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"We’re encouraged by conversations and efforts already taking place in the industry - including within the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the recently anno

"We’re encouraged by conversations and efforts already taking place in the industry - including within the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the recently announced Partnership for Responsible Addressable Media (PRAM). We look forward to continuing to engage with these industry groups to get this right for people and small businesses.” Translation: "At least we have these guys house trained, so it's not a total loss."

duncan_bayne 6y ago
The W3C would never ... oh wait ... I remember DRM and EME. Nevermind, yes, of course they'd roll over.
- tialaramex 6y ago
  It's a consortium, that is, it exists to represent the interests of corporate members. It's actually set up that way partly because his stupid toy hypermedia system made a lot of people very rich and Sir Tim would like some of that money. Now, it should not come as an enormous surprise that most of the W3C's corporate members do not have your individual interests close to their hearts. And so you can't really expect them to consistently vote for things that help you and hurt them. If you would like to work on technology standardisation but you aren't a corporation find an IETF Working Group that's doing something interesting to you and pitch in. Unlike the W3C the IETF isn't a membership organisation. Indeed it arguably isn't an organisation at all which makes it pretty unique among Standards Development Organisations...
ffpip 6y ago
A comment from yesterday - To be fair though, don't you remember how the DNT header worked really well for everybody involved, and how all these advertisers today universally respect it, and how they totally didn't abandon the entire concept as soon as it started seeing mainstream use and platforms started turning it on by default? What could go wrong if we give them another spot at the table? I mean, PRAM has already released so many good plans, like... a mission statement. But that counts! I mean, come on, it has 'Responsible' right in its name! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24286463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24286463
- virgilp 6y ago
  I worked for an advertiser a while ago - they were totally respecting DNT header, _except_ on the browsers that had it on by default. The business argument was that "it's bogus/meaningless if the user didn't set it explicitly" - industry wanted that to be "opt-out-of-tracking" not "opt-in-to-tracking".
  - Cthulhu_ 6y ago
    There is something to be said about that tbh, the do-not-track option should be an option on first launch. Then again, I'm sure very few people are like "Sure do track me pls". I know Microsoft tries to package and word it nicely in their Windows setup (then ignores it at a next update).
    - the_other 6y ago
      No. Privacy is generally considered a right. Opt-in/off-by-default is the correct position.
      - Dylan16807 6y ago
        If you want to make tracking opt-in, that's great. Doing so would obsolete the do-not-track header. But do-not-track was never going to do that itself. The purpose of do-not-track was to be an explicit declaration of intent. Trying to co-opt it benefited no-one.
        the_other 6y ago
        I see what you’re saying. I generally agree with implementing designs and standards along the lines of their intent. On this particular issue, I’ve pretty much decided for myself that individually tailored advertising, net-wide implicit tracking and surveillance capitalism in general need to be banned, or owned by the commons and walled with fine grained permissions. I’m waiting for the tech world to catch up.
      - 6y ago

duncan_bayne 6y ago

The W3C would never ... oh wait ... I remember DRM and EME. Nevermind, yes, of course they'd roll over.

tialaramex 6y ago
It's a consortium, that is, it exists to represent the interests of corporate members. It's actually set up that way partly because his stupid toy hypermedia system made a lot of people very rich and Sir Tim would like some of that money. Now, it should not come as an enormous surprise that most of the W3C's corporate members do not have your individual interests close to their hearts. And so you can't really expect them to consistently vote for things that help you and hurt them. If you would like to work on technology standardisation but you aren't a corporation find an IETF Working Group that's doing something interesting to you and pitch in. Unlike the W3C the IETF isn't a membership organisation. Indeed it arguably isn't an organisation at all which makes it pretty unique among Standards Development Organisations...

ffpip 6y ago

A comment from yesterday - To be fair though, don't you remember how the DNT header worked really well for everybody involved, and how all these advertisers today universally respect it, and how they totally didn't abandon the entire concept as soon as it started seeing mainstream use and platforms started turning it on by default? What could go wrong if we give them another spot at the table? I mean, PRAM has already released so many good plans, like... a mission statement. But that counts! I mean, come on, it has 'Responsible' right in its name! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24286463 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24286463

virgilp 6y ago
I worked for an advertiser a while ago - they were totally respecting DNT header, _except_ on the browsers that had it on by default. The business argument was that "it's bogus/meaningless if the user didn't set it explicitly" - industry wanted that to be "opt-out-of-tracking" not "opt-in-to-tracking".
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  There is something to be said about that tbh, the do-not-track option should be an option on first launch. Then again, I'm sure very few people are like "Sure do track me pls". I know Microsoft tries to package and word it nicely in their Windows setup (then ignores it at a next update).
  - the_other 6y ago
    No. Privacy is generally considered a right. Opt-in/off-by-default is the correct position.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      If you want to make tracking opt-in, that's great. Doing so would obsolete the do-not-track header. But do-not-track was never going to do that itself. The purpose of do-not-track was to be an explicit declaration of intent. Trying to co-opt it benefited no-one.
      - the_other 6y ago
        I see what you’re saying. I generally agree with implementing designs and standards along the lines of their intent. On this particular issue, I’ve pretty much decided for myself that individually tailored advertising, net-wide implicit tracking and surveillance capitalism in general need to be banned, or owned by the commons and walled with fine grained permissions. I’m waiting for the tech world to catch up.
    - 6y ago