"MyTerms" draft standard wants to fix what Do Not Track couldn't

Forward-looking: The now-deprecated Do Not Track browser non-standard was designed to provide a quick and easy way for netizens to opt out of ad tracking on the web. However, the feature had no chance of succeeding because compliance was entirely voluntary. Today, privacy advocates are proposing a new alternative based on a two-party, machine-readable "contract." The IEEE P7012 draft introduces a new standard for Machine Readable Personal Privacy Terms, offering a novel way for users to express their privacy preferences to third-party entities such as websites or mobile apps. Nicknamed MyTerms by Doc Searls – who chairs the standard's working group – this approach is founded on the idea that online services should agree to users' terms, not the other way around. The newly proposed approach is founded on the idea that online services should agree to users' terms, not the other way around... MyTerms addresses contractual interactions between individuals and service providers on a netw ... Read full article.