The Members Forum

The head of the Senate’s powerful commerce committee said Friday he’ll introduce a bill that forces online advertising and tracking companies to let users easily opt out of online tracking.

Chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) said the bill, to be introduced next week, will create a “universal obligation for all online companies” to not track people who set a browser flag or cookie saying they don’t want to be tracked.

Rockefeller’s move complements a recent privacy bill introduced by Sens. John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and John McCain (R-Arizona) that would enshrine a consumer bill on online rights, though it does not explicitly say that companies must obey the so-called ‘Do Not Track’ flag.

The Do Not Track flag is a simple idea that’s already been built into Firefox and IE9. If users choose to turn on the option, every time they visit a web page the browser will send a message to the site, saying “do not track.”

The next version of Apple’s Safari browser is expected to have the flag as well, but the feature is not on the road map of Google’s Chrome browser. Google, which runs the net’s biggest online advertising and tracking platform, says the meaning of the flag is too vague.

Currently, users who don’t want to be tracked by the net’s largest online advertisers need to visit the Network Advertising Initiative page to set opt-out cookies, which will be deleted anytime a user clears their cookies.

Wired has the details HERE!