Microsoft will not turn on 'Do Not Track' privacy feature by default in new browsers

Microsoft has announced its decision to not turn on the 'Do Not Track' feature in the upcoming versions of Internet Explorer and Spartan browsers by default.

Microsoft Chief Privacy Officer Brendon Lynch said that the decision was taken in order to abide by the latest draft of the official W3C standard for 'Do Not Track', which stated clearly that the signal must represent the user's preference and not the choice of some vendor or institution outside the user's control, reported Tech Crunch.

The "Do Not Track" feature in many popular browsers tells websites and their advertisers that you want to opt out of third-party tracking for advertising purposes. All major browser vendors like, Google, Mozilla, Opera, Apple and Microsoft support this feature but the user's request to not be followed is not necessarily honoured by advertisers as it is no more than a request sent by the browser.

Microsoft started enabling the "Do not Track" feature as the default setting with the rolling out of Internet Explorer 10.