Global Privacy Control (GPC) Global Privacy Control) is a new initiative by researchers, news companies from the United States, some browser makers, the EFF, some search engines and some other organizations to improve the privacy and rights of Internet users.
In one proposal, the GPC lets sites that a user links to know that the user denies the site the right to sell or share personal information with third parties.
Although it sounds like Do Not Track header 2.0, it is designed to work with existing (and future) legal frameworks such as the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) or the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
How does it work;
It all starts with a browser, and an extension or application which supports GPC. For now, that means a dev version of Brave, the DuckDuckGo app for Android or iOS, or browser extensions from DuckDuckGo, Disconnect, EFF, or Abine.
Brave has GPC enabled with no options to disable it, while other browsers, apps or extensions may require users to enable it. In the DuckDuckGo Privacy app Browser, for example, it is necessary to enable Global Privacy Control from the settings to use it.
For users, the above are the only ones that currently exist. The browser, application, or extension adds GPC information to the data submitted during links so that sites are aware of it.
The next step depends entirely on the site the user is linking to. Non-participating sites will ignore the header.
When a site participates, it will ensure that user data is not shared or sold to third parties.
Will GPC become important?
The Do Not Track started with the hope that it would change the internet privacy for the better, but it turned out not to be. In fact, it could even be used in fingerprinting efforts.
GPC's fate may be similar. Currently, support is limited to a few extensions, apps, a browser with a limited share market and on certain participating websites. Some of the participating websites may be important, such as The New York Times, but at the moment its use is very limited.
Mozilla and Automattic (WordPress) are leading the effort but have not implemented any applications so far.
But even if these two companies, or maybe others, add support for GPC, the big internet companies like Google, Microsoft Apple, etc. should join.
So waiting.
