Microsoft is the first company to meet FTC demands for a “Do Not Track” option in their web browser, however criticism for that new Internet Explorer 9 function has already begun.
Microsoft released IE9 on March 14 and the anti-tracking option was announced immediately, however the program allows users to choose which Tracking Protection Lists (TPLs) to use and when more than one list is used there can be conflicts.
According to a study by Standford University, if one TPL says to allow a certain rule and another deny’s that rule the “allow” function will become active, overriding the deny rule and opening the users browser up to tracking.
What this means is that novice users, unaware that their previous list blocked a certain tracking option could open themselves up to being tracked if they download a new list that allows that tracking function to occur.
It’s still unclear how Microsoft will address the issue, but perhaps a warning box could be implemented that will ask a user if they want to set any potential tracking TPLs to the “deny” rule.