3 ms·

What would you suggest as a good starting point for regulation?

by idlewords 11y ago

MichaelCrawford 11y ago
Make it unlawful for javascript source to contain nothing but whitespace.
- manigandham 11y ago
  How is that helpful?
  - MichaelCrawford 11y ago
    That's the kind of thing that legislators actually do; consider that the digital signature act didnt mention cryptography. While I readily agree that web and mobile analytics should be unlawful it is unclear how to define what should be illegal. I feel it is more effective to follow my example of pointing out the problem then explaining technical measures that may be used to defeat it. However while my mother is diligent about shredding paper documents she ran out of filesystem space because she never empties her iMac's Trash.
manigandham 11y ago
We already have the Do Not Track header which most big and legally compliant data management platforms adhere to. The Content Security Policy header can be improved to add extensions for data handling. Follow this up with certification by a main industry body and legal foundation for how companies in the sector should operate with data and we can finally make progress. This is no different than how finance companies or health companies go through audits and such with both process and data handling. While digital advertising doesn't need to be as onerous and involved as that, the same workflow would help along with clear rules for collecting, analyzing, acting on, purging and securing data as part of consumer wishes and best practices. The next step would be to make sure transacting with a non-certified company carries risks and perhaps fines so that media buyers actually work with good vendors based on merit instead of inside deals. There should also be technical certifications so that companies can actually prove they know what they're doing and dont just cram megabytes of crap on a page to serve a single ad. It's just too easy to whip up some crappy ad server software these days which ends up bloating sites and ruining trust and user experience. Unfortunately there are issues with regional laws applying to a global business and the large amount of shady networks headquartered internationally but it's a good first step.

What would you suggest as a good starting point for regulation?

MichaelCrawford 11y ago

Make it unlawful for javascript source to contain nothing but whitespace.

manigandham 11y ago
How is that helpful?
- MichaelCrawford 11y ago
  That's the kind of thing that legislators actually do; consider that the digital signature act didnt mention cryptography. While I readily agree that web and mobile analytics should be unlawful it is unclear how to define what should be illegal. I feel it is more effective to follow my example of pointing out the problem then explaining technical measures that may be used to defeat it. However while my mother is diligent about shredding paper documents she ran out of filesystem space because she never empties her iMac's Trash.

manigandham 11y ago

We already have the Do Not Track header which most big and legally compliant data management platforms adhere to. The Content Security Policy header can be improved to add extensions for data handling. Follow this up with certification by a main industry body and legal foundation for how companies in the sector should operate with data and we can finally make progress. This is no different than how finance companies or health companies go through audits and such with both process and data handling. While digital advertising doesn't need to be as onerous and involved as that, the same workflow would help along with clear rules for collecting, analyzing, acting on, purging and securing data as part of consumer wishes and best practices. The next step would be to make sure transacting with a non-certified company carries risks and perhaps fines so that media buyers actually work with good vendors based on merit instead of inside deals. There should also be technical certifications so that companies can actually prove they know what they're doing and dont just cram megabytes of crap on a page to serve a single ad. It's just too easy to whip up some crappy ad server software these days which ends up bloating sites and ruining trust and user experience. Unfortunately there are issues with regional laws applying to a global business and the large amount of shady networks headquartered internationally but it's a good first step.