Re: Apple and Google's Mobile Document Request API

Speaking of Policy Makers.
 I raised my hand to make a public comment at a public forum put on by the
FTC about/for their  rulemaking process on Commercial Surveillance and Data
Security
<https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/ftc_gov/pdf/commercial_surveillance_public_forum_final_agenda.pdf>
(
link to streaming <https://www.ftc.gov/>).

I have a 2 min slot in public comment time that starts at 5pm ET and plan
to raise this set of emerging issues and sharing that they should be taking
a forward looking stance relative to emerging consumer choice/empowerment
issues relative to Big Tech.

I plan to highlight the kind of "choke point" that could emerge re: wallets
and by extension data knowledge of the two large platforms in mobile - that
there is an opportunity to get out in front of this problem because we see
it - that means they could "see it" and help us address it.

- Kaliya



On Wed, Sep 7, 2022 at 3:05 AM Kalin NICOLOV <kalin.nicolov@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Why the surprise though? big tech has always been in the business of
> skimming the markets at speed and scale. They have always done the 20%
> work needed to cover the 80% viable markets and shovelled the remaining 80%
> work over the fence to the 20% public interest groups. Failure is at W3C
> (and similar) system/governance level, where such behaviour is tolerated
> and not acted upon? What are the incentives of W3C that allow this tacit
> accomplice syndrome?
>
>
>
> As per a popular book (Switch), we can either shape the road or kick the
> elephant. Shaping the road is a call for more of us talking to policy
> makers, building bridges with like-minded public technologists (Singapore
> and Canada come to mind) and making all this good thinking accessible to
> decision makers and influencers at D7, G20 circles. Before this is waved
> away with a smile, the contrarian (and right/correct) thinking is dearly
> lacking in not just the visible part of these circles but the cohorts of
> staff who build the collateral for their events, discussions and gatherings.
>
>
>
>
> Looking at this pure gold thread - it is on a mailing list, attended
> (mostly) by rebels. Zoom out enough and you will see a mouse screaming at
> the ocean waves. [if anyone is offended by this observation, assume I speak
> of myself and move on, I have neither time nor desire to convince you
> otherwise]. Funding is not where we are strong, and we should not seek to
> excel at it imho. This is not our game, so a better game need be crafted,
> in a way.
>
>
>
> In my view more of these conversations should be surfaced in digestible
> formats: articles, blog posts, whitepapers, talking points and references.
> Append to that readiness to talk to public officials or spread the word at
> events - this is where the power of many (of us) starts making a difference
> in comparison with the few abusing the system with templated persistence.
> If we let this continue to unravel exclusively here, we can all spare
> keyboard strokes and effort, as none of us alone will climb high enough to
> inflict that needed change in thinking.
>
>
>
> Take this conversation out in the world. I found inspiration in the effort
> of Timothy Ruff earlier today:
> https://rufftimo.medium.com/web3-web5-ssi-3870c298c7b4
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
> K
>
>
>
>
>
> *From: *Manu Sporny <msporny@digitalbazaar.com>
> *Date: *Tuesday, 6 September 2022 at 14:51
> *To: *Liam R. E. Quin <liam@fromoldbooks.org>
> *Cc: *W3C Credentials CG <public-credentials@w3.org>
> *Subject: *Re: Apple and Google's Mobile Document Request API
>
> On Mon, Sep 5, 2022 at 10:51 PM Liam R. E. Quin <liam@fromoldbooks.org>
> wrote:
> > There are a lot of smart people in these larger companies.
> > They know exactly what they are doing.
> >
> > In theory the role of the staff contacts and W3C team is to fight off
> > such behaviours, but in practice it's rarely possible, even where the
> > staff contacts have the necessary political insights.
>
> For those of you that don't know, Liam was the W3C XML Activity lead
> for 20 years. He has been central to the XML and SGML Community for
> over 35 years and has helped Verifiable Credentials get to where it is
> today. This man has seen some shenanigans over the years. :)
>
> Thank you Liam, for lending more credence to this discussion.
>
> One of the reasons these large vendors tend to get away with this sort
> of behaviour is that the W3C Members let them get away with it... and
> when they don't, the browser vendors just shift the work to the WHAT
> WG (a largely browser vendor-only "Working Group" external to
> standards bodies). That's where HTML5 lives today as the browser
> vendors (arguably) became annoyed that W3C was not providing good
> stewardship on the HTML standard -- they weren't completely wrong, but
> this goes to show you what happens when the W3C Membership challenges
> their authority.
>
> As another case-in-point, in the W3C Web Payments work, the Working
> Group (who were all new to W3C -- it hadn't had a payments activity
> for over 20 years) voted against the Web Payments Community Group
> proposal, and in favor of the browser vendor plan, because 1) the
> browser vendors refused to implement the community group's plan, 2)
> the W3C Members  (and Staff) panicked because if the browser vendors
> didn't implement, the WG would be shut down, and 3) wallet selection
> was promised as an outcome. It could be argued that Google made a
> concerted effort to open up wallet selection, which was rebuffed by
> Apple (and Edge, Mozilla, and Samsung). At present, everyone is at a
> stalemate because the browser vendors probably know that there will be
> formal objections to the notion of the Web Payments work as a W3C
> Recommendation (because the "open standard" only supports proprietary
> wallets at present).
>
> There is a recourse -- the W3C Membership could formally object to any
> work that doesn't support open wallet selection, but then the possible
> outcomes are at least 1) the work moves to the WHAT WG and W3C
> Membership has no say wrt. the outcome, or 2) the vendors promise open
> wallet selection (but never deliver) and the W3C Membership never
> ratifies the work as a global standard, or 3) the work never starts,
> ensuring the proprietary wallet solutions remain the only solutions
> for the foreseeable future.
>
> CHAPI was designed to break these logjams by providing an open wallet
> selection solution that  1) works in all known browsers today, 2)
> doesn't require browser/OS vendor buy in, and 3) has a path to
> eventually being built into the browser.
>
> Thanks, Liam, for the public confirmation of things some of us have
> experienced over the past several decades. Again, this sort of
> behaviour doesn't just happen at W3C, it happens at IETF, ISO, and
> just about any standards setting body you can think of. There are
> strong market-driven incentives for large corporations to reduce
> choice and great pressures on the people working at those
> organizations to act in the best interest of the people that issue
> their paycheck (and performance bonuses).
>
> -- manu
>
> --
> Manu Sporny - https://www.linkedin.com/in/manusporny/
> Founder/CEO - Digital Bazaar, Inc.
> News: Digital Bazaar Announces New Case Studies (2021)
> https://www.digitalbazaar.com/
>