RE: ACTION-212: Draft text on how user agents must obtain consent to turn on a DNT signal

Ian,

I think that DNT users will quickly be prompted with UGE requests and  realize that their might be some drawbacks to send DNT:1. It is also possible that some websites likely ITIF will simply reject their requests (http://www.itif.org/publications/why-itif-rejects-your-do-not-track-request) so I dont' think UA must describe these drawbacks as they will be quite obvious. On the other hand, I don't believe they'll get a similar signal if they set DNT:0 and I think this is a real concern.

About DNT name, a text like "Disable tracking" would not correspond to what the header does, but "Turn  on DoNotTrack" does. It's just telling that the browser will send the DoNotTrack signal. You're right that in many cases data will still be collected for permitted uses, but I dare hope that some third parties will just stop collecting data (or even aggregate them very quickly) when they receive DNT:1.

Vincent


________________________________________
From: Ian Fette (イアンフェッティ) [ifette@google.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 5:23 AM
To: Justin Brookman
Cc: public-tracking@w3.org Group WG
Subject: Re: ACTION-212: Draft text on how user agents must obtain consent to  turn on a DNT signal

I have to say that this has been one of my favorite emails this week w.r.t. the Thundercats t-shirt. That said, being serious for a moment, I think part of it is that we still haven't settled on what the thing should be called. It's currently DNT but I believe we agreed that it was a placeholder and would re-visit the name once we had figured out what we managed to actually build.

Saying "Click here to turn on Do Not Track" is a lot like saying "Click here to get a free pony and see puppies." It sounds great and I can't imagine why any user wouldn't say "yes" given the text. The problem is that the user isn't really getting ponies, puppies, or a world in which their web browsing behaviour is magically kept private by re-inventing the way the Internet works. Even if we applied DNT to all first parties as well, there's still exceptions such as security, financial reporting etc that will result in their browsing history being kept by third parties, which is probably not what I would expect if you told me that I was "not being tracked."

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that if websites are being told "the user has a preference for X" that we at least do some diligence to explore ways to make sure that what the sites are being told is the user's preference actually matches a decision the user would make. Asking the user "Do you want a pony" and then telling the website "The user wants you to mail them a Thundercats t-shirt" makes about as much sense as asking a user "Do you want to send a Do-Not-Track header to websites you visit" and expecting websites to believe the user made any sort of informed decision about the issues touched on in the spec.

My $0.024

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 2:34 PM, Justin Brookman <justin@cdt.org<mailto:justin@cdt.org>> wrote:
The working group has been using the term explicit and informed consent<http://www.w3.org/2011/tracking-protection/track/issues/143> to ensure that a user understands that they are performing a certain action (e.g., turning on DNT, or granting an exception to DNT), not to mandate a description of all the potential consequences of this action.  If I give my explicit and informed consent to Etsy to spend $500 on a one-of-a-kind Thundercats t-shirt, that should not require that Etsy provide me with information about the need to save for retirement or the fact that a Thundercats t-shirt may decrease my odds of attracting a suitable mate.

Would you support a parallel requirement that any request for a user-granted exception be accompanied by a link to a list of the parade of horribles that privacy advocates could generate about why they are concerned about third-party data collection?  Remember, the group previously agreed that we are going to be equally prescriptive when it comes to specifying how "explicit and informed" consent must be for both turning on DNT and granting exceptions to the signal.  That agreement was designed in part as a buffering mechanism against these sorts of impractical and heavy handed requirements.


Justin Brookman
Director, Consumer Privacy
Center for Democracy & Technology
1634 I Street NW, Suite 1100
Washington, DC 20006
tel 202.407.8812<tel:202.407.8812>
fax 202.637.0969<tel:202.637.0969>
justin@cdt.org<mailto:justin@cdt.org>
http://www.cdt.org
@CenDemTech
@JustinBrookman

On 11/13/2012 4:46 PM, David Wainberg wrote:
Hi Justin,

On 11/13/12 2:06 PM, Justin Brookman wrote:
but requiring disclosure about an unproven parade of horribles in advance is not something that a technical standards setting body should be contemplating.
I believe we've already agreed that the DNT signal should reflect the user's explicit and informed consent. Doesn't the informed piece of that equation require explanation of the effects of DNT? But I can see that if you do not believe that provisions in this spec will have negative effects for the internet and internet users, then you wouldn't see the need for informing users of such negative effects. So, what do we need to do to convince you? Once we're on common ground about that, then maybe we can have a more productive conversation about how best to inform users.

-David

Received on Wednesday, 14 November 2012 15:06:31 UTC