Re: ISSUE-151 Re: Change proposal: new general principle for permitted uses

Hi Aleecia - 

I don't recall a 5% figure, although with so many #'s being tossed around
and so many people consistently talking over each other, I can't say for
sure. Personally, one of the things that I was hoping is that DNT might
also allow browsers to feel confortable allowing third-party cookies by
default with DNT up and running, and that this might balance things out in
favor of informed choice. But 5% enactment of DNT hasn't been part of my
core assumptions - particularly given entities setting DNT by default
and/or without adequately explaining what DNT actually does.

In any event, by the face to face at MSFT (15 months ago?) I recall there
was a recognition across the wg that the DNT #'s were likely to be much
higher - particularly in light of some of the comments made at that f2f
re: the impact that DNT would have on third parties.

With respect to the EU, I believe there was an understanding that DNT
unset might = DNT:1 in the minds of EU regulators. But I didn't believe
that would be a forgone conclusion. In other words, I disagree that DNT by
default in the EU was part of everyone's assumption. And even if DNT by
default becomes the law of the land in the EU, I'm not sure how that cuts
against an argument of User choice outside of the EU. If the EU regulators
believe that default-on for DNT strikes the right balance, there's not
much I can do about that. But it certainly doesn't mean that I've somehow
conceded the idea of a user making an informed choice in the U.S.

When you say "US users have turned on DNT in their browsers at a truly
surprising rate" - does that math take into account the 100 million
worldwide AVG customers, for many of whom AVG has turned on DNT by default?

Thanks.

Alan



On 7/28/13 3:35 AM, "Aleecia M. McDonald" <aleecia@aleecia.com> wrote:

>Just to step back for a moment, I do not think lack of user intent is the
>core issue. To recap:
>
>	- From the start we agreed upon DNT unset if users had not been involved
>		- In the US, this means users have not made a choice for privacy, and
>gets treated like DNT:0
>		- In the EU, this means users have not consented to tracking, and gets
>treated like DNT:1
>
>Effectively we have DNT off by default in the US and on by default in the
>EU. We've been decided upon this since the very first meeting, back when
>the group was 40 people in a surreal building at MIT with no hotels to be
>found, &c. 
>
>The assumptions baked into this consensus were that in the EU, anything
>less privacy protective wouldn't fly, and as for the US, who changes
>settings within their web browser? Maybe 5% would turn on DNT, so it
>would be better for companies to engage with DNT than to try to fight it.
>Sure, it could be a big leap from the DAA opt-out rates, but still likely
>to be tolerably low for the financial side.
>
>And then something really weird happened. US users have turned on DNT in
>their browsers at a truly surprising rate. Even without promotion, even
>without DNT being honored by most websites, we're looking at about 1/6th
>of users turning on DNT in Firefox. The incentives shift.
>
>The idea of supposing a principled argument about lack of user choice is
>a bit hard to take seriously given the EU treatment. From the first
>meeting, we've all been fine with EU users having DNT protection without
>making explicit choices to turn on DNT:1.
>
>It seems to me the challenges to DNT are not the ones we're talking about
>right this moment. Could we deal with real issues?
>
>	Aleecia
>

Received on Sunday, 28 July 2013 21:32:29 UTC