Re: tracking-ISSUE-150: DNT conflicts from multiple user agents [Tracking Definitions and Compliance]

Tamir, 

On Thursday 21 June 2012 20:34:25 Tamir Israel wrote:
> My concern is that in this 'exchange' users will inevitably lose
> out  since servers will have the more or less final say in all
> instances. Taking a pure contractual analysis stance for a
> moment, under what terms could you enforce /any /DNT-1 against a
> server that has decided to ignore it (and has told you so)?

This is my central argument in this debate since weeks. Ian Fette 
seems to be on the same page. It seems that some techies still have 
trouble understanding that. The question remains how this is wrapped 
into messages and into DNT marketing and politics. 

For the moment, "honoring the DNT-Header preference" is called "DNT-
compliant" in the market place. Those market semantics are at odds 
with typical specification and standardization semantics. There, 
"DNT-compliant" means: "Has implemented all the MUSTs and SHOULDs". 

A site that does not respond or responds with NACK has "implemented 
all the MUSTs and SHOULDs", but does NOT "honor the DNT-Header 
preference". Such a site is "compliant" according to the classic 
semantics and "non-compliant" according to the market semantics. 

A way out is to define those two things in a conformance section. 
And to rename them. An addition to the TPE Specification would read:

Conformance section

1. An implementation of this Specification that implements all the 
MUSTs and SHOULDs relevant for it is called "Specification 
complete". 

2/ An implementation that confirms to follow users' Tracking-
Preferences as defined by section 4 and 5 of this Specification  is 
called "DNT-compliant". 

This way, the semantic odds are cleared. And it is clear that while 
a site has a perfect right to reject the header, it can't call that 
behavior "DNT-compliant". 

Best, 

Rigo

Received on Friday, 22 June 2012 18:49:50 UTC