The Berlin Regional Court found LinkedIn's ignoring of "Do Not Track" signals and publishing of profiles without permission to be illegal. The ruling supported consumer control over personal data.

Who really does hope something from the “DnT”

While the ruling against LinkedIn is a welcome development, I’m skeptical it will truly move the needle on respecting user privacy. Do Not Track has been around for years, yet sites continue ignoring it without consequence. This case may set a precedent, but it’s one isolated judgment in Germany.

      • Oliver Lowe
        7•1 year ago

        Honestly, DNT as it’s implemented in browsers today is not a sufficient solution

        I’ve come to the same conclusion (blogged about it here https://www.srcbeat.com/2023/11/linkedin-do-not-track/) after updating myself on where it’s all at.

        I also think about pop-ups back in the 90s/00s. Imagine if browsers sent a “No-Popups” header (or something) back then. I doubt we would have seen any change in company behaviour. Instead, it took something like Firefox to implement pop-up blocking by default (https://lwn.net/Articles/130792/).

    • Dran
      3•1 year ago

      We could certainly un-depricate it. It’s not like we need to reinvent the wheel here as a society on this.

  • andrew_bidlaw
    27•1 year ago

    I hope someday DNT would not be an additional part of your digital fingerprint nailing you down as a part of a minority who turn this shit on.

    • TGHOST-V0OP
      6•1 year ago

      thats clearly an risk, they can use this to determine what they want to see.

  • @[email protected]
    26•1 year ago

    Btw, most of the tracking scripts use dnt as additional data point, since it’s opt-in and most don’t have that set.

  • @fluckx
    18•1 year ago

    It’s a step. I’ll take the win. Hopefully other countries follow.

  • @[email protected]
    2•1 year ago

    Users must expressly agree before their profiles can be visible to non-members.

    Wait the law encourages authwalls? Isn’t that worse?

      • @[email protected]
        -4•1 year ago

        That could do both ways tho.

        I dont consent to Facebook and LinkedIn making my profile invisible to internet users who dont have an account with them (which on those platform it is not possible to register and account anonymously)

        • @[email protected]
          7•1 year ago

          Ok but LinkedIn and Facebook don’t have a duty to broadcast what you want all over the internet.

          They don’t need consent not to share personal information, only to share it.

          • @[email protected]
            -2•1 year ago

            Yeah, I disagree with that. I think we need laws that require companies to allow anonymous users to access their content, with few exceptions.