- From: <noah_mendelsohn@us.ibm.com>
- Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2007 09:54:31 -0400
- To: www-tag@w3.org
- Cc: daniel.appelquist@vodafone.com
I don't know anything about this beyond what's in the article at http://wireless.itworld.com/4269/070924vodafone/page_1.html, but I read that to imply that Vodafone is deploying a transcoding proxy that is stripping user agent strings and thus hiding device and browser characteristics from Web servers. They apparently are operating an opt-in whitelist that allows particular sites to get the user agent strings after all. Quoting from the article: "Companies that are on Vodafone's "white list," which is a group of Vodafone-approved services, were notified of the change and the operator is passing the user agent correctly for those services, developers say. Some developers complain that it's difficult to find out how to get on the white list, it can take several months to get added and that Vodafone requires white list companies to make certain changes to the way the included sites operate. "If all operators had a similar process, service providers like Harper would have to get on the approved list for every operator around the world. That's comparable to asking any Web service to be approved by every ISP in the world in order to operate." Again, I don't know how much of this is true or whether there are good explanations not provided in the article. Still, I wonder whether this is is something the TAG might want to consider giving some attention? Note that Vodafone is a W3C member, and I am copying their Advisory Committee representative, Daniel Appelquist on this note. Thank you. Noah -------------------------------------- Noah Mendelsohn IBM Corporation One Rogers Street Cambridge, MA 02142 1-617-693-4036 --------------------------------------
Received on Tuesday, 25 September 2007 13:53:20 UTC