Re: Today's call: summary on user agent compliance

I come back to the point - how do you know the difference?

Let me give a simple example. MSIE 10 ships with DNT:1 turned on by
default. You determine that is a non-compliant UA and therefore ignore it.

Problem solved.

Nope. Enterprise customer calls Dell and says - hey we want all shipments
of Windows 8 with DNT:1 set before you ship them to us. Instantly the
non-compliant UA idea fails. The user (the Enterprise) has made a choice
and asked for the OEM to make it so.

It should be obvious right now that there is no way to know if someone (a
physical user) or an OEM or an OS manufacturer made the choice. Heck, I
could get it, turn it off, then two days later turn it on. What does the
server do now?

There¹s NO such thing as an invalid UA that sends a DNT:1 simply because
you cannot determine ³who² set it.



Peter
___________________________________
Peter J. Cranstone
720.663.1752








On 6/12/12 4:18 PM, "Rigo Wenning" <rigo@w3.org> wrote:

>On Monday 11 June 2012 15:14:34 Roy T. Fielding wrote:
>> No, it means I have ignored a header field because it came in
>> with another header field that matches a non-compliant UA.
>> Since I have stated that I will not honor DNT when set by
>> that UA, I have done exactly what I said I would do.  If you
>> have chosen to spoof the User-Agent header field for some other
>> UA, then I take that as an instruction that you want all of
>> the same behavior that I would have delivered for that UA,
>> including ignoring the DNT signal.
>
>If you chose to not honor a valid DNT request, that's an issue that
>goes beyond what W3C can define as sanctions. But telling that you
>discriminate one user agent even though it has sent a valid DNT
>header even according to the criteria that are consensus in the WG
>means you're putting yourself outside of DNT. Discriminating against
>a user agent only because of the user agent, whatever the user does
>with that agent is a bold move. A move against the "one web
>principle" and a move against a standards driven Web for all.
>
>Remember this one?
>http://www.opera.com/press/releases/2003/02/14/
>
>You're not much better here.
>
>I'm not neglecting the issue and its impact on revenue, but I'm
>seriously questioning whether an ill advised user agent
>discrimination is a solution or the root for even deeper troubles.
>
>Rigo
>
>

Received on Tuesday, 12 June 2012 23:10:55 UTC