Twitter Implements Do Not Track Privacy Option
It’s no secret that Facebook is worth about $100 billion because it collected personal data about its users. A lot of data.
Although Twitter tracks its users too — albeit in a much less aggressive way — the company has decided to take a different route. It announced Thursday that it is joining Mozilla, the maker of the Firefox Web browser, and giving its users the ability to opt-out of being tracked in any way through Twitter.
Twitter is doing this by enabling the Do Not Track feature in the Firefox browser that enables people to opt-out of cookies that collect personal information and any third-party cookies, including those used for advertising. The Do Not Track functionality will only work if a Web site agrees to acknowledge it.
Ed Felten, chief technology officer for the Federal Trade Commission, announced Twitter’s involvement in the privacy feature at a New York Internet Week privacy panel.
The announcement occurred during a session titled, “Opting in to Do Not Track: A morning mini-conference on privacy, tracking and more.”
In a message on Twitter, the company confirmed the FTC’s announcement.
Carolyn Penner, a spokeswoman for Twitter, said in a statement, “As the Federal Trade Commission’s CTO, Ed Felten, mentioned this morning, Twitter now supports Do Not Track.” Ms. Penner added: “We applaud the FTC’s leadership on Do Not Track, and are excited to provide the benefits of Do Not Track.”
Although Facebook has recently started allowing people to see the kind of data the company collects on them, there is no way to opt-out of Facebook’s aggressive information collection, which can even track people who are not logged into Facebook.
Twitter’s move to put power into the hands of the users with Do Not Track is part of a series of recent announcements by the company that seem to favor its users. Earlier this month Twitter filed a court motion to protect the information about one of its users who made use of Twitter during the Occupy Wall Street protests.
Last month Twitter was also lauded for announcing the Innovator’s Patent Agreement, a new type of patent agreement that gives legal rights to engineers who are awarded a patent, stopping any potential for a patent to be used for offensive litigation in the future.
In a blog post on the Mozilla Web site, the company shared new statistics for the Do Not Track add-on and applauded Twitter for its actions.
“We’re excited that Twitter now supports Do Not Track and global user adoption rates continue to increase, which signifies a big step forward for Do Not Track and the Web,” Mozilla said in the post. Mozilla noted that the adoption rates of Do Not Track are now 8.6 percent for desktop users and 19 percent for mobile users.
Via NewYork Times
