Privacy advocates, online advertisers want online tracking talks to end

{mosads}On Wednesday, members were asked to choose between the
current draft; abandoning the group; changing the timelines for the draft; a less-controversial technical document it’s tied to; and getting a Do Not Track tool
out now that can be revised later.

Online advertising groups and privacy advocates alike voted
that the group should disband. The option to disband was supported by 20
participants and opposed by 22.

Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital
Democracy, called the group’s process “so flawed — it’s a farce.” When it comes
to privacy from online tracking, global online users deserve better — from
industry, WC3, and also regulators,” he wrote.

“It is crystal clear that this working group cannot reach a
meaningful consensus” and “should be disbanded,” John Simpson of Consumer
Watchdog wrote. “There is nothing dishonorable in admitting our differences are
too great to overcome.”

The Electronic Frontier Foundation “has lost confidence that
the process will produce a standard that we would support,” the organization’s
senior staff attorney, Lee Tien, wrote. 

“If the group continues, we would seriously consider
dropping out,” he said. 

The Direct Marketing Association (DMA), which represents
the interests of online advertisers, said the group’s work is “unlikely to
result in anything more than an academic, intellectual exercise.”

If the group continues after Wednesday’s poll, the
association will continue to participate “in good faith for the foreseeable
future in order to ensure that the interests of DMA members are represented,”
DMA Vice President of Government Affairs Rachel Thomas wrote.

Others encouraged the group to keep working. Microsoft
assistant general counsel Amy Colando said the group should keep working to
improve consumer privacy.

“Microsoft’s customers expect strong privacy protections to
be built into our technologies, and we believe that DNT holds potential to help
them better manage their online privacy,” she wrote.

Now that the poll is closed, the group’s three co-chairmen –
Intel’s Matthias Schunte, the recently appointed Justin Brookman from the
Center for Democracy and Technology and Carl Cargill from Adobe – and W3C staff
will discuss with W3C Director Tim Berners-Lee what to do next.

Brookman and Schunter both said they would support moving
forward with the current plan but would prefer finishing a Do Not Track tool in the
short term and coming back to deal with the other issues later.

That option offers the group “the possibility of expediting
a basic” tool without having “every single thing worked out, while reserving
the ability to come back and fine tune later,” Brookman said.

This could “lessen the tension within the group and make the
discussion less litigious,” he said. According to the poll, 18 participants
support that option, while 24 oppose it.

The two voted against the other options, including giving up
on the group. Cargill did not participate in the vote.

W3C CEO Jeff Jaffe, who will be involved in the discussions
with Berners-Lee regarding next steps, voted similarly to Brookman and
Schunter, saying he would prefer to get a basic Do Not Track tool out now and come back
later to make changes if necessary.

“I believe that the broad stakeholders of the web community
require a DNT standard,” he said in the poll’s comments. “I know of no other
venue where that might take place.”

Mozilla’s Lead Privacy Engineer Sid Stamm voted for the option
preferred by the group’s leaders. In his comments, he said that option “not
only moves us forward and also gives everyone view of how we’re going to make
it better.” 

“We’ve spent a lot of time on it, but it’s time to carve out
a first version,” he said.

A W3C spokesman said there is not yet a timeline for
deciding how to move forward, “but I assume it will be soon.”