Re: A first draft of the future Web Payments Interest group is available for comments

Hi Joseph


> RE: I believe it makes sense to illustrate with some examples the type
> of payment instruments we are considering. But it should be clearly
> mentionned that those are just examples.
>
> My thinking was that if examples are given, they should be functional
> examples, never trademark names. A W3C charter should be
> vendor-neutral, and never be a de facto promotional vehicle for any
> particular suppliers just because they are well-known incumbents. Also
> the reference to "cryptocurrencies" takes a pre-emptive position on a
> current legal controversy regarding their status. That does not seem
> to be an appropriate position for W3C to take. Let the legislators and
> courts work out what is and what is not a currency.

this is fair enough. I'm happy to remove all trademarks, but still keep 
mention of payment instrument. The case of cryptocurrencies or digital 
currencies is more problematic. i got your point, and i agree with it, 
however, this is quite a generic name, independently of the legal status 
of a currency or not isn't it?
Is there a way we could mention these emerging payment options through 
the use of a neutral word?

>
> RE: In the success criteria, the importance is on coordinating
> activities within W3C. Liaisons are in place to coordinate at the
> group levels activities with non-W3C groups. The proposed change mix
> the two and requires that members are active in non-W3C groups. I
> propose to keep the separation clear (ie reject this proposal)
>
> My suggestion is based on the idea of equivalency amongst interacting
> and interdependent standards organizations. If the W3C would expect
> members of non-W3C standards bodies to participate in its work on
> areas of shared mandate, then the reverse should also hold. Otherwise
> one's premise is that W3C groups are in a class all by themselves in
> the standards world, where other bodies are presumed to have the
> professional collegiality to participate in W3C's work in the areas of
> shared mandate, but the members of the W3C would not respond in kind.
> That seems to be an ungenerous stance, especially when it is the W3C
> that is arriving into a space that is already active with several
> foundational standards bodies.  Ideally there might be a set of
> documents which summarize the interfaces of the respective mandates
> and working relationships between the W3C IC and selected other bodies
> that share part of a mandate, in the manner that the ITEF uses. Here
> are two examples:

I'm still unsure about what you are trying to say.
 From my perspective there are 2 aspects:
*one is about members of the future IG: we expect that not only these 
members will join the IG, but we also expect that they join technical 
groups to develop relevant standards within W3C.
*the second aspect is liaison: for relevant and related work done at 
other standardization bodies, we have liaisons ( 
http://www.w3.org/2001/11/StdLiaison ). So we expect that the IG as a 
group will liaise with relevant other groups. This does not mean that 
members of other organizations group will work in the W3C IG and 
vice-versa. each standardization org. has its own rules for 
participation in their groups. the only thing we can do is coordinating 
work at the group level.

is it clearer?


> RE: concerning the role of the different parties, the proposed change
> seems very specific with a very specific definition of attributes of
> prices. Given the scope of the charter, i believe this is too
> specific.

thanks for your detailed explanation that clarifies your point. However, 
the points of the charter is to identify areas that may be in the scope 
of the discussions, not to take a position of what should be the results 
of the discussion. My understanding of some of the discussions at the 
workshop is that the regulation may impose in some places intermediaries 
to make explicit these fees.
I believe it would be fair to mention transaction fees in the charter, 
and ensure that the overall architecture allows the flexibility to make 
them explicit or not. However, i don't think it is the role for W3C to 
impose new rules for payments. I also don't feel that W3C would be the 
right place to discuss these issues. I think that W3C Web payments 
activity's major focus is defining better and more interoperable 
interfaces with current and future payment systems, not defining new 
payment systems.
Finally, on a personal basis, I tend to think that we should focus first 
on "low hanging fruit" ie areas where there is already agreements 
between actors, instead of starting with the most difficult areas where 
there is an ongoing battle between different actors.

So all in one, my proposal is to mention transaction fees as one of the 
dimension to take into account. would that answer your point?

stephane
> There's much work underway on "use cases". The stickman in any use
> case diagram represents a role. To have have use case descriptions
> without the specification of the associated roles would leave a
> critical gap in the specifications. And to leave un-specfied which of
> the roles have authority to determine the attributes of price would
> leave an important gap for any payments system standard. Some of the
> key complaints that people generally have about today's incumbent
> hub&spoke payments intermediaries rest directly on this point, though
> it's not expressed with the precision I propose to give it. Anytime an
> intermediary applies its own percentage to handle a payment, this is
> not a service fee (since it costs them exactly the same to handle $100
> as $10,000). A percentage applied by an intermediary is in fact a
> component OF the price. If that's to be permitted within a W3C
> specification, then I argue that it must be explicit.  ...Yes, I do
> understand this recommendation of mine is controversial due to the
> fact that most of today's incumbents have in the past couple of
> decades managed to get away with inserting themselves as participants
> into price determination. The clear decision that faces the W3C, as I
> explained in my written submission to the workshop (which the
> reviewers agreed was an important point), is whether the new
> specification will gloss over this matter, and thus quietly acquiesce
> to payment intermediaties inserting themselves into price
> determination as part of the payments process itself. Or, will the W3C
> specification require that roles regarding price determination are
> explicit? And if explicit, will the role descriptions in the W3C spec
> provide a context for payment intermediaries to participate in the
> determination of price, or not?  I'm afraid there's no way for W3C to
> NOT take a position on this. It seems to me that what the W3C team has
> expressed so far (in the interest of not bogging down the first stage
> of achieving agreement on its intended standard) is a preference for
> quiet acquiescence towards payment intermediaties unilaterally and
> furtively inserting themselves into a part of price determination,
> whether or not the parties to payment transactions invite them to do
> so. This acquiescence would further cementing in one of the "deep
> bugs" of the status quo.  In saying this, I want to apologise, since
> it may appear that I am attempting to be hardline on the matter. On
> the contrary, it's for these sorts of reasons I've been taking the
> time to get to the root of payments law and ethics in general (eg
> UNICTRAL's foundational work, amongst other sources).  Maybe someone
> can suggest a diplomatic way that the issue I am raising can be
> "parked" for a defined period (say, a year) so as not to delay the
> first stage of achieving agreement on its intended standard, without
> any de facto implication of acquiescence to this imposition by
> payments intermediaries.
>
> Joseph Potvin
> The Opman Company
>
> On Tue, May 27, 2014 at 4:52 AM, Stephane Boyera <boyera@w3.org> wrote:
>> Thank Joseph.
>> I've tried to extract the essence of your comments based on your edits.I've
>> published them (as well as all other received to date) at
>> https://www.w3.org/community/webpaymentsigcharter/wiki/Main_Page
>>
>> For each i've proposed a resolution. All further comments, as well as
>> comments of the proposed changes are welcome.
>>
>> I will make a new version of the charter next week.
>>
>> Best
>> Steph
>>
>> Le 26/05/2014 21:36, Joseph Potvin a écrit :
>>>
>>> Stephane et. al., I have posted a version of the text of the draft
>>> charter with my suggested amendments in a PDF produced with "change
>>> control" on. Possibly the email lists do not support attachments, so I
>>> have placed the PDF on Google Drive, with access set to share with
>>> anyone who has the link:
>>>
>>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0Bz47kauZsx60R1RvVEJYRkhTNzQ/edit?usp=sharing
>>>
>>> Please let me know if you cannot access the file, and I can sent it
>>> directly.
>>>
>>> Joseph Potvin
>>> The Opman Company
>>>
>>> On Thu, May 15, 2014 at 7:41 AM, Stephane Boyera <boyera@w3.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Dear All,
>>>>
>>>> Following-up on my last email, I've just published a first draft of the
>>>> future W3C Web Payments Interest Group (aka Web Payments Steering Group).
>>>> The document is available at
>>>> http://www.w3.org/2014/04/payments/webpayments_charter.html
>>>>
>>>> I've also just published short blog post to request feedback, see
>>>>
>>>> http://www.w3.org/community/webpaymentsigcharter/2014/05/15/first-draft-of-future-web-payments-interest-group-charter-published/
>>>>
>>>> We need your help to move this forwards:
>>>> *All comments are welcome. You can answer this email, contact W3C team
>>>> privately or join the Community group dedicated to the charter
>>>> development
>>>> (http://www.w3.org/community/webpaymentsigcharter/join ) to provide
>>>> contribution. We will be able to make progress if the work items and the
>>>> scope of this group is inline with your interest and expectations.
>>>>
>>>> *We need to increase our sphere of influence and involve more payment
>>>> industry actors. W3C is well connected with Web and technology actors,
>>>> but
>>>> we are relatively new in the payment area. Please disseminate the charter
>>>> in
>>>> your network, or let us know who you believe we should engage with to
>>>> discuss this charter first and then to work  on its implementation.
>>>>
>>>> Best
>>>> Stephane
>>>> --
>>>> Stephane Boyera        stephane@w3.org
>>>> W3C                +33 (0) 6 73 84 87 27
>>>> BP 93
>>>> F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex,
>>>> France
>>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Stephane Boyera        stephane@w3.org
>> W3C                +33 (0) 6 73 84 87 27
>> BP 93
>> F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex,
>> France
>
>
>

-- 
Stephane Boyera        stephane@w3.org
W3C                +33 (0) 6 73 84 87 27
BP 93
F-06902 Sophia Antipolis Cedex,
France

Received on Tuesday, 27 May 2014 13:48:29 UTC