Google Chrome update brings Do Not Track support

Do Not Track is a feature that has recently found its way into major web browsers such as Firefox, Internet Explorer or Opera. It is a privacy related feature that adds information to the connection process telling servers the browser connects to that the user does not want to be tracked. Switching to Do Not Track does not mean that users won’t be tracked anymore, as it is based on a voluntary system that third party advertisers may or may not comply with.

Yahoo for instance recently made the decision to ignore Internet Explorer 10′s Do Not Track header stating that Microsoft’s decision to turn the feature on by default in the browser does not express user intent. What Yahoo may have not considered in the argument is that the company policy ignores those Internet Explorer 10 users who would have enabled the DNT feature if it had not been enabled by default.

Google released an update for its Chrome browser yesterday that integrated Do Not Track in the web browser. Chrome 23 Stable is the last major browser to receive an option to send a Do Not Track header with connection requests. If you have been using other versions of Chrome, you may have noticed the feature previously in the settings. For the stable version, it is a first.

To activate Do Not Track in Google Chrome do the following:

Load chrome://chrome/settings/ in the address bar of the web browser, or click on the menu button on the top right and select Settings from the context menu.
When the settings open, click the show advanced settings link at the bottom of the page to open additional settings that are hidden by default.
Locate “Send a ‘Do Not Track’ request with your browsing traffic” under Privacy and check the box to enable the Do Not Track feature.