Google, Microsoft begrudgingly accept new Do Not Track policies

The tinfoil hat-wearing crowd loves to make hay about Big Brother tracking your every move. While some of their claims are a little outlandish, there is past history out there of companies doing some pretty shady things. That is about to change.

After attempting to fight it off for the better part of the year, web companies including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL, working with the Obama Administration, are now agreeing to abide by new Do Not Track (DNT) technologies to be built into browsers. This will put some strict (although not necessarily comprehensive) polices on what companies can track you on.

Gone are tracking cookies that customize ads based on the websites you visit, and the data collected can no longer be used for purposes other than advertising. This means companies in the healthcare, employment, and credit industries will not be able to purchase this data to make business decisions. The Federal Trade Commission will add some regulatory oomph, just to make sure these companies follow the rules.

Companies like Facebook would get a pass, allowing their sharing features to continue to work. Law enforcement would also have the right to peer into companies tracking data, and the companies collecting data can use it for research and product development, the US Administration says.

Tracking has become a hot-button issue as of late. Google has consistently been in hot water over its own use of tracking cookies, including just this past week when it was caught circumventing Safari’s privacy settings to install tracking code. The news set off a firestorm of criticism against the company, and spurred additional scrutiny from regulators.

But this goes far beyond Google — as early as 2000, DoubleClick was using similar tracking cookies, following your every move in order to serve you better advertisements. Ironically, DoubleClick is now owned by Google: the two merged in 2007.

Obviously, not everyone’s going to trust that the government has everything under control, and will be working in our best interest. For those of you that still prefer to wear the tinfoil hat, downloading an add-on for your browser like Collusion for Firefox is certainly an option. This particular app will show you how you’re being tracked. Other programs like Spybot Search & Destroy will also detect and remove these types of cookies.

Bottom line here is this: if you are really worried about having your online travails be tracked, take matters into your own hands and foil the efforts of evil Big Brother. Don’t wait for the government to fix the tracking issue or enforce rules against it. Personal responsibility is key.

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Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter considering “nuclear option” to protest SOPA

The battle against SOPA reached fever pitch just before Christmas when a Reddit-led boycott of Go Daddy over the domain registrar’s support for the controversial legislation led to some 37,000 domains leaving the company for greener, freedom-loving pastures. Go Daddy, meanwhile, is now buried in complaints that it’s improperly blocking domain transfer requests to rival Namecheap.

With debate over SOPA’s future tabled until Congress reconvenes, you might think the issue would have entered a similar lull, butthat’s not happened. According to Markham Erickson, head of the NetCoalition trade association, there’s been talk of a so-called “nuclear option,” in which the likes of Google, Amazon, eBay, and Yahoo! would go simultaneously dark to protest the legislation to highlight thefundamental danger the legislation poses to the function of the internet.

There’s been no formal decision on the matter, and the companies in question obviously risk consumer anger and backlash over any suspension of services. There is, however, safety in numbers — and a few simple sentences identifying why the blackout is in place will ensure that the majority of the rage flows in the proper direction.

It’s a trump card that the likes of the MPAA and RIAA have no way of matching. There’s solid technical data behind the tech industry’s claims that implementing SOPA could damage the function of the internet, and plenty of evidence (some of it just weeks old) that copyright holders will abuse existing judicial processes to eliminate content they don’t like. The MPAA and RIAA are willing to talk about jobs lost to piracy in the abstract, but won’t (and can’t) promise that passing SOPA will allow them to hire thousands of Americans or create jobs in a statement they’d be held accountable for fulfilling.

There’s no information yet on when the blackout would occur, but the most likely date right now would be January 23. The Senate is scheduled to debate SOPA on January 24. Speaking in December, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid highlighted the importance of passing the legislation. “This is a bipartisan piece of legislation which is extremely important,” Reid said Saturday. “I repeat, it is bipartisan. I hope we can have a productive couple of days, pass this bill, and move on to other matters.”

Bring on the nukes.

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