SACRAMENTO — The Santa Monica-based group Consumer Watchdog petitioned the Federal Communications Commission this week for rules that would force companies such as Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. to comply with do-not-track requests sent by web surfers’ browsers.

Such efforts haven’t gone far in the past. California dabbled with legislation that tried to encourage websites to at least disclose how they respond to do-not-track signals. But it hasn’t changed sites’ practices in any meaningful way.