The folks at Mozilla, the non-profit group behind the Firefox web browser, are serious about keeping companies from tracking consumers who don't want to be tracked.
Yesterday, Brendan Eich, chief technology officer at Mozilla, said it was moving ahead with the development of blocking technology that would limit the placement of cookies in web browsers. Data companies and others use the information gleaned from tracking consumer movement online for commercial purposes. The new blocking technology, which is months away, will require consumers to give their permission for tracking to take place.
"We're trying to change the dynamic so that trackers behave better," Mr. Eich told The Washington Post.
Not everyone is cheering Mozilla's plans. Mike Zaneis, general counsel at the Interactive Advertising Bureau, was quoted by Adweek as calling the move a "nuclear first strike" against advertisers and agencies.
Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who has been among the leaders in Congress pushing for consumer privacy online, said Mozilla's actions demonstrate "there's a market for giving consumers strong privacy protections ... when online advertisers fall short."