It's often hard to tell which is the web's priority: helping you learn about the world or helping the world, especially advertisers, learn about you.
However, that balance is beginning to shift, to the delight of consumer advocates and the horror of industry groups.
Browser makers are increasingly embracing privacy controls that could limit the ability of advertisers to track users, threatening to undermine business models that support many popular online services.
The development is driven more by market forces than government action, as highlighted by the recent announcement that the maker of one of the world's most popular browsers, Firefox, is experimenting with new restrictions on the use of cookies - bits of computer code that allow companies to monitor users as they move among websites.
The news has sparked a fervent debate about the economic value of online tracking and the importance of cookies to the smooth functioning of the digital world. On the day of Firefox's announcement last month, an official from the Interactive Advertising Bureau tweeted that the browser's maker had launched a "a nuclear first strike" against the industry.
That prompted fears that internet companies could respond with more sophisticated tools that would allow tracking to continue or even expand.
"We're at risk of an arms race here," says Peter Swire, a Clinton administration privacy expert, now an Ohio State University law professor.
"This could break the internet. It interferes with existing browsing modules and it puts greater pressure on users to take escalating steps to protect their privacy."
Swire was tapped in November to help resurrect talks aimed at giving consumers an easy way to block tracking of their web behaviour. The initiative, called "Do Not Track" and pushed by the Obama Administration, has foundered over deep divisions between internet industry trade groups and privacy advocates.
The two sides have not agreed on what "Do Not Track" even means, much less how it should be implemented.
Mozilla, the maker of Firefox, is a non-profit group that is much smaller than other browser makers, such as Google, Microsoft and Apple. Yet its potential impact is outsized because Firefox is used by about 20 per cent of the world's desktop computers, according to NetMarketShare.
Mozilla is testing its new cookie restrictions on a version of Firefox released to about 10,000 users, says Harvey Anderson, vice-president and general counsel. No decision has been made on a general release, but limiting tracking would make Firefox operate more clearly in the interests of consumers.
Anderson cites a February report by Ovum, an industry research group, showing that 68 per cent of people using the internet in 11 countries say they would limit tracking of their web traffic if they easily could.
"This kind of feature creates a web that's more in line with a user's expectations," he says.
The changes under consideration for Firefox would allow shopping or news websites, for example, to place cookies on a user's computer to enable the tracking of preferences for customised service. It would block cookies from sites users never knowingly visited, such as those of the networks that place advertising on sites maintained by news organisations or other groups.
Firefox's changes would mimic how Apple's Safari browser has long handled cookies. Apple was once a small player in the browser market, but the success of its iPhone and iPad has made Safari the most popular browser on mobile devices.
The biggest player in the desktop browser market, Microsoft, has implemented new privacy controls on its latest generation of Internet Explorer, activating by default a feature that requests ad networks to not track users. The setting has little practical effect because ad networks generally ignore such requests, but the move signalled the rising importance of privacy issues to browser makers.
Digital advertisers say that ads targeted by user behaviour are effective, allowing baseball fans to see ads for game tickets or people learning a language to see ads for travel packages.
The revenue generated by these online businesses pays for many of the free programs and services that users enjoy.
The Digital Advertising Alliance trade group runs a program allowing users to opt out of most forms of targeted advertising.
Browser changes that disrupt online business models would come at a high cost, advertisers say, hitting smaller companies and websites hard.
To survive, these companies might turn to tracking technology that's harder for browsers to block, such as digital fingerprinting that can use basic information about the location of a computer and the software installed to distinguish it from other machines.
"Innovation absolutely will happen. Work-arounds absolutely will happen. But in the time that takes to happen, a lot of blood will be left on the tracks," says Randall Rothenberg, president and chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau.
Anderson says Mozilla takes such concerns seriously and would consider altering the proposed cookie restrictions to make sure they don't unfairly skew the digital advertising market.
Some of the biggest players in online advertising are Facebook, Yahoo and Google, but they probably would avoid the kinds of restrictions Firefox is considering because of an exception that allows cookies to be placed by sites users voluntarily visit.
The role of Google, which gets most of its revenue from advertising and has been criticised in recent years for its approach to personal privacy, has drawn particular attention from those pushing for greater controls.
Google's Chrome browser has features that allow users to limit tracking or opt out altogether from targeted advertising, but the company is not publicly considering the more aggressive actions taken by Apple or Microsoft and under consideration by Mozilla.
"We'll continue to work with [the] industry on a common approach to responding to the Do Not Track feature," Google spokesman Chris Gaither says.
As web traffic increasingly shifts to mobile devices, Google's role is likely to grow.
Smartphones based on its Android operating system are the most popular in the world. Mobile devices, and the browsers made for them, generally have fewer privacy controls than desktop or laptop computers.
Some analysts say the intensity of the debate gives internet advertisers an opportunity to make a public case for the value of tracking before browsers limit it further. Shopping websites, for example, use cookies to recommend books or clothes to regular visitors.
"There's a risk that the industry will see this as an opportunity to escalate, and that will lead down a rat hole," says Jules Polonetsky, director of the Future of Privacy Forum, an industry-supported think tank.
"It's fine for tracking to come out into the sunlight and for companies to realise that if all you're trying to do is sell people stuff.
"Most people are cool with that, as long as they believe people are trying to do things for them rather than to them."
-Washington Post
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Source: http://www.stuff.co.nz/technology/digital-living/8469714/Tensions-rise-over-online-tracking
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