RE: WSJ - browser adoption of do not track

David - all good points, although the fact remains that part of the problem
for the consumer is that the aggregate impact of all the different tools and
their instability means that it is near impossible for the consumer to
manage so many will have given up.  The implications are that industry
arguments to the effect that most users don’t care is almost certainly
overstating the case, to an unknown extent.

Quite by coincidence while looking online for any blog commentary about the
problem with the Google persistent opt out cookie in FF4, I came across the
following article at http://bit.ly/gfZhY0.  Admittedly it is a company
justifying its business play, but before getting to that point, its
description of the problem it is seeking to address is spot on & totally in
line with the points I was making earlier.

Malcolm Crompton

Managing Director
Information Integrity Solutions Pty Ltd
ABN 78 107 611 898

T:  +61 407 014 450

MCrompton@iispartners.com  
www.iispartners.com 



-----Original Message-----
From: public-privacy-request@w3.org [mailto:public-privacy-request@w3.org]
On Behalf Of David Singer
Sent: Tuesday, 19 April 2011 4:06 AM
To: Malcolm Crompton
Cc: public-privacy@w3.org
Subject: Re: WSJ - browser adoption of do not track


On Apr 15, 2011, at 23:52 , Malcolm Crompton wrote:

> The problem with all this industry self regulation is that it remains
> fractured and unstable.  
> 

Yes, it does. The upsides of industry self-regulation over government or
other external regulation are that the industry can probably adapt more
rapidly to new concerns, challenges, and questions, and one hopes that the
industry is well informed about what is going on, what is possible, and so
on.

At the moment, I fear we are facing a situation in which

* user expectations, understanding, and their associated societal norms, are
developing and in varied stages in various places and people -- a fluid
situation; users sometimes don't know what they want or don't want until
some specific incident helps clarify, for example;

* industry practices, the technology basis, and the business models, are
very much in an exploratory and developing phase right now; both new tools
(e.g. HTML5) and new techniques are coming along all the time; we have a
fluid situation here;


Given a situation in which both ends of the question are developing and
learning as they go, hoping for perfect clarity and stability any time soon
may be optimistic.

David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.

Received on Thursday, 21 April 2011 01:21:53 UTC