{"id":33131,"date":"2021-07-14T14:56:51","date_gmt":"2021-07-14T18:56:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=33131"},"modified":"2021-07-14T14:56:51","modified_gmt":"2021-07-14T18:56:51","slug":"privacy-war-in-the-w3c","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2021\/07\/14\/privacy-war-in-the-w3c\/","title":{"rendered":"Privacy War in the W3C"},"content":{"rendered":"

Issie Lapowsky<\/a> (Hacker News<\/a>):<\/p>\n

But appealing to antitrust regulators was only one prong in Rosewell’s plan to get Google to delay its so-called Privacy Sandbox initiative. The other prong: becoming a member of the World Wide Web Consortium, or the W3C.<\/p>

[…]<\/p>

But what is perhaps more alarming, Soltani and Snyder argue, is that the new entrants from the ad-tech industry and elsewhere aren’t just trying to derail standards that could hurt their businesses; they’re proposing new ones that could actually enshrine tracking under the guise of privacy. “Fortunately in a forum like the W3C, folks are smart enough to get the distinction,” Soltani said. “Unfortunately, policymakers won’t.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The “tech giant” framing of this piece obscures the multisided battle that is going on within these discussions. There are browser vendors — like Apple and Brave — that are more privacy-conscious, but with conflicts of interest, as well as people who advocate for these features with fewer conflicts. There are representatives of the big privacy-hostile tech companies: Google and Microsoft have web browsers, while Amazon and Facebook do not. And then there are ad tech companies that are smaller than the big tech companies but, as I have repeatedly argued<\/a>, can be almost as creepy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n

Previously:<\/p>\n