Re: issue-199

What does "event linkable" mean?


On Wed, Jul 10, 2013 at 9:07 AM, Shane Wiley <wileys@yahoo-inc.com> wrote:

> Rigo,
>
> Why are you so attached to this particular perspective on the definition
> of "de-identification"?  Does "De-identified but still event linkable"
> makes this any better?  Enhanced Pseudonymization does do much for me.  I
> begin to agree with whomever said let's just call it "the yellow state" for
> now and move on.
>
> - Shane
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Rigo Wenning [mailto:rigo@w3.org]
> Sent: Wednesday, July 10, 2013 2:03 PM
> To: Shane Wiley
> Cc: public-tracking@w3.org; Mike O'Neill; 'achapell'; npdoty@w3.org;
> tlr@w3.org; jeff@democraticmedia.org
> Subject: Re: issue-199
>
> Shane,
>
> I understood mostly what you want to do. Like in audience measurement, you
> don't need to know who has preferred the ad in the upper right corner. You
> need the counter. I understand that.
>
> You still do not answer my question on the naming of that thing.
>
> I suggested to name that thing "enhanced pseudonymization", not de-
> identification. In audience measurement we sanitized the discussion a lot
> by removing ambiguous naming. That's the goal here too. You entertain the
> misunderstanding by naming your technique "de- identification". You could
> name it also "re-serialization". Whatever, but not de-identification.
>
> If you want wording on the technique itself from me, you risk that I do
> more harm than good... But if you insist, I will do it..
>
>  --Rigo
>
> On Wednesday 10 July 2013 10:38:15 Shane Wiley wrote:
> > I believe you've grossly misinterpreted the industry proposal on this
> > point.  Yellow data is not "off the hook" - it can only be used for
> > analytical purposes.  And no one has felt that this analysis would
> > allow for behavioral fingerprinting of specific users - so happy to
> > take that off the table - please provide proposed language.  The goal
> > is to truly make yellow data (de-identified but event linkable) only
> > usable for "aggregate analysis".  To be clear, this could result in
> > analytics that say for a specific web page users generally click on
> > ads placed in position B over position A so begin to show all ads in
> > position B.  So the results may be generally applied but not
> > specifically applied to a single individual.
> >
> > I hope this clears up the situation.
>
>


-- 
Edward W. Felten
Professor of Computer Science and Public Affairs
Director, Center for Information Technology Policy
Princeton University
609-258-5906           http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~felten