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

On Apr 20, 2013, at 0:04 , Alan Chapell <achapell@chapellassociates.com> wrote:

> Thanks David. A few things come to mind after reading your and Ed's examples.
> 
> The radio app running on a computer

No, no.  Maybe I did not explain.  It's not an app, it's a little black box.  The computer is only needed to *configure* it over the network.  Once configured, it runs without a computer.  My Onkyo stereo is an example.  This is not hypothetical.


> in your example can be seen as an extension of the radio service's UA and therefore compliant so long as it otherwise meets the proposed guidelines. If you don't feel that the proposed language address your use case, I'd be happy to work with you on language that addresses that concern.
> 
> That said, It seems imprudent to spend too much time constructing a standard around a hypothetical edge case unless there's a compelling benefit and little risk of creating a loophole.

That's your characterization that it's only a "hypothetical edge case".

> 
> I'm sure that regardless of how this standard is constructed, there will be use cases that don't fit perfectly within the spec. This is undoubtedly an area that is rife for future learnings. If having these guidelines in place causes unnecessary heartburn for some with no demonstrable benefit for consumers, we can adjust down the road – particularly after consumers obtain more of an understanding of what DNT does. But starting the DNT experiment with virtually no disclosure requirements on UA's

PLEASE stop repeating that strawman.  NO-ONE is arguing for no disclosure requirements;  we're just arguing that they should not be tied directly to the UA, but to the enabling of the signal.

> seems less than ideal, given our shared goal of ensuring informed consent.

We need to actually discuss the question: does the disclosure requirement need to be tied to the user-agent (the end-point of the HTTP transaction that does the fetches), or does it need to be functionally tied to the enabling of the DNT:1 signal that is tied?


> 
> Alan
> 
> From: David Singer <singer@apple.com>
> Date: Thursday, April 18, 2013 11:58 PM
> To: Alan Chapell <achapell@chapellassociates.com>
> Cc: "Edward W. Felten" <felten@CS.Princeton.EDU>, "<public-tracking@w3.org>" <public-tracking@w3.org>
> Subject: Re: ACTION-390: alternative UA affordances for DNT choice
> Resent-From: <public-tracking@w3.org>
> Resent-Date: Fri, 19 Apr 2013 03:58:54 +0000
> 
>> 
>> 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.
>> 

David Singer
Multimedia and Software Standards, Apple Inc.