[Bug 22815] New: Both autocomplete="on" and autocomplete="off" are UA hints and thus should use MAY, not SHOULD language

https://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=22815

            Bug ID: 22815
           Summary: Both autocomplete="on" and autocomplete="off" are UA
                    hints and thus should use MAY, not SHOULD language
    Classification: Unclassified
           Product: WHATWG
           Version: unspecified
          Hardware: PC
                OS: All
            Status: NEW
          Severity: normal
          Priority: P2
         Component: HTML
          Assignee: ian@hixie.ch
          Reporter: eoconnor@apple.com
        QA Contact: contributor@whatwg.org
                CC: mike@w3.org, public-html-admin@w3.org,
                    public-html-wg-issue-tracking@w3.org
        Depends on: 22814

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #22814 +++

Currently, the spec for autocomplete="off" says

> When an element's autofill field name is "off", the user agent should not remember the control's value, and should not offer past values to the user.

And SHOULD, in RFC 2119, basically means "MUST unless you have a really good
reason."

Consider a site with a user signup form and a login form. The signup form
doesn't have autocomplete attributes. A user starts to fill in the registration
form, and the user's browser offers to create a new, unique password for this
site. The user agrees.

Later on, the user browses to the site and tries to log in. The login form has
autocomplete="off". Per spec, the UA should not offer to fill in the stored
password for the user, because the author expects the user to type the password
in themselves. But in this scenario the user doesn't even know the password in
the first place.

Ultimately, the autocomplete="" attribute represents a hint to UAs, but UAs
should be free to do whatever is in their user's interests with the hint.

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Received on Friday, 26 July 2013 17:33:40 UTC