Re: Comments on the W3C's proposed DNT standard

Mr. Stoute,

Thank you for your comments (last June) on the Tracking Preference Expression Last Call Working Draft.

The decisions to define the terms tracking, context, and first and third party in the TPE were previously resolved by the group; you do not provide new information to justify reopening these long-discussed issues.

Competition issues are outside the purview of the W3C, but your concern about an exception for first party data is mistaken. The definition of tracking applies to all cross-context data collection and usage, and the group has determined that the use of data previously collected as a first party to target ads in a new context is not consistent with a Do Not Track request. Similarly, collection of data from widgets distributed around the web are defined as cross-context data collection in the specification, and thus are subject to DNT:1 requests. We hope this clarification addresses your concerns.

The requirements on when user agents may send DNT:1 signals on behalf of a user as detailed in Section 4 of the TPE. The group previously rejected providing more detailed requirements; you do not provide new information or a proposal to cause us to reopen this issue. We revisited this issue during the Last Call process in considering a proposal to require information about the DNT setting party within the DNT field, but that proposal was rejected by the group.

See also: TPE Last Call comments, re: validation of user signals (issue-260)
https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-tracking-comments/2015Jun/0008.html

Please let us know whether these explanations resolve your concerns.

Thanks,
Nick Doty, W3C
(for Tracking Protection Working Group Co-Chairs: Carl, Justin and Matthias)