Better compliance with DNT

[Pluto is a Planet]

I was just messing around with things as I usually do and I found something I really didn't like... The cookie my browser has saved for neowin.net is almost 2000 characters long. I guess that's fine, but what I'm really concerned about is that half of this data is used to track me based on what articles I've viewed. And I have DNT turned on...

 

For reference, Neowin has stored in my cookies 144 articles that I've browsed on their site in the order last visited. Why is this data being kept about me and is there at least a way I can turn off tracking it?

 

For anyone who wants to find out about this information, open your browser console and run this code (if using IE, requires IE9+):

var e = document.cookie.split('; ').filter(function(e,i) {
    return e.indexOf('=') > -1 && e.split('=')[0] == 'news_views'
});
if(e.length) {
    alert('Neowin has ' + decodeURIComponent(e[0].split('=')[1]).split(',').length + ' articles of your viewing history stored.')
} else {
    alert('Neowin doesn\'t have any of your viewing history stored.')
}

Thanks.

[DaveLegg Developer]

It's nothing creepy, it's just so that when we count views on articles, we don't count you twice if you visit the same article again - it gives us a better idea of how popular an article actually is. Admittedly there are other ways we could implement this, but that's how it is for now.

[Ryoken]

DNT isn't about tracking what you do on a site, it's about tracking your actions over Many sites. For example, DNT is about keeping Google from tracking what you view here, not from keep Google from tracking what you view on Google

[Joe User]

It's nothing creepy, it's just so that when we count views on articles, we don't count you twice if you visit the same article again - it gives us a better idea of how popular an article actually is. Admittedly there are other ways we could implement this, but that's how it is for now.

 

Sounds messy. I clear cookies on exit, am I throwing off the counts?

[Torolol]

DNT are pointless when the server sets the cookies permission that allowed the said cookies to be inspected by 3rd party (beacon/advertising) sites,

assuming your browser honoring the server permission settings.