Re: Questionable Research

Shane:  I did examine the research, which doesn't reflect the realities of the market and its impact on users.  It's important to discusses biases--including who pays for it.

I know the real-life trade-offs very well (thanks to Yahoo advertising blog and many more sources!).  The reason we are all doing this---all of us--is that we are concerned about the lack of privacy and threats to consumers and citizens in the digital environment created by the online marketing industry.




Jeffrey Chester
Center for Digital Democracy
1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 550
Washington, DC 20009
www.democraticmedia.org
www.digitalads.org
202-986-2220

On Nov 14, 2012, at 10:37 AM, Shane Wiley wrote:

> [Subject line changed as this discussion has moved off of the initial JS thread but it’s important to call out the very real issues with recent (and arguably, historical) consumer privacy research that lacks real-life trade-off scenarios.]
>  
> Jeff,
>  
> Please look at the merits of the questions/issues raised in the article rather than your personal views of the author’s associations.
>  
> Thank you,
> - Shane
>  
> From: Jeffrey Chester [mailto:jeff@democraticmedia.org] 
> Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2012 5:58 AM
> To: Shane Wiley
> Cc: John Simpson; David Wainberg; Walter van Holst; public-tracking@w3.org
> Subject: Re: ISSUE-187 - some thoughts on using javascript
>  
> Shane.  Mr. Castro works for an industry funded and connected group, which has worked to weaken privacy rules--including for children. It's board includes Cisco, Intel, Qualcom, Oracle,  H-P, Microsoft and others.  
>  
> It's important to discuss scholarly research that is relevant, but also identify the conflicts of interest which shape their role.
>  
> Best,
>  
> Jeff
>  
>  
>  
> Jeffrey Chester
> Center for Digital Democracy
> 1621 Connecticut Ave, NW, Suite 550
> Washington, DC 20009
> www.democraticmedia.org
> www.digitalads.org
> 202-986-2220
>  
> On Nov 9, 2012, at 3:47 PM, Shane Wiley wrote:
> 
> 
> An interesting article discussing the lack of objectivity in the research paper John just circulated:
>  
> New Survey Shows Some Privacy Scholars Lack Objectivity
> BY DANIEL CASTRO · OCTOBER 14, 2012
> URL:  HTTP://WWW.INNOVATIONFILES.ORG/NEW-SURVEY-SHOWS-SOME-PRIVACY-SCHOLARS-LACK-OBJECTIVITY/
>  
> “A survey funded by Nokia and conducted at the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology shows what has become increasingly apparent to those who follow this line of research: some of the most prominent academic researchers have ceased to retain even a veneer of objectivity in their research on privacy. The authors, Chris Hoofnagle, Jennifer Urban and Su Li, state that their survey shows that “Americans have a low level of knowledge about [Do Not Track], but prefer that it mean that websites do not collect tracking data.”
> I won’t mince words here: this is shoddy research.”
> 
> NOTE:  Please follow the link above to read the rest of the article.
>  
> From: John Simpson [mailto:john@consumerwatchdog.org] 
> Sent: Friday, November 09, 2012 1:13 PM
> To: David Wainberg
> Cc: Walter van Holst; public-tracking@w3.org
> Subject: Re: ISSUE-187 - some thoughts on using javascript
>  
> I've attached as a PDF file an interesting research paper from the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology about what people expect from DNT.  
>  
>  
> ----------
> John M. Simpson
> Consumer Advocate
> Consumer Watchdog
> 2701 Ocean Park Blvd., Suite 112
> Santa Monica, CA,90405
> Tel: 310-392-7041
> Cell: 310-292-1902
> www.ConsumerWatchdog.org
> john@consumerwatchdog.org
>  
> On Nov 9, 2012, at 9:59 AM, David Wainberg wrote:
> 
> 
> 
>  
> On 11/8/12 5:52 PM, Walter van Holst wrote:
> On 11/8/12 9:17 PM, Vinay Goel wrote:
> Hi Walter,
>  
> I agree with you that the logical solution would be to store them together
> in the UA preferences.  From what I understand, though, the major UAs
> would likely not implement this, though.
> I probably should have spotted that in the list archives before, but
> have missed it. I cannot speek for the UAs, nonetheless all research on
> user opinions on tracking suggests that they are much more inclined to
> go for a all-out DNT:1 than for DNT:0, which makes me assume that any
> exception mechanism is unlikely to be used often. Sadly not all research
> in this field is publicly available, so we have to make do with what is.
> What credible research can you cite that is publicly available? Unfortunately we don't have much useful information on what users really want, or would want if they properly understood the technology and their choices. And it's certainly not very helpful to cite research that isn't available.
> 
> -David
> 
> 
>  
>  
>