- From: Rigo Wenning <rigo@w3.org>
- Date: Sun, 01 Apr 2012 22:06:35 +0200
- To: public-tracking@w3.org
- Cc: Alan Chapell <achapell@chapellassociates.com>, Jeffrey Chester <jeff@democraticmedia.org>, Shane Wiley <wileys@yahoo-inc.com>, Jonathan Mayer <jmayer@stanford.edu>, David Singer <singer@apple.com>, John Simpson <john@consumerwatchdog.org>
Alan, 1/ we do not set standards at W3C, we issue Recommendations. Being involved in more traditional standardization, I know the difference between both and I'm happy to explain, but I assume you know this at least as much as I do. 2/ We do technical specification here. And this means we define a certain header that comes with a HTTP GET request. Now we define what the server should do in case the server receives that header and wants to be compliant to the Recommendation. "Out-of-band" is creating the trouble, because it imports troubles from outside in our definition space and we have to decide in how far we accept that (see below) 3/ Whether our factual specifications are accepted as "consent", "meaningful consent" or "informed consent" is not up to the Group as those definitions are under a different sovereignty. But what we can discuss is whether we want to align with requirements as defined elsewhere. We do that e.g. by trying to get some EU blessing with our tool so that it is really really useful for industry there and by inviting those others to our table. So, to me, the consent discussion is a wrong discussion here, but has some merit. The problem of ISSUE-115 is that a user may not be consciously logged in. (see my other email). By allowing any "out-of-band" agreement to trump DNT, ALL other sovereign definitions will trump DNT, whatever they are. This will open the path back to the deep legalese that allows for all those nice surprises*. And this is just giving in to any outside authority to invent something that may serve as an argument to ignore the DNT signal and STILL claim compliance. Accordingly, we are back into reading 22 pages of legalese as they can tell whether the DNT signal will be ignored. And this would even be compliant. This being compliant affects the value of the W3C Specification. And W3C is the venue where we talk about W3C Specifications. That's why I think we have a right to discuss criteria to put limitations on arbitrary "out-of-band" agreements and when we accept that those can compliantly top the W3C Specification. This gives us a truckload of choices: 1/ Try to really understand what Shane wants to avoid and define this to get the Spec closer to reality 2/ Re-consider JC's solution to give DNT a meaning in a logged-in scenario (David, I disagree that this would be too subtle) 3/ require "direct interaction" 4/ explore the browser-maker outrage if we start telling them they should show us when we are logged in to something 5/ Define the meaning of "logged in" for the compliance with the W3C Specification etc ... If we brainstorm, there are more solutions.. Best, Rigo *My favorite example was that by buying a coffee maker you subscribed to receiving a pound of coffee every week for 5 years at an outrageous price. (Court decision, Germany, 1957) On Thursday 29 March 2012 12:10:39 Alan Chapell wrote: > I don't think the issue is regarding 'commitment' to meaningful consent. The > issue is whether this is the appropriate forum to set pan-world standards > for consent. Hence, I await some clarification from our co-chairs on > process.
Received on Sunday, 1 April 2012 20:07:06 UTC