A Mozilla Firefox volunteer developer named Jonathan Mayer has now threatened to render years of negotiations about the nature of ad-based tracking cookies useless, by effectively shutting them down forever. Mayer has set a cutoff date for ad companies’ negotiations for July. Should they fail to reach a consensus on “Do Not Track” by then, Mayer will shut off the ability to use third party tracking cookies on Firefox for good.

Mayer suggested the talks be abandoned if the browser makers and advertisers cannot come to an agreement this month. This would send advertisers back to the drawing board to find new ways to tailor ads to consumers over the internet. Right now, the browser situation is mixed; Apple’s Safari blocks cookies, Internet Explorer 10 does not block tracking, and Chrome has tracking on by default. Advertisers want tracking on by default, and it’s not clear how the impasse will be resolved.

According to some research, digital advertising is a $40 billion industry in the U.S. alone, and about half of that spend requires using third-party cookies to locate and target relevant consumers. With Safari blocking cookies by default, and apparently Firefox to follow, advertisers are going to have figure out how to target consumers in some other way. Ironically, the end result may be less control in the hands of users, or less transparency. Complicating the issue is the increasing use of mobile devices to access web sites, with an entirely different set of issues for tracking unique users. The situation is a mess, and getting messier.

Source: Business Insider