Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox tools block Web tracking from advertisers
Google’s Chrome and Mozilla’s Firefox Web browsers are each gaining new features that will block advertisers from tracking Web surfing habits.
Firefox’s feature, announced Sunday, will be called Do Not Track and is under development. Chrome’s utility, announced Monday, is called Keep My Opt-Outs and available now.
The two tools to help protect user privacy follow a December Federal Trade Commission recommendation that all Web browsers add do not track features.
Shortly after the FTC recommendation, Microsoft said its upcoming Internet Explorer 9 will have a feature that will enable users to create lists of websites they do or do not want tracking them.
Alex Fowler, Mozilla’s technology and privacy officer, said in a blog post that Firefox’s upcoming Do Not Track feature will be the nonprofit group’s first step toward improving user privacy.
“When the feature is enabled and users turn it on, web sites will be told by Firefox that a user would like to opt-out of OBA [online behavioral advertising],” Fowler wrote. “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.”