RE: Summary of First Party vs. Third Party Tests

>Example: Example Website embeds a widget from Example Social Aggregator.  The widget includes a prominent logo for Example Social Aggregator, though a user is unlikely to recognize it.

>Discussion: Content from Example Social Aggregator is third-party under every test save the third.

I disagree (assuming the user interacted with the widget as Tom specified).  I would say that this example is 3rd party according to the 1st and 2nd tests and 1st party according to the latter two.  Whether the visitor recognizes the brand is irrelevant.  A prominent brand is usually adequate to identify the widget as not being operated by the containing site making it safe to assume the user knows they are interacting with a different brand.

-----Original Message-----
From: Jonathan Mayer [mailto:jmayer@stanford.edu] 
Sent: Friday, October 28, 2011 11:11 PM
To: public-tracking@w3.org Group WG
Subject: Summary of First Party vs. Third Party Tests

(ACTION-25)

As I understand it, there are four camps on how to distinguish between first parties and third parties.

1) Domain names (e.g. public suffix + 1).

2) Legal business relationships (e.g. corporate ownership + affiliates).

3) Branding.

4) User expectations.

Here are some examples that show the boundaries of these definitions.

Example: The user visits Example Website at example.com.  Example Website embeds content from examplestatic.com, a domain controlled by Example Website and used to host static content.

Discussion: Content from the examplestatic.com domain is first-party under every test save the first.

Example: Example Website (example.com) strikes a deal with Example Affiliate (affiliate.com), an otherwise unrelated company, to share user data.  The user visits Example Website, and it embeds content from Example Affiliate.

Discussion: Content from Example Affiliate is third-party under every test save the second.

Example: Example Website embeds a widget from Example Social Aggregator.  The widget includes a prominent logo for Example Social Aggregator, though a user is unlikely to recognize it.

Discussion: Content from Example Social Aggregator is third-party under every test save the third.

Received on Friday, 11 November 2011 20:22:24 UTC