RE: User intended interactions [1st & 3rd Parties]

I echo other's sentiments that this list is a great start.  Thanks for the effort Tom.  Although I largely agree with the concepts, I do have a comment on the verbage.  I know this is not intended to be final wording, but as we refine, I think we should avoid using  terms like 'the user thinks', or 'the user recognizes', or other words that indicate a user's thought process.  You cannot define a standard based on a user's thought process (nor could you determine compliance since it would be determined by each user).  I know this can be hard when discussing things like user intent and reasonable user expectations, but rather I think we need to focus on user actions, and site actions.

For instance in # 7,  "The user visits a site. There is a weather widget with no obvious branding. The user thinks that the widget is operated by and part of the site that they are visiting, because of the lack of obvious branding."

It does not matter what the user thinks because we cannot say "If the user recognizes the widget, then ..."  Even if the user does recognize somehow that the widget is not operated by the site, in this instance due to the lack of branding, it still remains a 3rd party.

I would recommend rewriting 7 as:
7. The user visits a site. There is a weather widget with no obvious branding or clear indication that the widget is not operated by and part of the site that they are visiting.  The user clicks on the widget to scroll forward and see tomorrow's weather. The widget is at all times a third party.

And I would likewise rewrite 8 as:
8. The user visits a site with a clearly-branded Accuweather.com weather widget. The user clicks on the widget to get more weather information. Accuweather.com is a first party to that interaction.

It might also be worth adding that the clear branding needs to be apparent before interaction.  For example, if the nondescript version of the weather widget displays a clearly branded local weather page after you have entered your zip code, the original interaction at least was still with a 3rd party.  If the user then interacts with the now-branded weather widget again (perhaps by drilling into an hourly forecast), that interaction could be considered 1st party.



-----Original Message-----
From: Tom Lowenthal [mailto:tom@mozilla.com] 
Sent: Tuesday, November 08, 2011 6:12 PM
To: public-tracking@w3.org
Subject: User intended interactions [1st & 3rd Parties]

ACTION-27 ISSUE-10

As promised, here is a proposal for "first" and "third" parties. I know that these names are too sticky to drop now, but the following definitions are based on the model of meaningful user interaction, not some *a priori* party definitions.

I tried to give as many examples as I could think of, based on our conversations about use cases. Please let me know if I've missed some.

   ---

An entity becomes a first party when a user takes an affirmative action to communicate or interact with that clearly identifiable entity. Unless the user has taken such affirmative action, an entity is a third party.
The following examples indicate interactions which do and do not meet this criteria.


1. A user types "nytimes.com" into their browser's URL bar, thereby loading the New York Times homepage. The New York Times is a first party. There are no other first parties.
2. A user visits a New York Times article. There are Google "+1" and Twitter "Tweet this" buttons on the page. The New York Times is a first party. Google and Twitter are third parties.
3. The user recognizes the Twitter "Tweet this" button, and clicks it in order to share the article with their tweeps. Twitter is now a first party to this interaction. Google remains a third party.
4. The user loads a new article. An advertisement loads, and begins playing loud music. The user clicks the ad's mute button. The ad is at all times a third party.
5. The user loads a new article. An advertisement loads, and begins playing loud music. The user clicks the ad's mute button. The ad is at all times a third party.
6. The user loads a new article. An advertisement loads, and renders in front of the text of the article, obscuring it. The user clicks a "close" button on the ad to dismiss it. The ad is at all times a third party.
7. The user visits a site. There is a weather widget with no obvious branding. The user thinks that the widget is operated by and part of the site that they are visiting, because of the lack of obvious branding.
The user clicks on the widget to scroll forward and see tomorrow's weather. The widget is at all times a third party.
8. The user visits a site with a clearly-branded Accuweather.com weather widget. The user recognizes the branding, and clicks on the widget to get more weather information. Accuweather.com is a first party to that interaction.
9. A user sees an advertisement for Chips Ahoy cookies. The user wants to buy some cookies, so they click the ad. The Nabisco is a first party.
Nabisco may have hired many advertising companies as vendors.
10. A user sees a tweet which says "Check out this awesome NYT article bit.ly/1234". The user clicks the link, expecting to be redirected by bitly to the New York Times. Twitter, bitly and the New York Times are all first parties to this interaction.
11. A user sees a tweet which says "Check out this awesome NYT article nyti.ms/1234". The user recognizes that that this is a link to the New York Times, but doesn't know that the New York Times has hired bit.ly to do URL shortening. The user clicks the link, expecting to be redirected by a shortener to the New York Times. Twitter and the New York Times are all first parties to this interaction. bit.ly is a service provider for the New York times.
12. A user clicks a links which says "Awesome NYT Article" and points to framing.com/nyt1234. This page loads nothing but a frame which contains a New York Times article, but all links are rewritten to pass through framing.com rather than pointing at other NYT articles. The New York Times is a first party. Framing.com is a third party.
13. The user clicks one of these links to go to another NYT artcile, and gets directed to framing.com/nyt1235. The New York Times is a first party. Framing.com is a third party.

Received on Friday, 11 November 2011 00:51:51 UTC