Mozilla to offer new feature for improved online privacy

Mozilla, the developer of the Firefox browser, is working a feature that will allow users to opt-out of online behavioral advertising.

The goal is to give users "a deeper understanding of and control over personal information online," Mozilla's head of privacy said in a blog posted on Sunday.

The feature will allow users to configure their Firefox browser to tell websites and advertisers that they would like to opt-out of any advertising based on their behavior, Alex Fowler [cq] wrote in his blog post. The user's preference is communicated to websites and third party ad servers using a new "Do Not Track HTTP header", which is sent with every click or page view in Firefox.

The feature wouldn't block advertising altogether, only personalized ads. If the user has enabled the feature, the advertiser would have to exchange the personalized ad for a standard ad, according to a diagram included in the blog post.

:story: Full story: Computerworld