MINUTES: 23 June P3P Spec call

Participants:
Lorrie Cranor
Serge Egelman (scribe)
David Stampley
Brooks Dobbs
Giles Hogben


Primary Purpose:

Lorrie mentions whether software downloads should be part of the web 
browsing
purpose, rather than its own separate purpose.

Dave mentions that we should have it to alert unsuspecting users who 
might
accidentally download spyware.

Serge says that to facilitate a download, no different data is needed 
beyond the
clickstream data.  Any collection of names and email addresses is 
simply for
survey purposes, so that the company can see who is downloading their 
software;
this information is not needed for the download, and is therefore 
technically
not the primary purpose.  However, he later concedes that from the 
user's
perspective, it is out primary concern to make the user aware of any 
software
they may be installing (i.e. spyware).  We agree to keep the category.

The argument changes to the wording: is "executable program" too vague 
and could it be
used to cover unintended material such as javascript?  Brooks joins the 
conversation and mentions that he has been thinking about this for a 
very long time.  Discussion focuses on trying to define software 
downloads.  Lorrie proposes making this more technical and specific 
since this description is for the person setting up P3P and not the
end-user.  We decide to include examples in the description.

Lorrie moves to the customization purpose.  Serge says the financial 
example is
ambiguous as the primary purpose could be seen as getting news and 
information or
financial management, and not primarily customization.  Dave asks if 
changing
the language of the website is an example of this, and we decide that 
we should
change the description to his example, and decide to leave the 
customization
purpose in the specification.


XML Schema:

Lorrie contacted people at IBM to get input on the potential changes.  
No one
responded.  Lorrie then contacted Microsoft to no avail either. We 
really need some
input from implementers on this issue.

Beyond that, no one has any new information.  Serge agrees to take a 
look at the
backwards compatibility issue before our next call.  Lorrie says she'll 
try and contact
Microsoft and IBM some more so that we can get some input before 
breaking backwards compatibility.


Next call is tentatively scheduled for July 21st.

Received on Wednesday, 23 June 2004 13:41:35 UTC