Google And Mozilla Announce New Privacy Features

Add two more Internet browser makers to the list of companies planning to offer Web users new ways to control how their personal data is collected online.

On Monday, Mozilla and Google announced features that would allow users of the Firefox and Chrome browsers to opt out of being tracked online by third-party advertisers. The companies made their announcements just weeks after the Federal Trade Commission issued a report that supported a “do not track” mechanism that would let consumers choose whether companies could monitor their online behavior.

In a blog post by Alex Fowler, Mozilla’s technology and privacy officer, the company unveiled a proposed feature for its Firefox browser that would send a signal to third-party advertisers and commercial Web sites indicating that a user did not want to be tracked. The mechanism, being called a Do Not Track HTTP header, would rely on companies that receive the information to agree not to collect data.

The approach differs from other options currently available to users that rely on cookies or user-generated lists. In December, Microsoft announced a feature called Tracking Protection for Internet Explorer 9 that would rely on lists that users create that indicate which sites they do not want to share information with.

“We believe the header-based approach has the potential to be better for the web in the long run because it is a clearer and more universal opt-out mechanism than cookies or blacklists,” said Mr. Fowler in the blog post.

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