Paoli-based DuckDuckGo, the privacy-minded search engine, has proposed federal legislation that would prevent companies from tracking online users who don’t want to have their data collected, writes Christian Hetrick for the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The legislation currently has no sponsors in Congress. But it brings attention to a broken online privacy system where users usually have very little say in how companies collect and use their data. It also comes at a time when lawmakers are considering online privacy legislation and scrutinizing web giants like Google and Facebook over their consumer data practices.

The proposed legislation would require that websites strictly adhere to the Do Not Track option in the Internet browser settings. According to DuckDuckGo CEO Gabriel Weinberg, tens of millions of users have turned on this setting, yet there is no law that requires websites to respect their request for privacy.

Most websites usually disregard Do Not Track notifications, while third parties often deploy hidden tracking software that gathers consumers’ personal information from the pages they visit.

“This is the easiest solution because it already has been implemented in web browsers and people are already using it,” said Weinberg. “It just needs to have some regulatory teeth behind it.”

Read more about DuckDuckGo in the Philadelphia Inquirer here.

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