Everyone values their privacy, that’s for sure, which is why there are features such as “Do Not Track” built into browsers. This basically supposedly prevents websites from being able to track your activities, a great feature if you’d rather not have all these companies collect information on you without your knowledge.
However it seems that not all websites (also known as “edge providers”) honor that request and the bad news is that it looks like the FCC will not be enforcing it. Previously, the Consumer Watchdog had filed a petition at the FCC asking them to enforce the feature. The group also named websites and services such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Pandora, Netflix and LinkedIn as edge providers.
Basically the group wanted the FCC to apply the privacy rules outlined under Section 222 of the Communications Act to websites. However the FCC claims that because they are “pending adoption of rules to govern broadband Internet access service in a separate rulemaking proceeding,” they will not be enforcing it and making websites honor the request.
So what does this mean? Basically it means websites can feel free to not honor the Do Not Track request from users, and the FCC will not be doing anything about it, at least for now. The alternatives? We suppose you could stop using such web services, or you could opt for extensions like Privacy Badger or check out Firefox which introduced an anti-tracking feature in its browser.