Re: WSJ - browser adoption of do not track

David, 

while I agree that we should look forward

while I agree that we should not fall into the trap of an administrative data 
protection bureaucracy

while adapting is good

I think Malcolm was addressing the things that could have been fixed already 
10 years ago, but weren't because of the economic incentives involved. A pure 
self regulation in this context carries the risk of a race to the bottom. 
Regulation limits that bottom. But freeing market forces for a race to the top 
would be the dream, a dream best vaguely described with "Privacy by design". 
For the moment, we don't understand how to change the economic incentives. 
That's an issue. But I find it very promising that the industry is back at the 
table and is willing to explore privacy options. 

Best, 

Rigo

On Monday 18 April 2011 20:06:25 David Singer wrote:
> On Apr 15, 2011, at 23:52 , Malcolm Crompton wrote:
> > The problem with all this industry self regulation is that it remains
> > fractured and unstable.
> 
> Yes, it does. The upsides of industry self-regulation over government or
>  other external regulation are that the industry can probably adapt more
>  rapidly to new concerns, challenges, and questions, and one hopes that the
>  industry is well informed about what is going on, what is possible, and so
>  on.
> 
> At the moment, I fear we are facing a situation in which
> 
> * user expectations, understanding, and their associated societal norms,
>  are developing and in varied stages in various places and people -- a
>  fluid situation; users sometimes don't know what they want or don't want
>  until some specific incident helps clarify, for example;
> 
> * industry practices, the technology basis, and the business models, are
>  very much in an exploratory and developing phase right now; both new tools
>  (e.g. HTML5) and new techniques are coming along all the time; we have a
>  fluid situation here;
> 
> 
> Given a situation in which both ends of the question are developing and
>  learning as they go, hoping for perfect clarity and stability any time
>  soon may be optimistic.
> 
> David Singer
> Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.
>

Received on Monday, 18 April 2011 22:01:57 UTC