diff --git a/requests/defaults.py b/requests/defaults.py
index 4e862d67..91d038bc 100644
--- a/requests/defaults.py
+++ b/requests/defaults.py
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ defaults = dict()
 
 defaults['base_headers'] = {
     'User-Agent': default_user_agent(),
-    'Accept-Encoding': ', '.join(('identity', 'deflate', 'compress', 'gzip')),
+    'Accept-Encoding': ', '.join(('gzip', 'deflate', 'compress')),
     'Accept': '*/*'
 }