14 DAY TRIAL // California State Senator Alan Lowenthal introduced a bill sponsored by Consumer Watchdog which calls on the California attorney general to adopt regulations that would force Internet companies to respect Do-Not-Track browser options.
The issue of browser tracking for the purpose of behavioral advertising has been much discussed in recent times, especially since some large companies were caught using questionable methods such as cookie respawning.
SB 761, as the bill is known, was actually introduced back in February, but it was amended last week to include the anti-tracking provisions.
According to Consumer Watchdog, the legislation is modeled after a federal Do-Not-Track bill introduced in February by Rep. Jackie Speier, D-CA, which follows a recommendation by the Federal Trade Commission.
The privacy group wants to make sure that even if the federal bill doesn't pass, the will of California citizens will be protected and respected online.
Last year, the FTC has called upon browser develops to come up with an uniform and easy to use Do-Not-Track option. Mozilla, Microsoft and Google all proposed different approaches, but Mozilla's HTTP header-based solution seems the most balanced and easy to standardize one.
The browser vendor already had talks over implementation with the Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA), a trade group representing over 5,000 media and technology companies.
The solution relies on advertisers' willingness to honor a special "DNT" HTTP header sent by browsers with the option activated. If passed, the California bill will offer the legal framework to persuade companies to respect it.
The Consumer Watchdog says it even emailed Google's new CEO Larry Page and asked him to endorse the bill as proof of company's commitment to respect consumer privacy.
The European Union went even further and starting with May 25 it will require all websites to ask permission from users before installing tracking cookies.