Amidst the FTC's consideration of a "do not track" policy, Microsoft is now adding a feature to Internet Explorer that will allow users to opt out of being tracked by websites. The company announced yesterday that it will launch this privacy feature so consumers can feel safer browsing the web, but marketers may fear for their marketing campaigns.
Officials explain that users can now add websites to their Internet Explorer Tracking Protection Lists, which IE treats as a "Do Not Call" signal. This disables information exchange with selected sites. "Because anyone can create a Tracking Protection List, we expect consumers to have a great deal of choice to match their comfort levels with sharing their data online," the company says.
Microsoft told the Wall Street Journal it considers its protection feature to be useful primarily because it puts the power of privacy in consumers' hands, rather than relying on websites to comply with requests. Still, not everyone is enthusiastic about this development.
As Randall Rothenberg, chief executive of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, told the newspaper, marketers may be right to worry that the IE feature compromises their online campaigns. "We are concerned that the new browser features will block the advertising that supports free content on the internet, and may inadvertently block news, entertainment and social media content as well," he said.
Plus, the changes could affect a large number of online consumers' web behaviors. According to Browser Media, Internet Explorer is the leading web browser by a large margin, representing 58.44 percent of the market in November 2010. Marketers, stay tuned.
