Re: W3C Web Payments Workshop cleaned Minutes

Stephane and W3C team, I'm only catching up now with the wonderfully
prompt and thorough reporting of the workshop after being offline for
a week on a side trip. Thanks to the whole W3C team on an outstanding
event and follow-up!

I would like to request two amendments to the minutes, as follows:

1. The title provided to my comments in the minutes is: "Hidden Choice
can be Anti-Consumer - Joseph Potvin". It seems to me that this title
attaches an opinionated spin to my neutral observations.
http://www.w3.org/2013/10/payments/minutes/2014-03-25-s4/#topic-4  In
my comments I attempted to be non-critical, and neither my
presentation deck nor my written submission
http://www.w3.org/2013/10/payments/papers/ expressed any opinion as
such. My visual and oral presentation illustrated and briefly
explained a choice of currency conversion options using the example of
the PayPal process. And my full written submission was non-committal
on the controversial topic of restrictions by intermediaries upon the
choices that sellers or buyers may make in relation to the three
attributes of price. What I did advocate was that if any such
restrictions are to be permitted under a new W3C web payments
standard, they ought to be explicit.  My suggested sub-section title
therefore is: "Transparency of Roles Affecting all Attributes of
Price".

2. Also, I wish to request a tweak of terminology in the Use Case
derived from my comments. The minutes has this phrased as: "USE CASE:
Enable the customer and the merchant to choose foreign exchange rates
and how foreign exchange affect their prices, give them the choice,
not the financial network/intermediary."

I recommend that this should instead read: "USE CASE: Enable the
customer and the merchant to determine the inter-currency valuation
benchmarks, given that this is a core attribute of price. Require that
any restrictions on choice related to core attributes of price be made
transparent and explicit.

Brief background:  "Foreign exchange rates" are just one sort of
inter-currency valuation benchmark that can be chosen. It's a type
that is regulated under capital controls legislation and potentially
also WTO and IMF mandates. Well, actually that's been a newsworthy
topic during the past two months:
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2014/03/31/uk-swiss-forex-investigation-idUKBREA2U06K20140331
But that's not the issue I was getting into. I intentionally stuck to
the more generic language "value in exchange benchmark" to emphasize
that what customers and the merchants can choose amongst are a
diversity of benchmarks. The level of choice I was referring to just
involves contract law.

Please let me know if the rapporteurs have any issue with making these
two adjustments to the minutes. It comprises an important and lasting
record.  Precision in the language used in relation to these two
aspects is important as we develop the participation of additional
stakeholders from the monetary and financial services domains.

Joseph Potvin



On Thu, Apr 3, 2014 at 11:51 AM, Stephane Boyera <boyera@w3.org> wrote:
> Dear All,
>
> Thanks to the great help from the Web Payments Community Group and Manu
> Sporny, we just published a new cleaned version of the minutes of the
> workshop at
> http://www.w3.org/2013/10/payments/minutes/
> The agenda with links to slides and presentations is available at
> http://www.w3.org/2013/10/payments/agenda
>
> We are planning to circulate a draft report for your comments in the next 10
> days.
>
> Best
> Stephane
> --
> Stephane Boyera        stephane@w3.org
> W3C                +33 (0) 6 73 84 87 27
> BP 93
> F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex,
> France
>

Received on Thursday, 3 April 2014 20:14:15 UTC