- From: David Singer <singer@apple.com>
- Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 09:32:45 -0700
- To: "public-privacy (W3C mailing list)" <public-privacy@w3.org>
I think a number of us have argued that we can do much better in explaining what privacy policies are, what the terms mean, and whether they are aligned with some 'normal practice' (Kasey was arguing this in London, I think). I am still somewhat unsure of the value of 'machine policies', however. One of the problems is that languages -- rights-expression, policy-expression, and so on -- are a 'sharp instrument'; you can both say complex things, and change what is said dynamically. Taking the rights-expression route, for example, if every purchase you made online were tied to an explicit statement of rights transferred and reserved, wouldn't that be better than today? You'd know where you stood, wouldn't you? Unfortunately, the answer is "only if you read and understand the rights expression made on each transaction", and no one would. Consumers are not interested in shopping at a store where the rights they get vary transaction-by-transaction; they need stability. So, I am still interested (personally) in the decidedly unsexy unglamorous routs of improving the status of consensual definitions of policy terms (the ITU list is not terrifically helpful, IMHO, and at the same time surprisingly long) and 'policy fragments'. I don't think we need technology to bring better clarity and something closer to commonality of approach. David Singer Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.
Received on Monday, 25 April 2011 16:33:14 UTC