Alarmist Article Rails Against New Tech In Favor Of Mythological User Control

Alarmist Article Rails Against New Tech In Favor Of Mythological User Control

Major Browsers to Prevent Disabling of Click Tracking Privacy Risk By Lawrence Abrams April 6, 2019

"A HTML standard called hyperlink auditing that allows sites to track link clicks is enabled by default on Safari, Chrome, Opera, and Microsoft Edge, but will soon have no way to disable it. As it is considered a privacy risk, browsers previously allowed you to disable this feature. Now they are going in the opposite direction."

So, the article argues its point from an aspect of the computing industry built in the libertarian, individualistic mythos of American Culture.  Their argument is essential that the user should have full control over their own computing experience.  It is possible to build computers from scratch, but it's kind of like making a pencil from scratch; it's not really worth the effort.

To some degree or another, everyone buys some component, whether it's the OS, RAM, a hard drive or who know what else you can attach.  The idea that the user retains full control is a kind of purity goal of the group.  As a user, we should be able to change every setting, program a program to suit our needs, operate an internet server that services internet users and devices.  I know many businesses and individuals that do all of these things.  Most of my work is changing some setting that is misconfigured or writing a script that automates a task.

The point is that there is an endless stream of alterations to how a computer functions and operates that simultaneously expand our creative and intellectual powers, but also curtail options that were once more inviting than the new option.

The <ping> attribute is a solution 10-years in the making by the W3 Consortium, the group of computer scientists that develop the guidelines for server and browser compatibility.  The current solution that web developers have been using is a mish-mash of Javascript.

Some purist will disable Javascript in their web browser, which to me, would make most of my web use unusable.

For the rest of the world, the <ping> attribute will reduce costs by simplifying code complexity, down POSTs of simple key: pairs of data.