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New Tailored Suggestions, And Twitter Supporting Do Not Track

         

engine

8:39 am on May 18, 2012 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



New Tailored Suggestions, And Twitter Supporting Do Not Track [blog.twitter.com]
To make it easier and faster for everyone to get started on Twitter, we’re beginning some experiments with tailored suggestions in a number of countries around the world. The first experiment will show new users a list of accounts that we recommend you follow, alongside a timeline filled with Tweets from those accounts. If you’re part of the experiment, you’ll see a Twitter experience that’s relevant to you right when you sign up.
As always, we are committed to providing you with simple and meaningful choices about the information we collect to improve your Twitter experience. For those who don’t want to tailor Twitter, we offer ways to turn off this collection. As the Federal Trade Commission’s CTO, Ed Felten, mentioned earlier today, we support Do Not Track (DNT), which is reflected in our privacy policy as one of the ways you can indicate your preference. If you have DNT enabled in your browser settings, we will not collect the information that enables this feature, so you won’t see any tailored suggestions. We hope that our support of DNT highlights its importance as a privacy tool for consumers and creates even more interest and wider adoption across the web.

Sgt_Kickaxe

11:13 am on May 18, 2012 (gmt 0)



Good on you Twitter. I hope other big names in the industry take your lead and offer an off switch to the data gathering.

zeus

11:25 am on May 18, 2012 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I am not a member of any social networks, but if I would join one, it would be twitter you almost never hear anything bad from there.

Rosalind

12:17 pm on May 18, 2012 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I've heard a lot of people say they don't use Twitter because they don't understand it, so this could lead to a spurt of new sign-ups.

engine

1:46 pm on May 18, 2012 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



I agree, we need more Do Not Track capability. Tracking is a marketers dream, so sites will resist as much as possible.

Good move Twitter!

albo

2:33 pm on May 18, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Consider that it's not so much a "do not track" as a (as they phrase it in the options) "Do not base Suggested people to follow based on sites I have visited". And that this option applies only to Twitter users who visit via the website versus a Twitter-sponsored "app". (Many and perhaps even *most* users go with the "app".) Nonetheless, it's a pleasing step.

badbadmonkey

1:28 pm on May 21, 2012 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



offer an off switch to the data gathering

You mean like the "disable cookies" check box that has been in every browser for as long as I can remember?

Or a host of other user-oriented functionality, like client-side proxies which strip identifying details from headers, that are actually guaranteed to work - as opposed to some server side functionality that is trusted to do what the client requests in some bizarre header addition?

This has nothing to do with privacy or security, and everything to do with pandering to an ignorant public. You web designers - yes you - should know better.