RE: A first draft of the future Web Payments Interest group is available for comments

Dear all, 

I am afraid I do not have much experience with W3C and so I am not sure that my comments make sense from a W3C point of view. If not, please feel free to disregard them but reading through the document it seemed to me that there are three points that could usefully be added: 

First, in "1.1 Success Criteria" (or maybe in an introduction or somewhere else) I would think that one measurement of the success of the Interest Group would be that Web Payments are used more and more widely on the basis of the output of the Interest Group (ie not just more and more card payments over the internet). But maybe you see this as a consequence of the work of the Interest Group and not something that is directly in your hands, which I would understand. 

Secondly, in "2 Deliverables" it might be helpful to prepare a summary of the problems with web payments in the past and the barriers that you can identify for the future. In some cases this will be technical (eg security, communications protocols, authentication etc), but I would think that in some cases it would be about diverging incentives such as the risk to the income of banks, who control much of the payments chain. Again, maybe you will feel that this is outside the mandate of the Interest Group, so I leave it to you. 

Finally, I wonder if it would not also be interesting in section 2 to identify the provision of information in the list of topics. For example, a number of companies (I think one is called Star Money) now offer services to allow consumers to see a summary of the balance on their different bank accounts (even in different banks), the latest payment transactions that have been made and some sort of classification of payments etc. This requires interaction with the different banks concerned and gives value-added to the consumers. However, this is not strictly speaking a payment process (more an information process) and so you might prefer not to address it. 

I hope this is helpful, 

Kind regards, 
Alexander

-----Original Message-----
From: Joseph Potvin [mailto:jpotvin@opman.ca] 
Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2014 6:04 PM
To: David Ezell
Cc: Tobie Langel; Stephane Boyera; team-webpayments-workshop-announcement@w3.org; public-webpaymentsigcharter@w3.org
Subject: Re: A first draft of the future Web Payments Interest group is available for comments

"Inventing terminology here could be quite confusing. "

+1   That's my point.

The term "electronic token" comes from UNCITRAL, the most
authoritative global body in the domain of electronic commerce.
http://www.uncitral.org/pdf/english/workinggroups/wg_4/wp_119_e.pdf


RE: the legality, but that’s a different issue.

Is there some advantage in W3C diverging the terminology from that
which lawyers worldwide would normally use?

Joseph





On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 11:46 AM, David Ezell <David_E3@verifone.com> wrote:
> Tobie Langel wrote:
>
> So, I really don't think there's any issue with using cryptocurrency in the
> context of the charter. Quite the contrary: it's explicit.
>
>
>
> +1.  Inventing terminology here could be quite confusing.  It’s up to
> governments to decide the legality, but that’s a different issue.
>
>
>
> From: Tobie Langel [mailto:tobie.langel@gmail.com]
> Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2014 11:35 AM
> To: Joseph Potvin
> Cc: Stephane Boyera; team-webpayments-workshop-announcement@w3.org;
> public-webpaymentsigcharter@w3.org
> Subject: Re: A first draft of the future Web Payments Interest group is
> available for comments
>
>
>
> On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 4:59 PM, Joseph Potvin <jpotvin@opman.ca> wrote:
>> On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 9:47 AM, Stephane Boyera <boyera@w3.org> wrote:
>> > The case of cryptocurrencies or digital
>> > currencies is more problematic. i got your point, and i agree with it,
>> > however, this is quite a generic name, independently of the legal status
>> > of
>> > a currency or not isn't it?
>> > Is there a way we could mention these emerging payment options through
>> > the
>> > use of a neutral word?
>>
>> [JRP1:]  A neutral term could be "electronic tokens" which can be a
>> type of "electronic media of exchange" regardless of whether or not
>> they are deemed to represent a currency in and of themselves  I wonder
>> if anyone from the Ripple, Ven, Bitcoin+derivatives communities on
>> these lists might let us know if my suggestion would bother them, or
>> if it's a reasonable compromise considering the W3C's need (well, I
>> reckon it's a need) to steer clear or taking sides in the ongoing
>> juridical interpretations worldwide.
>
>
>
> Cryptocurrency is the commonly used terminology. Event though the IRS
> doesn't treat cryptocurrencies as legal currencies (which I suspect was the
> case you were referring to, Joseph), it still calls them virtual
> currencies[1]. So, I really don't think there's any issue with using
> cryptocurrency in the context of the charter. Quite the contrary: it's
> explicit.
>
>
>
> --tobie
>
>
>
> ---
>
> [1]: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-14-21.pdf

>
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-- 
Joseph Potvin
Operations Manager | Gestionnaire des opérations
The Opman Company | La compagnie Opman
jpotvin@opman.ca
Mobile: 819-593-5983

Received on Wednesday, 28 May 2014 08:21:47 UTC