Search engine and online advertising giant Google has reluctantly announced that it will add a Do Not Track privacy setting to its Chrome web browser by the end of the year.
Do Not Track is a yet unapproved web standard currently being considered by the W3C, allowing users’ web browsers to automatically request not to be tracked by the websites they visit.
Because DNT is based on an honour system, the implicit assumption is that most users will not manually change their system settings to enable DNT, and since it will therefore only be enabled by a small percentage of users, it is hoped that most websites and advertisers will honour the wishes of users who ask not to be tracked.
Because Google ultimately derives the overwhelming majority of its revenue from its advertising services, it had moved slower than competitors such as Mozilla, Apple, Opera or Microsoft.
According to InformationWeek, the privacy setting will also be available in Chromium.
Andrew Sadauskas is a former journalist at SmartCompany and a former editor of TechCompany.
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