Drag and Drop default value?

Question

JavaScript

In the second line ev.preventDefault(); prevent the handler from working by default, it is not clear what it does by default

function allowDrop(ev) {
    ev.preventDefault();
}

function drag(ev) {
    ev.dataTransfer.setData("text", ev.target.id);
}

function drop(ev) {
    ev.preventDefault();
    var data = ev.dataTransfer.getData("text");
    ev.target.appendChild(document.getElementById(data));
}