Re: Proposed W3C Charter: Privacy Interest Group (PING) (until 2019-08-04)

During AC review of the proposed new Privacy Interest Group (PING) 
charter, Google filed a Formal Objection.  Below is the text, provided 
per Section 3.3.2 of the Process.

-- Sam Weiler, W3C/MIT


     We are primarily concerned that the PING is attempting to insert
     itself as a required step for all specifications as per
(https://github.com/w3cping/administrivia/blob/process-changes-2019q3/README.md#privacy-review)
     without first
     focusing on creating a well-developed formal model that can give
     actionable advice for developers to assess the privacy risks of
     their features.  Although we certainly believe effective and
     constructive review guidance is
     essential, only focusing on anti-patterns is not by itself a
     solution. We'd like to see the PING focus on guidance for what a
     true privacy-preserving browser might look like based on a
     high-quality model of platform surface area - e.g.
     removing hardware, screen resolution, and CPU distinguishers to the
     greatest extent possible, outlining network-level analysis and the
     inability to provide privacy from network actors without
     network-channel-noise creation, and
     discussing the role of powerful features, 3ps, and various page
     construction techniques that need to be defeated for true privacy
     preservation.

     Simply establishing themselves as an authoritarian review group
     without formally establishing self-serve guiding principles will
     cause significant unnecessary chaos in the development of the web
     platform.  Although we would like the PING to
     take a strong role in horizontal review, we are uncomfortable
     investing it with Process authority without more experience.

     Additionally, we find the 3+ year charter time frame for the
     PING group to be excessive, as this is a significantly different
     charter than it has been previously.  We would like to suggest that
     the charter end date be moved up to 31
     December 2021.

Received on Monday, 23 September 2019 19:10:39 UTC