RE: Third-Party Web Tracking: Policy and Technology Paper outlining harms of tracking

Dear Roy,

With all due respect your response is a load of crap.  Ads could well be delivered without any of the permitted uses and there are even targeted ad delivery approaches that respect user privacy so many services could continue to be ad funded.

The 'free service' argument just does not cut it, sorry.  Many would rather have their privacy respected than the junk ad supported services and would settle for paid content, or contributor or donation supported content, or content supported by advertisers that respect user privacy.

If a service needs to collect user data to 'protect itself again attacks' or for accounting then this use of the user data must have some value for the service provider and by taking and using the data without consent the service is causing the user harm by depriving them of the ability to negotiate favorable terms.

cheers
Fred

From: fielding@gbiv.com
Date: Fri, 12 Oct 2012 01:39:01 -0700
CC: public-tracking@w3.org
To: fredandw@live.com
Subject: Re: Third-Party Web Tracking: Policy and Technology Paper outlining   harms of tracking

On Oct 11, 2012, at 5:08 PM, Fred Andrews wrote:Showing harm to the user is very easy.  If you really need help then just look to all the claimed critical permitted uses - while the user private data is taken for these uses the value to a user of sharing this data is zero and thus causes a huge financial loss to users.
That is just nonsense.  The data collected for permitted usesis to allow a service to protect itself against attacksand allow non-targeted advertising to be paid for withoutuser accounts.  The benefit to the user is that they can remainpseudonymous to the site while receiving free services, asopposed to requiring a user account, email address, andeither fully-targeted content advertising or fees to supplythe service.  In other words, the permitted uses are neededbecause the alternative is no privacy at all (or no service at all).
....Roy