Re: after W3C f2f in DC last week -- phone call Thursday morning 9 am Pacific time?

On 19/04/2012, at 5:54 AM, Lee Tien wrote:

> Hi Jeremy,
> 
> I don't know the answer to the first question.  Nick may.


If the answer is no, then this seems a problem to me.  User agents will doubtless allow syncing of DNT preferences between devices.  This will lead to an expectation by users that they only need to express their preference once, to be reflected across all the devices that they use.  (For example, Firefox and Chrome do this with other types of preferences.)

But if a DNT preference is solicited by a website out of band, this user expectation may be broken.  The user may have to express their DNT preference on each device, which will be troublesome, and it will be difficult for the user to remember whether he or she has expressed the preference or not (since, moreover, there will be no easy way to check in the browser's settings whether they have).

Unless out of band is to be disallowed altogether, then the only way to fix this problem that I can think of would be to require that the website communicate the DNT preference back to the browser, so that the browser can cache it and possibly sync it with the other devices.

-- 
Dr Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Policy and Project Officer
Consumers International
Kuala Lumpur Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East
Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599

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