Re: Hi from the TAG (re Geofencing API)

Hi TAG,

Unfortunately you're right, and there hasn't really been any activity on
the Geofencing API spec since TPAC. It still seems to me like the privacy
issues surrounding geofencing are in a sense a lot less problematic than
with some seemingly more benign features like push messages. Of course the
location tracking is more accurate than you could do with IP based
geolocation in push messages, but the whole point of the Geofencing API is
to allow the website to track your location, so it seems like it should be
possible to make this clear to users much easier. On the other hand there
are of course use cases where it would be nice if a browser could be more
specific than "track you whenever/wherever you go" (something "this website
wants to know whenever you're near this particular store location"), and
the current API design would allow a user agent to implement permissions in
that way.
I think there were also some concerns raised at TPAC around UI surfaces
related to geofencing, but that seems more like an issue for individual
browser vendors to figure out, rather than trying to dictate specific UI
behavior in the spec.

Marijn

On Tue, Jan 12, 2016 at 4:05 PM, Hadley Beeman <hadley@linkedgov.org> wrote:

> Hello Marijn and the Geolocation working group
>
> We the TAG are meeting in Melbourne right now and are reviewing our open
> issues.
>
> We have a reminder set to check in on the use cases and privacy issues in
> the Geofencing API [1], especially to follow up on the conversations that
> Dan Appelquist and I began with you in Sapporo.
>
> I've had a look at your GitHub repo and your mailing list, and it looks
> like there hasn't been any activity on the Geofencing API spec or mailing
> list since TPAC.  Is that indeed the case?  If so, is there anything we can
> do to help?
>
> Do let us know.
>
> Cheers,
>
>    Hadley
>
> [1] https://github.com/w3ctag/spec-reviews/issues/89
>