(unknown charset) Re: Propose to drop from the strawman: requirement for privacy policy disclosure

Hi Team,

my earlier suggestion (wrt the TPE doc) was to post two things at a
well-known URL on each site that wants to support DNT:

 a) A mandatory machine readable simple code that states whether a site
      follows DNT or not
 b) An optional URL to obtain more information (in a human readable way).

As mentioned during the call, I'd like to gather input why such a
simplistic proposal does not work.

Regards,
matthias


On 10/26/2011 5:53 PM, Justin Brookman wrote:
> Given that you acknowledge that a response header and/or
> machine-readable file also create an actionable hook for enforcement,
> I don't understand the resistance to a human-readable statement that
> does not rely on a user agent to interpret (apart from rendering the
> web page).  It does not create any additional liability on the part of
> the network.  As I said, I suppose I could live with an
> acknowledgement elsewhere as long as there was some sort of mandated
> response SOMEWHERE, but it's better from a user perspective if there's
> also a place to go to find out in plain English if the company is
> complaint with this spec, and I don't see why this is a heavy lift.
> 
> Justin Brookman
> Director, Consumer Privacy Project
> Center for Democracy & Technology
> 1634 I Street NW, Suite 1100
> Washington, DC 20006
> tel 202.407.8812
> fax 202.637.0969
> justin@cdt.org <mailto:justin@cdt.org>
> http://www.cdt.org
> @CenDemTech
> @JustinBrookman
> 
> 
> On 10/26/2011 11:23 AM, David Wainberg wrote:
>> I totally support verifiability and accountability. However, I do
>> not think this standard has to accomplish both, but rather can
>> provide the tools to do so.
>> The standard will be released into a larger context. It is not this
>> group's or the W3C's role, in my opinion, to create a regulatory
>> regime for online advertising. It is out of scope to create legal
>> requirements as part of the standard. A flag in the header, or a
>> machine readable file in a well-known location are logical technical
>> additions to the spec, that would provide useful feedback to
>> users/clients, and would support the efforts of relevant authorities
>> to do enforcement.
>>
>> One other thing I want to clarify. You said, "the spec needs to lay
>> out how to communicate to consumers that the header is being
>> respected." I disagree. The spec can lay out a technical means to
>> communicate that an entity intends to respect the header. There is
>> no way to communicate whether it is actually respected. (This is an
>> important distinction, in my view, because it goes to evaluating
>> proposals for responses.)
>>
>> On 10/25/11 5:50 PM, Justin Brookman wrote:
>>> A lot of this effort is dedicated to verifiability --- isn't that
>>> why we've spent so much time discussing the sending of compliance
>>> headers?  Having an accountable statement of compliance is another
>>> effort at that.  
>>> I suppose you could make an argument that it should be in the
>>> technical spec instead of the compliance spec (though I would
>>> disagree), but especially if third-party header responses are
>>> deemed optional or a Bad Idea, the spec needs to lay out how to
>>> communicate to consumers that the header is being respected.
>>>   If the header just flies into the blue with no standardized way
>>> to disclose compliance, this process seems destined to fail; if
>>> nothing else, privacy policy disclosure should be considered as an
>>> alternative to automated header responses.
>>> Justin Brookman
>>> Director, Consumer Privacy Project
>>> Center for Democracy & Technology
>>> 1634 I Street NW, Suite 1100
>>> Washington, DC 20006
>>> tel 202.407.8812
>>> fax 202.637.0969
>>> justin@cdt.org <mailto:justin@cdt.org>
>>> http://www.cdt.org
>>> @CenDemTech
>>> @JustinBrookman
>>>
>>> On 10/25/2011 5:16 PM, David Wainberg wrote:
>>>> Section 6.4 of the Compliance and Scope document states, "In order
>>>> to be compliant with this specification, an operator of a
>>>> third-party domain must clearly and unambiguously assert in the
>>>> privacy policy governing that domain that it is in compliance with
>>>> this specification." Such a requirement is out of scope of this
>>>> standard and should not be included in the strawman. While it may
>>>> be in scope to create tools that facilitate auditing and
>>>> enforcement by other entities, it is not the role of this
>>>> technical standard to impose legal requirements for compliance.
>>>> Any such requirements will come from entities with relevant
>>>> authority, e.g. Congress or the FTC in the US.

-- 
Dr. Matthias Schunter, MBA
IBM Research - Zurich, Switzerland
Ph. +41 (44) 724-8329,  schunter(at)acm.org
PGP 989A A3ED 21A1 9EF2 B005 8374 BE0E E10D
VCard: http://www.schunter.org/schunter.vcf

Received on Wednesday, 26 October 2011 17:21:29 UTC