Re: W3C plans Internet privacy specification

I Find Karma (adam@cs.caltech.edu)
Thu, 12 Jun 97 09:37:33 PDT


> http://www.infoworld.com:80/cgi-bin/displayStory.pl?970612.ew3c.htm

Not only that, but Educom says Microsoft plans to endorse it, too.

> MICROSOFT JOINS RIVALS TO ENDORSE PRIVACY STANDARD
> With a Microsoft executive saying "This is unprecedented, but we
> realized that we need to work together for the common good," Microsoft
> has decided not to propose its own Internet software privacy standards,
> but instead to endorse the standard proposed by its rival Netscape and
> Firefly Network Inc., and supported by a hundred hardware and software
> companies both large and small.

So the privacy standard is public, not private? Hmm....

> The standard will be part of a broader effort led by the nonprofit
> organization World Wide Web Consortium,

Nonprofit? I bet Tim Byars has a few words about that... feel free NOT
to share them with us, Tim... :)

> called the platform for privacy preferences. Using that platform, Web
> surfers could control what personal information was obtained about them
> during their travels on the Internet. (New York Times 12 Jun 97)

You can control it now, just turn cookies, Javascript, and Java off,
and surf with a hacked up version of lynx that blocks all environment
variable passage.

ObEntertainmentBit (though unrelated) recommendation:
I bought the book by Kevin Smith, _Screenplays for Clerks and Chasing
Amy_, and I've gotta say that the scripts are in some sense better than
the movies. A lot of the witty (and/or dirty) things happening in the
scripts completely went over my head in the movie. Also, the script for
Clerks as originally written has Dante shot by some unknown thief after
Randall leaves the store! And, Chasing Amy's script has a lot of lines
I missed seeing the movie... Kevin Smith is a deity!

----
adam@cs.caltech.edu

Oh, sure, you may stray, but you'll always return to your dark master:
the cocoa bean.
-- Kramer in Episode 111 of Seinfeld, "The Secret Code"