Adobe Corporation, Larry Masinter

Adobe Corporation,



I describe to you a serious misconduct of Larry Masinter, representing Adobe Corporation at the W3C in an official capacity.  I describe to you a serious misconduct of Adobe Corporation.



The incident pertains to Larry Masinter's intolerable behavior after the discussion: Digital Textbooks and Locally-stored Student and Educational Data.  During that discussion, I presented that digital textbooks could personalize, customize, content for students while storing students' data, such as student models, locally.  An article about the topics, Document Personalization and User Data Privacy: Client-Side Document Processing Utilizing Locally-Stored User Data and User Models, is available at: http://www.w3.org/community/argumentation/2014/08/12/document-personalization-and-user-data-privacy-client-side-document-processing-utilizing-locally-stored-user-data-and-user-models/.



Larry Masinter's letter (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-tag/2014Aug/0031.html) can be described as a suggestion to the aforementioned W3C Technical Architecture Group chair, Daniel Appelquist, whom he was addressing, in addition to others the group, that they conspire to refer to the presented science or, by action or inaction, signal as appropriate or acceptable to refer to, in the mailing list, the presented science, Digital Textbooks and Locally-stored Student and Educational Data, science potentially inconvenient to a number of interests, as a hoax, while having determined that no explanation whatsoever was required to do so in the forum.



It so happens that there are participants at the W3C, including at the Technical Architecture Group forum, who can be reasonably described as interested in or motivated with regard to educational data policy.  Some parties can be described as having interests in topics pertaining to wanting students, in American public schools, to store their data on third-party servers, the cloud, to make use of third-party search engines or to make use of third-party social networking websites.  There are parties which participate at the W3C interested in the storage, collection, harvesting, processing, productization or utilization of students' data.  There are parties present at the W3C with interests in education data policy in American public schools.



Larry Masinter's disrespect, escalation, accusation, defamation, libel, attempt to dismiss or discredit emerging science, referring to recently presented science as a hoax to a group chair was intolerable.  Legal recourse was not my preferred option but was demanded by the intolerable behavior of Larry Masinter, of the Adobe Corporation.  The matter is one which demands satisfaction, a legal matter to continue outside of this mailing list.



To some participants in this mailing list, I clarify that it is inappropriate for parties other than Larry Masinter or the Adobe Corporation to respond to this letter, though neither Larry Masinter nor the Adobe Corporation need respond to this letter.  I have opened a channel with the Adobe legal team outside of this mailing list.  Attorneys at the Electronic Frontier Foundation as well as at the Electronic Privacy Information Center have also been apprised of the incident.



I have indicated that advantages of Educational Data Mining (EDM) are possible without any storage, collection, harvesting, processing, productization or utilization of students’ data by third parties.  I have indicated advancements to databases (http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-math/2014May/0008.html).  I have indicated advancements to digital textbooks (http://www.w3.org/community/argumentation/2014/08/12/document-personalization-and-user-data-privacy-client-side-document-processing-utilizing-locally-stored-user-data-and-user-models/).  Distributed computation, decentralized computation, P2P computation, utilizing students’ mobile computers, including in public school settings, increases the number of EDM features which can be provided to students, teachers, administrators or school systems, while students' data, including student models, can be stored locally on their mobile computers, protecting students' data privacy.







Adam Sobieski