Re: [meetings] Agenda Request - Review Working Group Charter Changes (#52)

Some notes on this:

Again, thank you for this comment, it makes your position here much clearer than it was earlier. I did point folks to it during the meeting as requested, but I wanted to also take a moment to talk to it in more detail. 

> here is the matter of competition law compliance. 

I agree with this in principle, however, there is currently no legal group that brings forth these concerns in this context. We can only deal with participants and their feedback. That said, as far as I can tell, the main way that we deal with the question of legal concerns in a charter like this is through submission to the AC. If this is the core of your concern, and we acknowledge that we are not lawyers and there are no lawyers in the room willing to contribute directly, I think the only way we can deal with an objection on this basis is submit the charter to the AC for review and let them tell us one way or the other. 

> Such a change would likely necessitate all the work of the group be implemented using web primitives (aka general purposes APIs). Where new APIs are needed these would need to be general purpose and not specifically for advertising. An example of such an API could be the sharing of state information between multiple data controllers under GDPR laws.

Without commenting on your example, which I think is a little too general for me to be sure I agree with, this describes a fundamentally different WG and CG then we are chartering. This CG and the WG proposed is specifically about _advertising_ technology uses. General purpose not specifically advertising APIs are *specifically* out of scope for this group. Trying to alter the WG mid-stream to alter the entire intent of the group is not going to work. Arguably the place for this type of work is the Privacy CG or perhaps some entirely new charter. 

As to *why* it is the mission of the PAT groups: It is *inarguable* that browsers supply specific APIs for specific purposes, to enable specific purposes. I am not sure a 'general purpose' API actually exists nor could I feel able to define it. What is a 'general purpose' API for location vs one that enables the business of map and navigation services? What is a 'general purpose' API for layout detection vs one that enables the specific business of mobile website design? What is a 'general purpose' API for the purpose of web applications vs a Web Application Manifest API for the business of Web Apps? What is a 'general purpose' API for performance vs one that enables specific business outcomes that have a basis in performance? The division between APIs that are generalized and ones that enable specific business goals and concepts seems to be to be non-existent. Any one of the APIs I just listed (and more) now underlay the livelihoods of thousands of people... if not tens of thousands... and any alteration to them would have substantial and significant impact on their businesses. But these APIs do evolve and change because the world, the users, and the businesses that leverage those APIs, change. We should not freeze changes to the Geolocation API just because a number of companies have been successful in implementing that API. These APIs have *no natural state*, they were created, the businesses that were created on them did so on one version, and it behooves them to change how they work when it makes sense for the community (with the involvement of these businesses as well!) to change them. 

None of the APIs currently used by ad tech were created with the intent for them to be used by ad tech. Everything is hacked on to things that are not intended for them. These APIs also do not have a natural state. None of them, the third party cookie, or anything else, were dug up on stone tablets and then dropped whole into the browser standard. But advertising is a core component of the web now, and if we want to evolve the web that means we *need* to acknowledge advertising, its use cases, and build specific APIs towards its needs. 

> These include ensuring all parties to the web are guaranteed access to the source data need for standards developed by the group under Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory (FRAND) terms by those that join the group. FRAND is already an accepted principle for the licencing of intellectual property. It can be applied to essential data.

Existing documented W3C processes handle this and a single WG charter is not the appropriate place to litigate W3C policy. If you feel the existing W3C IPR standards are insufficient, you should be taking it up on a different level then here. However, it is outside of our scope to try and redefine those rules from below, especially when we are dependent on W3C tooling built under and understanding of those guidelines to help enforce them. I believe the now highlighted W3C documents recently added to the WG charter should cover these concerns. 

> Can the representatives from those companies advise if they have been approached?

Yes. As I've said, this group is a CG and open to all contributors. I do not have their contact information. Any representative can reach out to me individually to set up a time to speak to the group, publish something on one of our repos, or participate in a call. However, we cannot wait indefinitely for these people to 1. Appear. 2. Speak. 

> My company has a number of Formal Objections open in relation to matters related to competition. We have agreed to withdraw those Formal Objections should the W3C Director setup a Legal Advisory Group where only qualified lawyers are eligible to join and this group rule on such matters. The Legal Advisory Group would provide horizontal review on matters such as group charters to ensure any competition issues were resolved prior to the work commencing. This charter should be subject to such a review.

This is fundamentally a matter for the W3C AC and Director. We cannot pause operations to wait on a change in W3C policy that may or may not happen. I assume that should such a group arise, its earliest work would be reviewing standing Working Group and Community Group charters and asking them for changes and should such a group arise I would welcome their feedback and we could, at that time, make changes to the charter based on their feedback regardless of if we are operating or not. As we've seen with the CG, changes to the charter on the basis of in-motion operation are standard. This objection is also best resolved by submission of the charter to those who are at the right level to deal with such questions.   

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Received on Wednesday, 18 May 2022 15:14:27 UTC