Re: June Change Proposal, tracking

On Jun 27, 2013, at 3:52 PM, David Singer wrote:
> On Jun 26, 2013, at 5:38 , Roy T. Fielding <fielding@gbiv.com> wrote:
> 
>> This is ISSUE-5
>> 
>> The June draft has a definition of tracking that is not consistent
>> with the rest of our protocol,
> 
> can you explain in what way?  It would help me understand what needs fixing.

There is a lot of data that can be associated with a specific user,
user agent, or device.  IP address, screen resolution, window size,
and request-URI are the obvious ones.  For the most part, sites
that aren't in the business of tracking don't know what parts of
a request might be unique.

If the definition of tracking is met by a common logfile kept
for a few days, then all sites track.  If we want to limit the
practice of actively following a user across distinct sites,
as opposed to retaining information at a single site that just
happens to be unique, then we should define "Do Not Track"
according to what we are limiting.

If not, then we should state up front that all websites track
and Do Not Track will not turn that off.

>> nor with what the user is asking us
>> to turn off when sending DNT:1.
> 
> I am not sure any of us are qualified to speak on behalf of the "universal user", but in several workshops it became clear that the users expected sites "to stop remembering information about me" which is roughly what the current definition says.  But nonetheless, what do you think users are asking for?

To not follow them across unrelated contexts.  Whether context
in that sense is defined as a single site or a group of related
sites doesn't matter to me, so long as we are consistent.

DNT:1 does not mean "don't remember anything about me" because
we don't want the user's first-party web experience to suffer
horrendously just for the sake of turning off third-party tracking.

Cheers,

....Roy

Received on Monday, 1 July 2013 06:30:19 UTC