The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the next version of the Apple operating system, code name Lion, will feature a Do Not Track feature baked into the Safari browser. Lion is currently available for developers to tinker around with but not yet available to the general public. A Do Not Track feature lets you set your browsing so that advertisers won’t be able to follow you around the internet and build a profile of you for the purpose of directing ads your way. The latest editions of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and Mozilla’s Firefox already have this option so with Apple adding it too, that leaves Google’s Chrome as the only browser without. Obviously, Google makes a mountain of money off of advertising, so there’s that.
They also offer a Chrome extension that you can download and use for this same purpose. Also, new Chrome browsers come out fairly often. I would be curious to see what gets here first: the actual public version of new Safari or a new edition of Chrome with Do Not Track rushed out the door by Google.
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