BoingBoing gets in a knot over the ping attribute
Boing Boing makes the following interesting statement about some work that was just done in FireFox:
A new proposed feautre in Firefox/Mozilla automates a common web-linking technique in a way that raises grave concerns about user-privacy. (Full article here.)
Some important things to know about this situation are:
- Websites already do this in a way that users have no control - most users may easily be tracked by sites they are visiting without their consent or any way to opt out of the tracking
- The ping attribute feature that is being added to Firefox can be disabled by users.
While adding the ping attribute will not make the first issue go away, it will allow websites who wish to track users be able to do so in an way that allows users to opt out. This is a vast improvement over the current situation. Of course, there are other issues involved, but don't get too bent out of shape before doing your research. ;)
Interestingly, some of the advertising on BoingBoing makes use of tracking features that ping would replace.
Full disclosure: I work for the Mozilla Foundation.
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Posted on Friday, January 20th, 2006 at 9:25
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