Re: [wbs] response to 'Call for Review: Devices and Sensors Working Group Charter'

The interest in these APIs definitely reaches well beyond Blink (that is,
the community specifically focused on building the Blink engine) and it
certainly goes well beyond any one company.  You are essentially saying
that in order to start a Working Group, an absolute prerequisite is having
the positive implementation commitment of either Apple or Mozilla (since
they are the only other engines that seem to be considered).

That seems counter to the spirit of the Web platform, and seems to devalue
any votes other than yours.  Certainly implementation experience must still
be considered in declaring a REC; the lack of engagement from Apple and
Mozilla should not short-circuit any effort to add to the web platform,
when there is clear developer demand.  Referring to efforts that don't have
someone from Apple or Mozilla involved as a "Blink-implementation-only
spec" is foolishly diminutive.  Not, it's not yet an interoperable
standard, though the whole point is to be open, and to work on something
that can BECOME an interoperable standard.  If we just want Blink APIs, we
know how to ship those; I don't personally think that's a good thing for
anyone.  (And as one of the people who was personally involved in
redirecting the web away from WebSQL and toward IndexDB, that wasn't quite
as obvious as you'd think - Opera, Safari, Chrome all shipped it, and it
was really Microsoft's not wanting to ship that engine that killed it.)

As for privacy - certainly, privacy concerns are a growing and evolving
concerns; I'm enheartened to see the increased efforts from many parties
there, and have been supportive of those efforts, both personally and on
behalf of Google.  That said, giving a blanket "on the basis of privacy
concerns" boilerplate to nine different APIs without any details seems less
than productive.  If the challenge is that privacy reviews have not been
revisited recently enough, great - let's get such a review done.  That's
part of the process of working on specs in WGs, isn't it?

-Chris

On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 11:08 AM David Singer <singer@apple.com> wrote:

> Thanks Tantek
>
> [flipping to my work email, which I’d prefer, if possible, please]
>
> > On Jul 7, 2020, at 10:57 , Tantek Çelik <tantek@cs.stanford.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Thank you Pete, I appreciate your investigation and comments in the
> > first issue. And yes, regardless of how many browsers, a
> > Blink-implementation-only spec is not an open interoperable standard,
> > it's a Blink API. Ok to terminate those as Notes. Just like we did
> > with WebSQL back in the day[1].
> >
> > Completely agreed regarding "privacy review done 3-4-5 years ago does
> > not reflect a current approach to privacy".
> >
> > I believe awareness, concerns, and understanding of how much harm is
> > possible here has grown substantially, especially in the past year.
> > There's also a greater understanding of the disproportionate
> > distribution of these harms, particularly to more vulnerable and less
> > privileged populations[2]. Per priority of constituencies, it's more
> > important to protect against these harms than protect against any
> > "harms" to any web developer or company's business interests.
> >
> > In as much as one can connect the dots between privacy problems in
> > specs enabling more, more effective, and cheaper surveillance (whether
> > for capitalism or authoritarianism), this recent article provides some
> > additional examples:
> > https://www.wired.com/story/how-surveillance-reinforced-racism/
> >
> > All of these broader issues may merit being raised to the TAG, for
> > horizontal consideration across all W3C work, in many cases to bolster
> > existing work at the TAG such as the cited Ethical Web Principles[2].
> >
> > Thanks,
> >
> > Tantek
> >
> > [1] https://www.w3.org/TR/webdatabase/
> > [2] https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/ethical-web-principles/#noharm
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 7, 2020 at 10:20 AM Pete Snyder <psnyder@brave.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> Thank you Tantek, I’ve followed up in the first issue, but my comments
> there I think apply equally to most (all?) the other issues.
> >>
> >> The other issue I wanted to discuss first, before getting into GH
> back-and-forth, is how to address the privacy questions. The WG is pointing
> frequently to reviews done 3-4-5 years ago, when (if my understanding is
> correct) privacy reviews were done very differently (i.e. it was previously
> thought of as sufficient to just note privacy issues, reviews now focus on
> having specs solve the problems they introduce).
> >>
> >> In other words, a privacy review done 3-4-5 years ago does not reflect
> a current approach to privacy, in W3C or on the web in general.
> >>
> >> Wanted to discuss / get thoughts here on the above before surfacing on
> GH.
> >>
> >> Pete
> >>
> >>> On Jul 7, 2020, at 12:12 AM, Tantek Çelik <tantek@cs.stanford.edu>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Hi David and Pete,
> >>>
> >>> Thank you for your replies. Appreciated.
> >>>
> >>> Per request from Samuel Weiler, I have filed individual issues for
> >>> each specification mentioned in Mozilla's DAS charter feedback formal
> >>> objection, so that we can have parallel discussions on each to try to
> >>> reach consensus.
> >>>
> >>> https://github.com/w3c/dap-charter/issues/98
> >>> https://github.com/w3c/dap-charter/issues/99
> >>> https://github.com/w3c/dap-charter/issues/100
> >>> https://github.com/w3c/dap-charter/issues/101
> >>> https://github.com/w3c/dap-charter/issues/102
> >>> https://github.com/w3c/dap-charter/issues/103
> >>> https://github.com/w3c/dap-charter/issues/104
> >>> https://github.com/w3c/dap-charter/issues/105
> >>>
> >>> Thanks for your consideration, and let's follow-up in each issue
> accordingly.
> >>>
> >>> Tantek
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 11:25 AM Pete Snyder <psnyder@brave.com>
> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Thank you for these Tantek,
> >>> [...]
> >>>
> >>> On Mon, Jun 29, 2020 at 10:52 AM David Singer <singer@mac.com> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks Tantek
> >>> [...]
> >>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Jun 19, 2020, at 10:03 , Tantek Çelik via WBS Mailer <
> sysbot+wbs@w3.org> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The following answers have been successfully submitted to 'Call for
> Review:
> >>>>> Devices and Sensors Working Group Charter' (Advisory Committee) for
> Tantek
> >>>>> Çelik.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The reviewer's organization suggests changes to this Charter, and
> only
> >>>>> supports the proposal if the changes are adopted [Formal Objection].
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Additional comments about the proposal:
> >>>>> Although Mozilla is generally supportive of the work being
> undertaken by
> >>>>> DAS, we would like to see some changes in the Charter and
> deliverables
> >>>>> before we would be supportive of rechartering the Working Group
> (Formal
> >>>>> Objection).
> >>>>>
> >>>>> On the the grounds of privacy, and given a lack of implementer
> support, we
> >>>>> would like the group to cease work on the following specifications:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> * Battery API
> >>>>> * Proximity sensor API
> >>>>> * Ambient light sensor API
> >>>>>
> >>>>> We would like to see those published as Working Group Notes instead.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> We believe it would be prudent for the System WakeLock API to go
> through
> >>>>> the WICG process until it gets implementation commitment from at
> least a
> >>>>> second browser vendor. Similarly, the Fold Angle specification
> should be
> >>>>> incubated in the WICG before it becomes a working group deliverable.
> For
> >>>>> Fold Angle, we'd also like to see closer collaboration and input
> from the
> >>>>> CSS WG on the design.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Having said that, we would be comfortable with having WICG incubated
> specs
> >>>>> being explicitly listed as charter as work items the working group
> could
> >>>>> adopt at a future date. However, we'd like to see them listed in a
> manner
> >>>>> similar to the Web Apps WG Charter's section on WICG Specs [1] (i.e.,
> >>>>> separated out of the main deliverables list for the working group).
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Where we already have an existing Web APIs, e.g., Geolocation Sensor,
> >>>>> Orientation Sensor, we would prefer the working group also cease
> work on
> >>>>> those items and instead focus on evolving the existing
> specifications. As
> >>>>> is evident with the Geolocation API [2], implementers have continued
> to
> >>>>> make significant privacy and security enhancements to existing APIs,
> and
> >>>>> those enhancements have made their way back to the W3C. As such, we
> feel
> >>>>> it's unnecessary to have duplicate specifications.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Finally, Mozilla has significant concerns about the inclusion of the
> >>>>> Network Information API in the charter (as a specification to
> potentially
> >>>>> adopt from the WICG) — Mozilla's public position is that this API is
> >>>>> "harmful" to the Web as the information that it provides is
> unreliable and,
> >>>>> at the same time, open to privacy abuses. As we have stated publicly
> [3],
> >>>>> we believe it is "better that sites use methods that dynamically
> adapt to
> >>>>> available bandwidth, as that is more accurate and likely to be
> applicable
> >>>>> in the moment". Or, alternatively, use newer declarative solutions,
> such as
> >>>>> "lazy loading" images and alike.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> [1] https://www.w3.org/2019/05/webapps-charter.html#wicgspecs
> >>>>> [2]
> >>>>>
> https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-device-apis/2020Jun/0006.html
> >>>>> [3] https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#netinfo
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The reviewer's organization intends to participate in these groups:
> >>>>> - Devices and Sensors Working Group
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The reviewer's organization:
> >>>>> - intends to review drafts as they are published and send comments.
> >>>>> - intends to develop experimental implementations and send experience
> >>>>> reports.
> >>>>> - intends to develop products based on this work.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Answers to this questionnaire can be set and changed at
> >>>>> https://www.w3.org/2002/09/wbs/33280/das-2020/ until 2020-06-19.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Regards,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The Automatic WBS Mailer
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>> David Singer
> >>>>
> >>>> singer@mac.com
> >>>>
> >>
>
> David Singer
> Manager, Software Standards, Apple Inc.
>
>
>