. Simply access the GPS, Cell Tower or Wi-Fi and resolve the location. In practice it’s a huge deal. Think about the amount of extra code, extra transmissions and extra battery energy (in the case of Mobile) required to send all this data to the Web server so that it can adhere to the correct regional privacy laws. And because the majority of transactions on the Web use standard HTTP vs. HTTPS (encrypted) there’s no way to encrypt all my location data.
So is there a solution to the “Do Not Track is Global – But can it ever be Local” problem.
Yes. Here’s a thought. Lets go with the following scenario:
- In the US
- DNT = 1 – Do Not Track
- DNT = 0 – Allow Tracking
- In this case send my real time location encrypted as part of the Web request
- In the EU
- DNT = 1 – Do Not Track
- DNT = 0 – Allow Tracking
- In this case send my real time location encrypted as part of the Web request
That works. The default in the browser should be “Do Not Track”. In the case that the user “chooses” to allow tracking then a dialog box pops up and indicates that his location will ONLY be used to determine his/her location to comply with local privacy laws. All data will be sent encrypted.
The beauty of this approach is that the Web server doesn’t have to ask the browser for the location of the user. It gets it as part of the request. It reads DNT = 0 and looks for the location data. It uses this to only resolve the regional privacy laws and then discards the information. If the user comes back to the site it includes the update location information. In the case that the user has selected DNT = 0 and no location data is shared then the default reverts back to a setting of DNT = 1 or Do Not Track me.
Summary…
Do Not Track can be a Global and Local standard – Only two conditions are required, and my privacy is assured without the need for computationally expensive (and battery consuming) HTTPS communications.
Be sure to read my next blog which shows this solution working