Do Not Track (DNT)
Do Not Track (DNT) was an HTTP header and browser setting, specified by a W3C working group, that signaled a user’s preference not to be tracked across sites. It never became a standard and was largely abandoned because sites were never legally required to honor it.
Analytics and the web
DNT sent a simple header (DNT: 1) with every request, expressing intent rather than enforcing anything technically. It required every receiving site to voluntarily change its behavior, and most advertising-funded sites simply ignored the signal — there was no penalty for non-compliance and no way for the browser to verify a site had complied. Major browsers have since removed the DNT setting or stopped sending it by default, and the W3C working group that specified it closed in 2019 without making it a standard.
DNT’s failure is the reference case for why its successor, Global Privacy Control, was designed differently: GPC is written into law in several US states, giving it an enforcement mechanism DNT never had. The lesson generalizes beyond browser settings — a privacy signal only changes behavior at a service that is either compelled to honor it or architecturally already compliant, not one that merely promises to.
Pulse honors both Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control by default. A browser that sends either signal is not counted because the tracker sends nothing, and a site owner can turn that off.