- From: T.V Raman <raman@google.com>
- Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2008 11:07:52 -0700
- To: hsivonen@iki.fi
- Cc: public-html@w3.org, wai-xtech@w3.org, singer@apple.com
The user picking a particular alternative does not necessarily directly reveal a physical disability -- it merely reflects the abilities of the accessing user at any given point in time. This difference may be subtle, but it is significant --- I'm prepared to say "right now I am not in a position to see the screen, send me audio" --- as a user when I download a given alternative. This is different from my saying "I cannot see, give me an alternative" Henri Sivonen writes: > > The privacy implications of using media queries came up on the > telecon. (The tacit assumption was that revealing that one has a given > disability is a privacy-sensitive matter.) > > The choice of alternative media streams gives the content provider > information that correlates with the user's disabilities (unless all > alternatives were downloaded so that the content provider couldn't > tell with alternative was actually consumed). > > If the user has to select from alternatives, the information about the > choice is leaked to the content provider at that point. > > Media queries (or any other automatic selection mechanism), on the > other hand, would allow content providers to probe the user's > disability-correlated settings when the user visits a page without > taking specific further action on the page. > > -- > Henri Sivonen > hsivonen@iki.fi > http://hsivonen.iki.fi/ > > -- Best Regards, --raman Title: Research Scientist Email: raman@google.com WWW: http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/ Google: tv+raman GTalk: raman@google.com, tv.raman.tv@gmail.com PGP: http://emacspeak.sf.net/raman/raman-almaden.asc
Received on Thursday, 11 September 2008 18:09:00 UTC