Do Not Track proposal is DOA

When two warring sides can't even agree on what "tracking" means, it's not surprising that little progress has been made toward launching a single browser button that prevents advertisers from tracking your online behavior.

Nearly two years after the Obama administration, digital advertisers, browser makers and privacy advocates agreed in principle to create a "Do Not Track" mechanism for Web browsing, the various parties still have not agreed on a basic framework for the tool. In an effort to salvage Do Not Track, leaders of the working group shepherding the agreement put their collective foot down on July 15. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), which is moderating this increasingly fractious and seemingly endless debate, said that it has chosen a foundation upon which all other discussions about Do Not Track will be based.