Do-not-track doesn't threaten the free Internet - not by a longshot. Patrick is flat out wrong claiming it will and so are others that argued . According (PDF) "In 2009, overall revenue from all types of Internet advertising was $22.661 billion, while spending on behaviorally targeted ads was $925 million." That's less than 5 percent.

But in a world where Web surfers can choose to opt out from being tracked online, contextual advertising and nontracking forms of interest-targeted advertising are unaffected. Advertisers can still show Patrick those awesome relevant ads he likes; they just can't use his browsing history on other sites. Non-behavior based forms of online advertising, such as contextual, demographic, search, and social network advertising, would not be impacted by do-not-track measures and can still serve up relevant ads.

Patrick also argues he doesn't care about advertising tracking him because it's "not the kind of privacy (he is) worried about." This smacks of a very narrow "I don't care because it doesn't affect me" attitude. I do care about advertisers tracking me, but more importantly about those seeking loans, life insurance, and health information. I worry about the woman who spent the last six months scouring the Web for information on breast cancer only to have her IP address flagged by a health insurance provider's Website when she requests information for a new policy.

Other that do-not-track restrictions are too hard for the advertising industry to implement. That is not true. Microsoft and Mozilla both have proved that implementing do-not-track flags (as an HTTP header) is possible.

Still other parties, such as the , say that doing away with behavioral ads based on tracking data will lead to more-obtrusive ads. In my experience nothing has ever stopped advertisers from squeezing more-obtrusive ads into my browser. If advertisers can do it, they will--do-not-track laws or not.