Twitter has joined the industry-wide "Do Not Track" program, which Mozilla said Thursday continues to attract new users.
Mozilla's version of Do Not Track, which essentially asks websites to let users opt out of tracking cookies, has been implemented on 8.6 percent of all desktop versions of Firefox, and 19 percent of Firefox Mobile, Mozilla said.
The highest percentage of users turning on Do Not Track are located in the Netherlands, France, and the United States, Mozilla added.
Twitter also said that it supports Do Not Track, at least on its Web service. "The Federal Trade Commission's CTO, Ed Felten, just mentioned Twitter now supports Do Not Track," Carolyn Penner, a Twitter spokeswoman, stated via Twitter. "We applaud the FTC's leadership on DNT."
"Do Not Track," in principle, would allow users to completely opt out of being tracked by third-party websites. In Firefox, Do Not Track is a feature that allows you to let a website know you would like to opt-out of third-party tracking for purposes including behavioral advertising. It does this by transmitting a Do Not Track HTTP header every time your data is requested from the Web. Users will still see ads, but not ones geared specifically at the user.
In Firefox, users can find the Do Not Track request on the "Privacy" pane, under "Tools > Options... > Privacy." A user then needs to check the box next to "Tell websites I do not want to be tracked."
"Do Not Track" originated as an FTC suggestion for browsers in late 2010. Mozilla was the second browser developer to actually add the header to its code in late January 2011. Microsoft Tracking Protection was included in the release candidate of Internet Explorer 9, which was announced in February 2011.. Apple added Do Not Track to Safari in April 2011.
The White House proposed a Bill of Rights for privacy protections that incorporated Do Not Track, even though the FTC later proposed somewhat softer privacy recommendations.
At present, only Internet Explorer and Firefox have actually built tracking protection into the browser; Chrome lags here, though Google has stated that it will eventually build in some form of tracking protection.
The problem, according to recent hands-on PCMag testing to determine how each browser implements Do Not Track, is that cooperation with the Do Not Track feature is essentially voluntary.
Those results belie the results of a study Mozilla released on Wednesday, which show of 10,000 people surveyed, 49 percent feel that their privacy is protected more when Do Not Track is enabled. Only 12 percent felt that way without the setting enabled, Mozilla said.
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