It was a spectacular failure because the people who thought of it didn't stick to it.

recursive 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I don't think so. It was conceived on the user agent side AFAIK. The publishers decided not to honor it. At that point, there's not much point to keeping it on the UA side.

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bigfatkitten 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

In no small part because the people who thought of it (the browser makers) had a powerful commercial incentive to ditch it, because they are funded by advertising.

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pseudalopex 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Microsoft enabled Do Not Track by default. Advertisers said they would ignore it for this reason. Most of them never respected it. Apple removed it from Safari years later because it was used for tracking. Mozilla removed it from Firefox years after Safari. Chrome has it even now.

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shadowgovt 3 hours ago | parent [-]

> Advertisers said they would ignore it for this reason

That was the missed opportunity. Had the EU stepped in and said "I'm sorry, the user expressed explicit intent to not be tracked and you're planning to ignore that? How about that's a fine?" it would have survived.

But they weren't prepped to take action yet.

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pseudalopex 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Microsoft made the user expressed intent and the user expressed no opinion look the same.

	▲	K0nserv 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		That doesn't track (pun not intended). It's a binary state so either side has to be the default, they just changed which side the default fell on. Prior to the change no opinion expressed and expressed intent (in favour of tracking) still looked the same.