An old saying has it that half of all advertising budgets are wasted——the trouble is, no one knows which half. In the internet age, at least in theory, this fraction can be much reduced. By watching what people search for, click on and say online, companies can aim "behavioural" ads at those most likely to buy.
有句老话说得好，花在广告上的费用有一半被浪费了——但问题是，没人知道究竟是哪一半。在互联网时代，至少在理论上，这种浪费可以大幅减少。通过观察人们在网上的搜索、点击、和说话内容，企业可以将"行为"广告投放给最有可能购买产品的网民。
In the past couple of weeks a quarrel has illustrated the value to advertisers of such fine-grained information: Should advertisers assume that people are happy to be tracked and sent behavioural ads? Or should they have explicit permission?
在过去几周，大家的一席争论已经展示了这种精细信息对于广告商的价值：广告商是否可以认为用户乐意被追踪，且愿意接受行为广告？或者说广告商是否应该先得到用户明确的许可才行？
In December 2010 America's Federal Trade Commission (FTC) proposed adding a "do not track" (DNT) option to internet browsers, so that users could tell advertisers that they did not want to be followed. Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Apple's Safari both offer DNT; Google's Chrome is due to do so this year. In February the FTC and Digital Advertising Alliance (DAA) agreed that the industry would get cracking on responding to DNT requests.
2010年12月，美国联邦贸易委员会曾提出，应该在网络浏览器上添加"禁止追踪"（DNT）选项，这样用户就可以告诉广告商他们不想被追踪。微软公司的IE浏览器和苹果公司的Safari浏览器目前都提供"禁止追踪"选项；谷歌公司的Chrome浏览器今年也即将要提供类似功能。今年二月份，联邦贸易委员会和数字广告联盟刚达成了一致意见: 该行业可以对"禁止追踪"的相关提议做出积极有力的回应。
On May 31st Microsoft set off the row: It said that Internet Explorer 10, the version due to appear with Windows 8, would have DNT as a default.
5月31日，微软公司宣布，在和windows 8一同发布的IE10浏览器上，DNT将设为默认选项。微软此举引发了大家的争议。
Advertisers are horrified. Human nature being what it is, most people stick with default settings. Few switch DNT on now, but if tracking is off it will stay off. Bob Liodice, the chief executive of the Association of National Advertisers，says consumers will be worse off if the industry cannot collect information about their preferences. People will not get fewer ads, he says. "They'll get less meaningful, less targeted ads."
这令广告商们惶恐不已。大多数用户都不会去修改浏览器的默认设置，这是人的本性。现在很少有人会开启"禁止追踪"功能，但如果"禁止追踪"处于关闭状态，那么它就会一直处于关闭状态。美国广告协会首席执行官Bob Liodice称，如果广告行业不能收集有关用户偏好的信息，那么这对于消费者来说将更为不利。他说，用户看到的广告不会减少，"他们将会看到更没有意义、更没有针对性的广告"。
It is not yet clear how advertisers will respond. Getting a DNT signal does not oblige anyone to stop tracking, although some companies have promised to do so. Unable to tell whether someone really objects to behavioural ads or whether they are sticking with Microsoft's default, some may ignore a DNT signal and press on anyway.
现在还不清楚广告商们将会作何反应。尽管有些公司已经承诺一旦得到"禁止追踪"的信号就会停止追踪，但是得到"禁止追踪"的信号无法强行要求任何公司停止追踪。由于无法分辨人们是真的反对行为广告，还是他们只是没有改动微软的默认设置，有些公司可能会忽视"禁止追踪"信号，一如既往继续追踪。
Also unclear is why Microsoft has gone it alone. After all, it has an ad business too, which it says will comply with DNT requests, though it is still working out how. If it is trying to upset Google, which relies almost wholly on advertising, it has chosen an indirect method: There is no guarantee that DNT by default will become the norm. DNT does not seem an obviously huge selling point for windows 8——though the firm has compared some of its other products favorably with Google's on that count before. Brendon Lynch, Microsoft's chief privacy officer, blogged: "we believe consumers should have more control." Could it really be that simple?
同样不清楚的是，微软为何要特立独行。毕竟，微软自己也有广告业务，微软声称自己的广告业务也要遵守"禁止追踪"的要求，尽管微软还在研究如何遵守该要求。如果微软是在试图打击几乎完全依赖广告业务的谷歌，那么它选择了一个非直接的方法：因为无法保证默认"禁止追踪"模式会成为行规。虽然公司以前还拿自己的其他几个产品同谷歌的产品在这方面做过比较，但"禁止追踪"也不像是Windows 8的巨大卖点。微软首席隐私官Brendon Lynch在博客中写到："我们相信用户应该有更多的控制权。"事情真的这么简单吗？