Yahoo won't support Do Not Track in IE10

Yahoo won't support Do Not Track in IE10
Yahoo gets tracking

Yahoo has confirmed that it won't be supporting Do Not Track in IE10 because it is turned on by default.

The search engine reckons that because Microsoft's browser has DNT turned on automatically it "doesn't express user intent" so it's just going to ignore it altogether.

Of course, it's in Yahoo's interest to ignore DNT – the search engine uses tailored results to serve up more relevant, higher-returning adverts.

Convenient

"Our users have come to expect a personalised Yahoo experience tailor-made for their lives," the company wrote in a statement.

"We fundamentally believe that the online experience is better when it is personalised."

DNT is not so much a rule as a guideline; when you turn it on in your browser settings (on IE, Safari or Firefox, at least – Chrome doesn't support it yet), it tells advertisers that you don't want to have your movements across the web monitored.

This puts the kibosh on search engine's plans to personalise every result they serve you because you've told them that you don't want them to use the fact that you visited Wardrobes R Us in order to return wardrobe-relevant ads or search results at a later date.

However, not all websites support the movement - Twitter is one of DNT's most high-profile supporters, but some major sites like Facebook still choose to ignore it.

Default

Microsoft made the controversial decision to make DNT the default setting in IE10, which means users who don't mind advertisers and other third-parties tracking their movements online will have to physically turn it off.

However, not all advertisers abide by DNT which means you're sending a message about what privacy you'd like to have, rather than actually keeping any data private.

To Yahoo's credit, it claims that this isn't the end of DNT for Yahoo users, concluding its blog post on the matter saying that it is still "committed to working with the World Wide Web Consortium to reach a DNT standard" as long as that standard suits both users and its own search engine needs.

News Editor (UK)

Former UK News Editor for TechRadar, it was a perpetual challenge among the TechRadar staff to send Kate (Twitter, Google+) a link to something interesting on the internet that she hasn't already seen. As TechRadar's News Editor (UK), she was constantly on the hunt for top news and intriguing stories to feed your gadget lust. Kate now enjoys life as a renowned music critic – her words can be found in the i Paper, Guardian, GQ, Metro, Evening Standard and Time Out, and she's also the author of 'Amy Winehouse', a biography of the soul star.

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