Brave Browser to Practically Support the “Global Privacy Control” Proposal
Last updated June 28, 2021
- The “Global Privacy Control” proposal seeks to empower internet users with the right to opt-out of data collection.
- Several internet companies are joining in the effort, and Brave is among the first to make this proposal a default system in the browser.
- Brave users won’t even have the option to activate data sharing and user tracking if they want that.
Brave has announced that they have already started working on introducing stricter data protection measures on its browser, implementing the “Global Privacy Control” standard that is being developed right now by a new consortium of entities. The participating members include Abine, Brave, Consumer Reports, Digital Content Next, Disconnect, DuckDuckGo, EFF, Glitch, the New York Times, The Washington Post, and also Mozilla.
The goal is to promote tools to help consumers exercise their privacy rights no matter where they are based globally. For this purpose, and during this first experimental phase, there will be browser extensions that will communicate the message of wanting to opt-out of any data scraping done on the websites the users visit. Hopefully, this will force businesses to respect user preferences and exclude them from their typical data collection and selling process.
Brave is currently testing an aggressive implementation of the GPC proposal in the Nightly desktop and Android beta channels, which will be revolving around two elements. First, by default, the browser will send the opt-out message to the advertisers, and there won’t even be an option for the users to opt-in if they wanted it. Secondly, Brave Browser will ramp up its anti-fingerprinting system, and one way to achieve this is by reducing the configuration options in the browser’s settings.
Brave sees its browser as a privacy-preserving tool that was specifically selected by internet users who do not want their data sold by shady advertising networks. Thus, if someone wants to opt-in to tracking, they will have to pick a different browser now. We doubt that there will be many to object to the way Brave is imposing the GPC proposal, though, so this is definitely a move in the right direction. In the end, why put an extra confirmation step in the way?
Related: 8 Best Anonymous Browsers in 2020
If you are looking for other privacy-respecting browsers that allow users to browse the web anonymously, check out our list above with the eight best software tools to consider for this purpose. Some of these will require extra configuration and digging in the settings, but the results will justify the effort.
