Original URL: https://www.theregister.com/2013/11/05/do_not_track_w3c_ads_privacy/
How the W3C met its Waterloo at the Do Not Track vote showdown
And why the silent majority could defeat the web's madmen
Posted in Software, 5th November 2013 12:03 GMT
The W3C has set some important rules governing the adoption of web technologies. Yet on the issue of privacy, the standards shop has met its Waterloo.
By establishing things like XML and HTML as standards, the W3C has helped ensure the web works everywhere – no matter what web server or browser you’re using.
Without HTML you’d have no agreement between browser, server and tools makers on how to display a web page. No XML, and you’d have no cloud.
The W3C has brought together warring tech companies who’ve seen technology as religion and believed their way is the one true faith.
After two years' work a standard for Do Not Track (DNT) in the browser – something the W3C calls Tracking Preference Expression (TPE) – has hit a wall. A vote of no confidence among those working on TPE has all but killed the effort.
Why? Because the vote saw the group split along nakedly partisan lines - the tech companies' and ad-makers' representatives, with the latter saying they had no confidence in the group’s work on TPE. Opposite them and wanting to continue the work on DNT were the makers of websites and browsers, those who host ad networks and privacy advocates.
The Digital Advertising Association (DAA) – whose members include banks, car makers, pharma giants, media operations and other technology makers – says it’s now done with the W3C work and is pushing its own, ad-friendly solution. The prospect of an agreement on blocking targeted ads and on allowing online tracking seems doomed, with the admen splitting off to do their own thing.
How did it come to this Simple: money. And mobile.
Unlike on the desktop, where Google reigns as king, the mobile web is a naked scramble because no one search engine or ads network dominates. No-one company dominates to the same extent, although Google is getting close. eMarketer in August said 48 per cent of US mobile ad revenue would go to Google this year.
Facebook is the ads mens' number-two target behind Google; 15 per cent of ads spend is expected to go to Mark Zuckerberg's company by the end of this year - up from 9.4 per cent last year. Twitter, Pandora and YP are expected to be the next biggest three, although in single digits.
There’s no rules on form factors or screen sizes; equally, there’s every incentive for the ad people to try and work out whether you’re the same person each time you hit the web, but using a different device.
The amount of money spent by those trying to target you on mobile was set to grow in 2013: eight out of 10 US ads buyers said last year they’d increase what they spend on mobile ads in the coming 12-18 months, with three quarters saying they’d devote at least five per cent of their total ad budget on mobile.
That means advertising and marketing types want to get out front quickly as possible. Erecting fences now handicaps their potential to make money in the future.
The social networks are further complicating things. Facebook and Twitter offer advertisers the prospect of millions of us to bombard with ads and mine for marketing data.
The two factors driving the rise in mobile ads is greater adoption of smartphones and tablets, and improved ad formats from mobile-optimised websites and social networks.
Only, nobody’s really worked out how to hit paydirt. Again, accepting rules on DNT will mean handicapping any as-yet-undiscovered techniques.
These are not the stately days of HTML and XML, when rivals like IBM, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems formed a gentlemen's club. They might have disagreed over .NET or Java, but it was accepted the internet pie was worth more if everybody used compatible technologies instead of branching off.
Today's madmen aren’t interested in building the plumbing as the W3C did on HTML, and argue their way lets consumers to get what they want through better ads.
DNT is dead in the water, so what’s next?
The W3C told The Register the vote was a one-off called to help the group decide how to move forward. That’s how bad things had become in this working group. The W3C reckoned the working group has a plan going forward, but – as yet – there’s no word on what that plan is. Indeed, it’s not clear what that plan can be.
Mozilla Foundation W3C TPE rep Alex Fowler echoed the party line on the work continuing but, he admitted to The Reg: “It’s not clear to me what the solution will be ultimately, but that’s an ongoing effort.”
An EU answer not expected
Fowler, Mozilla’s global privacy and public policy leader, believes success could consist of chipping away at the industry and seeding DNT as an established idea. Once DNT is picked up, a technology or solution could be sucked back into the W3C for ratification as a standard.
Mozilla was the first firm to put DNT into its browser; last week Mozilla also released Light, a Firefox plugin that allows you to see who’s tracking you online.
Fowler points to the fact two major social networks came out for DNT this summer. Twitter and Pinterest will honour users' DNT when enabled in the browser, by not collecting your movements online for serving you ads or passing the data on to others.
To make a difference, though, it’ll take all of the major web properties geting on board to kick it off. So far, the biggest social network, Facebook, hasn’t joined the cause.
Moreover, Facebook shows little appetite for DNT, arguing it’s “not sure” DNT enabled in a browser accurately reflects the user’s desire not to be tracked. This isn’t surprising given Facebook is still working out how it can best exploit its users’ information to make money from advertisers and marketing people.
If you want a parallel, look at Google.
Google is founded on free services funded through ads and was the last of the big browser makers to come around to offering a DNT setting in its browser. Even Microsoft accepted DNT before Google. You can argue Google did come around to DNT – eventually. Will Facebook follow suit?
“Whether it happens in the W3C or not, we are still very committed to some kind of standard evolving to help sites integrate do not track into their data handling practices. We are still committed to the W3C process,” Fowler told The Reg.
Sites like Facebook clearly respond to pressure; it’s just a question of whether sufficient pressure can be brought to bear on Facebook – and the advertisers.
Anecdotal evidence suggests the pressure isn’t there to bring either around.
Fowler reckons 18 per cent of Firefox users have DNT turned on in their browser in the UK and 12 per cent globally. He called it “an impressive development” but it’s just a subset of people using one browser that has about a fifth of the market.
The absence of pressure suggests there’s room to apply force in the form of regulation from officials in the US or in Europe, the latter more so.
The European Union raised that prospect in Europe.
Neelie Kroes, European Commission vice president in charge of the Digital Agenda for Europe, last year tapped into the deadlock inside the W3C.
Kroes expressed her concern at the lack of progress and slow-speed on DNT and said member states were looking at how to enforce ePrivacy rules. Kroes promised the matter would be raised with the Article 29 Working Party before the end of 2012.
A year on, there’s nothing but silence from the EU.
The Reg contacted Kroes and her office for a response to the W3C breakdown and to find out whether EU member states are taking steps to enforce the EU's own ePrivacy rules. We also asked whether there is a plan to develop a DNT standard at an EU level.
Steelie Neelie didn't bother replying.
The puts the ball back in the court of the W3C.
The recent no-confidence vote was defeated by a narrow margin, with 17 voting for and 23 against. But that’s not the complete picture: 65 members of the TPE working group did not vote at all, for some reason – among them Mozilla’s Fowler.
This would suggest that DNT was a pressure release and that power still lies with the silent majority. If that is the case, though, the significance of the vote cannot be discounted: that split between tech companies and advertisers would still have happened even if the remaining 65 had joined in – but the ad people would have been more of a rump and the gap between yays and nays greater.
Fortunately, it's the tech companies who have the upper hand in this drama. Firms like Apple, Microsoft and Yahoo!, who are members of the working group and voted to continue the TPE work also own the websites, properties and ad networks that the madmen of DAA rely on to touch consumers.
It might, therefore, be realising the level of self-interest here that brings adland's madmen back to the DNT table and establishes TPE. ®