Do Not Track in Opera

July 3, 2012 · by Espen André Øverdahl

In Opera 12, we added a new feature called Do Not Track. This is a permission-based feature that informs a website that you do not wish to be tracked. But what does that mean exactly?

Many websites monitor and store information about their visitors. Even if you have never visited a company's site before, it can record and store data about everything from how long time you've spent on their site to what content you are looking at. This form of market research is very valuable, especially for the purpose of more targeted advertising.

Because this usually happens without your awareness, it may feel unsettling to realize your actions are being tracked on analytics services, advertising networks, and social media platforms. What Do Not Track does is to give you a way to say no to third-party web tracking.

This feature is disabled by default in Opera 12, but you can enable it from "Preferences" » "Advanced". Click on the security tab in the right column menu and check "Ask websites not to track me". Click OK and your settings will be saved.

If you want more information about the Do Not Track initiative, check out these links:

Do Not Track - Universal Web Tracking Opt Out. Maintained by Standford researchers Jonathan Mayer and Arvind Narayanan.
How to Activate Do Not Track in Opera 12.
Do Not Track - Wikipedia.

Readers' comments 17

Left under the original article, as archived.

TamilTuesday, July 3, 2012 11:35:05 AM
Or Enable Do Not Track Header.
Mağruf ÇolakoğluTuesday, July 3, 2012 12:34:46 PM
Barraco Mármol JerónimoTuesday, July 3, 2012 12:49:34 PM
nice opera thinks on the user
WizardTuesday, July 3, 2012 1:59:50 PM
Sounds good but when I try to acess Preferences I get a drop down menu calledd DELETE PRIVATE DATA asking me if I want to delete all private data. Is this another example of the problems we have been experiencing?

I am fed up with these glitches.
Charles SchlossTuesday, July 3, 2012 3:01:42 PM
Originally posted by Tamil:

Or Enable Do Not Track Header.

I had done it that way

Originally posted by lokutus-prime:

I am fed up with these glitches

Ask in the forums, plenty of people will help you
WizardTuesday, July 3, 2012 3:56:18 PM
Thanks, Charles I've been an Opera blogger for 8 years (back in 2004 when I started, Opera blogs were called Journals) and in the past I have used the forums but right now I'm venting here because this has happened right now. And I need to make a comment here direct to Opera. But if nothing happens from here then I'll go the long route and ask in the forums.
shadowknight sdnTuesday, July 3, 2012 5:20:05 PM
I think opera ghostery extension is more effective than DNT
ErikTuesday, July 3, 2012 6:52:22 PM
Also disabled Geolocation, probably is 'useful' sometimes, right now most sites uses their IP clients, so...

Good not to be tracked that much
abdalmahmoudTuesday, July 3, 2012 9:04:53 PM
nice
OttoThursday, July 5, 2012 12:57:47 PM
The "Ask websites not to track me" is found in two places in Opera:
1) settings > preferences > advanced > security > ask websites not to track me
2) settings > quick preferences > edit site preferences > network > ask websites not to track me

Is it enough to tick one of these off?

It would make sense to automatically update the other tick box when one is ticked off. Alternatively, remove one of the tick boxes to avoid confusion. Great feature nevertheless!
TamilThursday, July 5, 2012 1:46:16 PM
Originally posted by base0:

Is it enough to tick one of these off?
First will enable on all sites and second will enable only that site.
AthloniteFriday, July 6, 2012 6:40:20 AM
Until it's legal requirement for websites to comply with DNT then it's as useless as tits on a bull
WizardFriday, July 6, 2012 12:51:03 PM
All good theory Tamil, but it doesn't work on my Mac-written Opera browser, at least not for me right now ...but I'll keep trying it.
TamilFriday, July 6, 2012 1:58:26 PM
Ab.Razaque.keerioSaturday, July 28, 2012 11:03:44 AM
Ab.Razaque.keerioSaturday, July 28, 2012 11:04:06 AM
Cutting SpoonSaturday, July 28, 2012 7:33:18 PM
DNT will be quite useless without a two-way compliance framework. A server should respond to DNT by setting modes on third party embedded content or possibly feeding the browser info about which domains to block cookie access from etc.