Despite the fact that Internet Explorer had Do Not Track enabled by default starting in 2012, it looks like Microsoft won’t be doing the same thing with its new web browser, Project Spartan. While users will still be able to enable the feature themselves, and Microsoft has promised to make it easy and simple to do so, it’s disappointing see that it’s now an opt-in feature.
As industry standards evolve, how we implement those standards evolve as well. So to reflect the current requirements of the privacy standard for tracking preferences, Microsoft is changing how Do Not Track (DNT) is implemented in future versions of our browsers: We will no longer enable it as the default state in Windows Express Settings. While our implementation of DNT two years ago in Internet Explorer 10 (IE 10) was welcomed by many, others voiced concerns, especially given that discussions were underway at the time to establish an industrywide standard for user tracking preferences. Since then, the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has continued to refine language to address how users express a preference regarding tracking.