“Do Not Track” isn’t working

Greenwashing, security theatre, hygiene theatre, and now privacy theatre. Is anything good for real anymore?

Apple’s “Do Not Track” feature seemed like such a clear step in the right direction. Based on how hard Facebook fought it, I had assumed the privacy improvement might actually be substantive. Apparently I should have been more cynical, which is something I rarely have to say. Karl Bode for TechDirt:

“Many app makers are just...ignoring the request entirely. In reality, Apple’s function doesn’t really do all that much, simply blocking app makers from accessing one bit of data: your phone’s ID for Advertisers, or IDFA. But most apps have continued to track a wide swath of other usage and location data, and the overall impact on user privacy has proven to be negligible.

“Actually fixing this problem would cost a whole lot of people a whole lot of money, so instead we get (waves hands around at a wide variety of privacy theater) whatever the hell this is supposed to be.”

*sigh* I guess we’re really nowhere close to real privacy progress.