Do Not Track (DNT) is a browser setting that sends a signal to websites asking them not to track the visitor’s behavior. The key word is “asking”, there’s no technical enforcement and most sites ignore it.
When a user enables DNT in their browser, every HTTP request includes a DNT: 1 header. Websites receive that signal. What they do with it is entirely up to them.
That’s always been the problem with DNT.
Key takeaways
- Do Not Track is a voluntary browser signal, not a technical block on tracking
- No law requires websites to honor it, so most don’t
- Burst includes an option to respect DNT and skip tracking for visitors who have it enabled
- Enabling this option in Burst is a genuine privacy gesture, not a legal requirement
A brief history of Do Not Track
DNT was proposed around 2009 as a web standard to give users control over tracking. The idea was simple: browsers send a signal, websites comply, everyone’s happy.
It never really worked. Major advertising companies refused to honor it. The W3C working group trying to define it officially disbanded in 2019 after years of stalled negotiations. Safari removed support for it entirely, partly because the DNT header itself became a fingerprinting vector (a unique signal that could help identify browsers that had it enabled, which was ironic).
DNT isn’t dead, but it’s not a meaningful privacy protection on its own. Most sites either don’t check for it or actively ignore it.
How Burst handles Do Not Track
Burst gives you the option to honor DNT requests. When you enable this setting, Burst skips tracking entirely for any visitor who has DNT enabled in their browser.
No session recorded. No pageview counted. No data stored.
This is a deliberate choice. Burst’s position is that if a visitor has gone out of their way to signal they don’t want to be tracked, you should respect that. It costs you a small amount of data accuracy. It costs nothing else.
To enable it, go to your Burst settings and look for the Do Not Track option under the privacy section.
DNT vs other privacy signals
DNT isn’t the only privacy signal floating around the web. A few others worth knowing:
Global Privacy Control (GPC). A newer signal, similar to DNT but with actual legal weight in some jurisdictions. Under California’s CCPA, websites must honor GPC opt-out signals. More meaningful than DNT in practice.
Cookie consent banners. These are consent-based rather than signal-based. Users actively accept or decline tracking rather than relying on a browser header.
Private browsing / incognito mode. Doesn’t send a DNT signal by default, though it does prevent local storage of history and cookies.
DNT sits in a category of “good intent, limited effect.” It reflects what users want. It just never got the industry adoption needed to make it reliable.
Should you honor Do Not Track on your WordPress site?
If you use Burst, yes. Turn it on.
It won’t dramatically affect your data. People who actively enable DNT represent a small share of visitors, and the data you lose from them is a fair trade for respecting their choice. It’s also a consistent signal to send: if you’re running a privacy-friendly analytics setup, honoring DNT fits naturally alongside it.
FAQs
On most sites, no. The signal is sent but typically ignored. A handful of sites and analytics tools honor it. Burst is one of them when the setting is enabled.
No. An ad blocker actively blocks tracking scripts from loading. DNT is a passive signal that asks sites not to track, but doesn’t prevent anything technically. Ad blockers are far more effective at actually stopping tracking.
In most jurisdictions, no. There’s no legal requirement to honor DNT signals. Global Privacy Control (GPC) is different — that does carry legal weight under California’s CCPA. If your WordPress site has a significant California audience, GPC is worth paying more attention to.
In your WordPress admin, go to Burst Statistics settings and find the privacy section. The Do Not Track option is there. Enable it to exclude DNT visitors from your tracking data.
Related definitions: what is cookieless tracking, what is first-party analytics and what is data sovereignty.
