Twitter announced today it will offer a “Do Not Track” option that will let users opt out of being tracked through the service.
The plan was unveiled at an Internet Week panel in New York Thursday morning via Ed Felten, chief technology officer for the Federal Trade Commission.
Twitter also sent out a tweet stating: “The Federal Trade Commission’s CTO, Ed Felten, just mentioned Twitter now supports Do Not Track. We applaud the FTC’s leadership on DNT.”
Users will be able to implement the new feature by enabling Do Not Track in various browsers that offer it. Doing so will block Twitter from collecting information about users via cookies. Firefox’s feature only works if websites agree to it.
Twitter’s move comes after the FTC released a report in March calling on designers of Internet browsers to stop allowing websites to collect sensitive data about users. The other social media giant, Facebook, does not currently have a Do Not Track feature.