14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft’s decision to come with the Do Not Track (DNT) header option enabled by default in Internet Explorer 10 has been controversial. The company maintains that having the feature set to "on" by default ensures maximum user privacy.
Everyone else argues that the web standard behind Do Not Track specifically states that the feature has to reflect user preference and can't be enforced in any way.
Which has led to the situation we have now where, weeks before Windows 8 is set to launch, the Apache Foundation, the organization behind httpd (the Apache web server), the most popular web server in use today, added a patch that would have the server ignore the DNT setting if it's coming from IE10.
The patch is titled "Apache does not tolerate deliberate abuse of open standards" which should tell you all you need to know. The move has sparked more debate over the matter.
In Windows 8, users either have it enabled by default or, at the very least, are forced to make a decision on it. At the first log in, Windows 8 users can either go with the default privacy options via the "Express settings" option, which is likely the one that's going to be used most of the time, or can choose to customize them.
With Express settings, Do Not Track is enabled by default. If they choose Customize, DNT is set to on and they can disable it if they choose. But they have to make a choice, one or the other.
The DNT standard though says that until a user chooses either to enable the feature or not, the header setting will be left at "unset," which should be the default setting. Granted, this was made clearer only after Microsoft announced DNT would be enabled by default.
Microsoft is unwilling to change its position. Yet the critics of the move say that having DNT enabled by default will work against user privacy.
DNT is not mandatory, i.e. a site receiving the header can decide whether to abide by it or not. Having it being the default option in IE10 may lead to plenty of sites and ad networks to simply ignore it or at the very least ignore it for IE10 users.
Granted, Apache's move doesn't really fix the issue either, in the end, IE10 users won't benefit from DNT even if they wanted to. What's even more worrying is that, even if they explicitly enable it, they may discover that their choice is ignored.