Duckduckgo reminded that browser’s “Do Not Track” setting may be ineffective

In order to protect privacy, some people will turn on the “Do Not Track” feature in their browser. Search engine Duckduckgo recently published an article saying that this setting is not really useful.

The actual function of the “Do Not Track” feature is only sending a message that the user do not want to be tracked by websites. In the end, it depends on whether the website itself has followed the instructions to stop tracking users. However, Duckduckgo said in the article that most major websites do not respect this setting, including Google, Facebook and Twitter.

In fact, the W3C Tracking Protection Working Group, which is responsible for managing the “Do Not Track” functional standard, has stopped maintenance operations last month because of the modest practical utility. Also, Safari has announced the removal of the “Do Not Track” feature in next update, to prevent other sites using it for analysis purposes.