Re: [wmlprogramming] Verizon, guidelines

> Of course, the "unless" clause in CTG makes it easier for Novarra and 
> Verizon to justify the abuse, as compared to the Manifesto.

It does not.
We resolved to add an explicit text in this section that states that 
inferring that a desktop User-Agent is needed in the absence of any 
indication (e.g. URI patterns) is contrary to the guidelines.

Francois.



Luca Passani wrote:
> 
> Tom Hume wrote:
>> Folks
>>
>> At the risk of reigniting old debates... I realised that we've not  
>> heard anything from Verizon for a little while (since they launched  
>> some grotty documentation for how to inhibit transcoding of services  
>> via their network).
>>
>> A quick check this evening showed that they've updated their  
>> documentation wrt opting out of transcoding. The page refers to "W3C  
>> addressing models" which is still a bit iffy IMHO, but the PDF they  
>> link to now refers to using domain names, MIME types, DOCTYPEs, LINK  
>> tags or no-transform to inhibit transcoding. New version can be  
>> downloaded from
>>
>>     http://www.vzwdevelopers.com/aims/public/OptimizedViewOptout.jsp
>>
>> They're not fully compliant with the W3C doc, but given that it's not  
>> finished I don't think we can hold that against them (yet). 
>> Definitely  closer to both Manifesto and CTG tho, so a step in the 
>> right direction.
>>   
> well, yes, you are reigniting. The Verizon document still reads:
> 
> "If, however, the mobile site requested does not have a URL that matches 
> any of the mobile site naming conventions listed above, then the User 
> Agent string passed to the web server by the Optimized View for Mobile 
> Web server will be that of the server’s desktop PC browser so that 
> Verizon Wireless will receive full HTML content for optimization."
> 
> which is not compliant to the Manifesto, and not even to the CTG. Of 
> course, the "unless" clause in CTG makes it easier for Novarra and 
> Verizon to justify the abuse, as compared to the Manifesto.
> I find it particularly enlightining that Novarra is sitting at the CTG 
> W3C table, while at the same time one very large customer of theirs is 
> publishing for developers which break those very rules while referring 
> at CTG. What this enlightens me about is that CTG is being used by 
> Novarra as part of a corporate move to give justification to their 
> irrepressible need to change the UA and trick websites into returning 
> web content no matter whether those sites had a mobile version ready 
> (and we all know that mobile sites are not born alone. It takes a large 
> resource investment to create and maintain them).
> 
> Of course, the real problem is the fact that you do not need W3C to 
> create and deploy abusive transcoders. You need W3C to wrap the abusive 
> behavior in a shroud of legitimation. So, my point still remains: remove 
> the "unless" clauses when it comes to UA spoofing from CTG. By this 
> move, W3C would show the world that they can still police the worst 
> misbehavers on the web (to some extent, at least).
> Never condoning UA-spoofing would be consistent with what:
> - the overwhelming majority of mobile developers want.
> - the overwhelming majority of content owners want.
> - people in W3C know to be right (and consistent with the rest of own 
> BPWG: notably, static content is fully legitimate mobile content)
> - many employees from transcoding companies know to be right when given 
> a chance to express their opinions off the record.
> 
> Luca
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
>

Received on Friday, 19 December 2008 17:58:13 UTC