Re: [minutes] 20101110 Web Performance Working Group

On Wed, Nov 10, 2010 at 10:17 AM, Anderson Quach <aquach@microsoft.com>wrote:

> Follow-up on discussion with respect to same origin: Fully Qualified Domain
> Name or Private Domain
>
> AndersonQuach: Sigborn preferring Private Domain
> ... Jonas prefers the FQDN
>
> Zhiheng: Okay with Private Domain, no strong preference.
>
> TonyG: I certainly like Private Domain.
>
> AndersonQuach: We agree to Private Domain, great.
>

Sorry for the late follow up, but I think we should revisit this.

Regarding option #3 (private domains), I think we need to factor in the rise
of cloud computing services, like amazonaws.com and appspot.com. These sites
rely on using different subdomains for security and are designed
accordingly. I believe we should honor that with our spec and go with option
#1 (FQDN).

These are the Navigation Timing metrics that will be affected by our
decision:
- timing.unloadEventStart
- timing.unloadEventEnd
- timing.redirectStart
- timing.redirectEnd

The unload information is entirely based on the content of the previous
page. Therefore, it should only be available to the previous page's owner.

Likewise, if the previous subdomain issues a bunch of redirects before
sending the user to a new subdomain, those redirects are only relevant to
the previous subdomain's owner.

I realize restricting to FQDN restricts some of the usefulness of these
timers. However, if the two subdomains really do have the same owner, then
the redirect information can be inferred from their server logs. And unload
information can come by testing other ways of unloading the page.

James