Re: ACTION-390: alternative UA affordances for DNT choice

On Apr 18, 2013, at 21:30 , Alan Chapell <achapell@chapellassociates.com> wrote:
>> No one is suggesting your strawman -- that the user was not informed *at all*.  They are suggesting that the user may be informed by something other than the UA itself, and that the DNT signal still result from an informed choice.
> 
> 
> Can you provide some examples of how this would work for your UA's?

I am sure that my imagination is poor compared to the products people envisage or invent, but I can try.

As Ed suggests, audio-only UAs are an obvious case.  Imagine an internet radio -- it has audio out, and a network connection.  When it is running, it is the UA (the user agent, that makes HTTP requests for audio segments).

Now, imagine a radio service that puts some or all of its requests through a re-direction service, so that they can track people and what they are listening to. The radio station gets some revenue in return for allowing this tracking.  This means that some users may be interested in a more private radio experience, and may desire a DNT setting.

Finally, imagine that the internet radio appliance is set up using an application you run on a personal computer of some sort.  There is no reason I can see to prohibit the device from having a privacy setting that enables DNT, that is configured and explained in the setup app that users run.  That setup app is not a user-agent.

(There are some practical issues (which are out of our scope), such as that it may be prudent to cause the device to do a 'test fetch' to each of its stations while the app is running, to see if they are willing to provide service with DNT turned on.)


I feel sure that there are other cases, as well.

David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.