Author: W3C President & CEO
The Formal Objections to the proposed charter of the Private Advertising Technology Working Group are overruled.
The mission of the Private Advertising Technology Working Group is to specify web features and APIs that support advertising while acting in the interests of users, in particular providing strong privacy assurances.
The Objectors raise concerns about the scope of discussion that may occur within the Working Group.
All W3C Working Groups are required to operate within policies and guidelines adopted by W3C. Any participant in a W3C forum who feels that a policy or guideline has been, or may about to be, violated is entitled to bring that to the attention of the chair of the meeting in which the matter is potentially arising or to the W3C staff and/or to the Director of Legal & Compliance. W3C staff, the Director of Legal & Compliance, and ultimately the W3C CEO, are responsible for addressing actual violations of policies and guidelines. Specific Working Group charters need not enumerate each of these policies and guidelines as they apply across all of W3C.
Objectors raise concerns about potential conflicts of interest. Other than as specified in the W3C Process Document and W3C ByLaws, specific concerns regarding conflicts of interest outside of the W3C staff are best handled in open community discussion, not in the language of a specific Working Group charter.
Objectors raise concerns about the technical directions in which the Working Group might lead. Such concerns are appropriately raised during the discussions themselves and in open public review of draft specifications as the Working Group publishes them according to W3C Process. Any and all concerns from industry, consumers, and regulators should be in the form of feedback on the technical specifications.
Finally, Objectors raise concerns about limitations to where processing of personal information can occur. The Scope indicates that the Working Group will produce specifications for implementation by user agents. However, it indicates that those user agents, as entities acting on behalf of the user, can process personal information directly themselves or inform the processing of personal information as part of interoperating with or depending on functionality provided by other entities.
The Private Advertising Technology Working Group is thus chartered and may convene.