If it's true that NASA is missing out on a seat that they need over a few million dollars, they should just pay the few million dollars.
They can't, the Russians decided to "auction" it, and the auction is done, with Brightman having won.
Their last bid might have been a few million dollars less, but that does not mean that they would have won if they placed a bid for a few more million.
It's possible Brightman was willing to pay 10, 20, 30, 40 more million.
The situation is idiotic regardless of money issues, though. The purpose of ISS was not to be a lucrative destination for tourists - it was to do useful research. That Roskosmos wants to charge for the ride, even with some extra to recoup its other losses, is reasonable, but they should just stick to one flat fee, and provide NASA (and other organizations with legitimate scientific missions) a priority. To make an auction out of it is reprehensible.
Agreed... they should simply ban tourists on the ISS, by requiring anyone visiting it have a scientific reason, certain training, and proper credentials,
until such time as there is no contention between scientists and would-be tourists for seats on craft bound for it.
Huge multi-national discount chain doesn't want to sell a product the sole purpose of which is to get people to spend money somewhere else. News at 11.
That could have been money for Walmart, if they made a deal with Amazon, where Walmart would take a cut of the digital sales from units sold at their stores.
let's have the janitors install a new security system.
Corporate security would never allow it.... separation of duties would dictate, that whomever
installs and maintains the security system, is not the person that holds all the keys, and cleans up the building/waxes
the floors after everyone's left.
if janitors have the installer's knowledge of both the security
system, and possess all the keys, and are the only folks there after hours,
well, they could make off like bandits, and not be stopped by any of the physical protections.
For that same reason, you can't be having the accountants writing the financial software....
They've since invented codes that go along with the book - required to view online information and submit assignments, if the teacher is using their online framework.
Sounds like a lawsuit, or an administrative complaint to be made to the school, about
being requested to make unreasonable expenditures to participate in the class, beyond the standard
used book cost.....
Oh, I don't know... a printed image in a book has a pretty limited resolution. An on-line image can offer a lot more...
Including a hyperlink or button to open a high-res version of an image on a reliable site (no Geocities or john doe's website, that might be down tomorrow, or replaced with advertising) could be acceptable on an e-Book, intended for consumption on a tablet with a high-def display, with an internet connection available at all times.
You could read the eBook, and view the image in the same browser without exiting the book or 'breaking' your reading session or stream of thought; so it's as good as if the image were in the book.
However, in a print work, for an art class a picture of the art in the book itself, is indispensable, should be considered mandatory.
Anyway at $180 a book one would expect to be able to get photos in it. The $800 each for copyright clearance as TFS claims sounds totally unrealistic to me.
Perhaps it was just a small run book for one specific class at a specific school.
So while the licensing fee for copyright clearance could be nominal, it might still be a lot of paperwork to be done,
and a prohibitive cost for a book that might sell 60 copies a semester...
It would cut down on a lot of legwork, to just not bother with printing images in the first place,
and give students links instead.
Although, of course it devalues the textbook as well (IMO)... for no pictures or diagrams, the book should be less than $50 a pop.
That depends on if he has clients agree to a budget that includes bribes for other editors, admins, and additional
sockpuppets and massive numbers of IP addresses, to ensure that the "consensus" of any editing discussion is in favor of the client.
c is in vacuum always c. Regardless of your movement.
The physics is more a statement about your movement in a vacuum than light's.
c is a fixed quantity, the rate of time light travels at, your experience of movement or magnitude of velocity and that of any observer is based on your position change per unit time, so if in a vacuum you have movement at a high rate, your experience of "time" slows, such that your change in position per unit time stays at or below c,
and light always travels at c, regardless.
You can continue to accelerate -- you will never observe yourself having a velocity exceeding c or be observed having a velocity exceeding c.
You're also unlikely to reach near-light speed versus a planetary observer in the first place in your lifetime, regardless of how great your engine, the amount of energy required to accelerate any significant amount of mass near the speed of light is a large quantity, and at a rate of acceleration that humans could survive it would take hundreds of years to get anywhere near the speed of light, let alone "slow back down" after the experiment
The key word there is "before I saw you leave."
, not "before you left."
There are such things as optical illusions. Human vision and radio receivers are not the arbiters of time.
If faster than light travel is possible; it is an inherent fact, that your arrival could overtake all currently known methods of observing you leave.
But if you could send a faster than light signal announcing your departure, "I'm coming".... and then travel faster than the speed of light, then the message could still arrive ahead of you.
However, someone will observe you traveling faster than light, going from point A to point B faster than light would travel the same distance. If nobody sees you traveling faster than light, then how can you say you did so at all?
What method could they possibly use to observe you travelling faster than light?
If they watch for light emanating from you, it will only reach their eyes at the speed of light;
the light emanating cannot move any faster.
If they point a radar gun, and repeatedly shoot it at you.... the radar will actually never reach them and be reflected back, so you will never get a reading.
How will they ever learned you travelled faster than light?
Your movement could appear discontinuous, or you could disappear from sight entirely, but then, that could also be the result of any extreme change in speed, at a long distance, and in that case, the observer would never know you were there; it would be impossible to remotely distinguish that from the observed object not existing at all...
If you have a faster than light travel/signalling then there will be an interial frame of referance in which that travel/signal went back in time.
If by "went back in time", you mean: observed the signal, earlier than the signal would have been observed, if the signal had travelled at the speed of light, then yes.
If by "went back in time", you mean: observed the signal, before the signal would have been emitted, then no.
Since the first postulate or relativity says that the laws of physics are the same in all inertial reference frames that means backwards in time travel/signalling is possible in all inertial frames of reference and we have killed causality.
Laws of physics being the same in all reference frames, does not imply that the observation will be the same in all reference frames.
There may be other occurences which are not considered by the theory.
Also "physics being the same in all reference frames", is not required for special relativity to be valid.
It is a premise. It is possible that a difference will occur in the laws of physics in some frames of reference, once "space has been bent"; in that case, there will be exceptional cases where special relativity does not apply, because one of the premises is not met in one case, even if the model is valid otherwise.
Special relativity does not make provisions how you travel. If you travel from point A in space to point B in space, be it by warp drive, be it by wormhole, be it by magic, faster than a beam of light could do it in vacuum, you travel ftl. And this means timetravel.
If that were the case, it could very well indicate a problem with the theory of special relativity, requiring adjustment of the theory, to account for the additional geometry and other paths between point A and point B that do not require faster than light travel.
By definition, if you bend space, there are now multiple paths from A to point B, and light can follow any of those paths
Next you'll be telling me that nothing can go faster than the speed of light. The "rule" is that nothing can accelerate past the speed of light
Maybe they do, and maybe they don't.... one thing is for sure, we won't be able to observe things accelerating past the speed of light as they do, because it's actually light that carries to us the details required to make our observation.
If something did accelerate past the speed of light, the limited speed of light, would restrict our ability to observe its acceleration.
Such as he expressed the desire to use the default search engine and some other points, which are in the bullet-point list.
There is a fundamental distinction between expressing a preference and accepting a default.
Accepting a list of defaults does not express a preference; it's a choice to not express a preference,
and just accept what the software developer suggested.
You work in a call center.... if you're a call center rep for answering calls, you're paid to be there at your desk, and take every call that comes in immediately
If you're not ready to do so, then you're not working, and your employer is entitled to know that.
Now the use of the term "bathroom break" might be offensive; but this could work either for you or against you.
They should probably have just specified a generic break reason of "Personal reasons"; "Personal hygiene";; or "Personal matter"
It would accomplish the objective of knowing when an employee is not at their terminal, without
the embarrassment of having to identify a short respite as "toilet break"
You are so blind that you can't even see the stupidity of your own statements. You believe people should be able to be tracked unless they explicitly say otherwise.
No, but the marketing industry has made a decision that they will track people, until they say otherwise.
If the browser announces DNT by default, then DNT is not usable as an indication that they have said otherwise, period.
It just sounds like you want uninformed users (the majority) to default to being able to be tracked instead.
NO. I want the DNT header to express useful information.
The information that the standard says that the DNT header is supposed to express.
If it is set to 1 by default, then all the DNT header means is you are a typical user who installed MSIE with default settings, you have not specifically indicated an intent not to be tracked, you have just installed software that has falsely claimed that
You may be conflating advertisers with trackers; not all trackers are advertisers though.
Do not track may include things like remembering users' preferences/personalizations when visiting the same site again later, for example: forum comment display preferences.
This sounds like the right thing to me. If most users are unaware of how pervasive the tracking is these days, then it should be opt-in. Let people who at least know that there is something to opt in to make a decision about opting in.
Go read the standard. DNT is an extra header that has 3 values
null: User has not expressed a preference 0 User has chosen to OPT IN to tracking 1 User has chosen to OPT OUT of tracking
Until the human being has chosen to opt out, NULL is what the browser is supposed to send
Sending 1 by default, just means the sites cannot tell the difference between a user who has chosen OPT OUT, and a user who has done nothing at all, therefore, they will just ignore DNT, because the header no longer expresses useful information.
Previously, advertisers were taking flak and getting unwanted negative PR, and potential government scrutiny, for ignoring not honoring Do not tracking.
Now with the MSIE change, they will have a valid excuse for ignoring the flag, and the scrutiny, and pressure to respect DNT will definitely end, result: DNT will become worthless, it will become a complete NOOP, everyone will be OPTED back in, per-site "opt out cookie-based schemes (and cookies that expire)" will again be the only way for users to express opt out intent, and the internet will be back in the same situation we were in before DNT had even been proposed.
The user is presented with a "setup" screen at which he/she can choose "express" or "advanced" setup.
The screen *clearly* spells out that *if* you choose express settings then DNT will be switched on.
I'll still say they aren't gathering the user's express consent.
It doesn't matter that in the laundry list of items they warn you that 'DNT will be set if you pick express'.
For it to be express consent, they would actually have to prompt the user specifically to choose to enable DNT or not,
AND present it in such a way, that picking to enable DNT is definitely the user expressing a preference, eg by clicking a radio button, rather than just clicking Next.
Why are we trusting web servers to be honest? Advertising should be opt-in, not "opt-out, and then only if the server agrees to let you opt-out."
Because we don't have a choice. You are talking about advertising, but i'm talking about tracking. The status Quo is everything is opt-in by default, you can sometimes have to opt-out of tracking and you rarely if ever have any option to opt out of advertising, and the people running the web servers aren't going to agree to anything different; they're going to refuse to implement functionality that requires you to opt-in to advertising. Their business model relies on advertising -- if advertisers don't pay, the site goes away, therefore: You don't see advertising, then you can't visit this site.
Ultimately, you're going to have to somehow pay yourself, if you want to see professional content providers' content without advertising.
Right now, the best we can hope for is incremental improvement.
Get technology in place, that lets users make their requests regarding tracking, and requires web servers to respond with declarations about what they will do, AND provides a mechanism to identify both web servers that are honest, and web servers that lie in their declarations, and what things they lie about.
In a much later incremental improvement.... some mechanism can be provided to allow browsers to opt-out by default, and the DNT framework can be extended with default opt-out, but only after DNT has acceptance and is implemented by the content providers, the browsers, and robust white lists and black listing functionality.
Browsers can become more intelligent over time and automatically refuse to load parts of popular sites that implement tracking functionality.
AFTER widespread DNT implementation,
then an additional type of request and declaration could be added to DNT pertainining to types of advertising specifically.
So that users can opt out of specific kinds of ads, E.G. "BannerAds" "Popups" "Newsletters" "EmailMarketing" "ShareEmailwithThirdparties.
Sites would be required to declare those types of things, and browsers would warn the user before being able to enter their email address into a form on a page with DNT EmailMarketing tag, or DNT Opt-Out of e-mail marketing would require the site to suppress the form, or only offer subscription to Newsletters that don't involve spam.
Similarly "AdWare" opt-out would require sites that contain software, to suppress download links for any application that displays advertising on a user's computer.
While I like the idea of DNT, it won't be long until folks find a way around it.
What i'd like to see with DNT is a response header for each HTTP request for GET and HEAD operations, and both requestor and response headers to have _TAGS_ or other identifiers indicating more detailed optouts and more details about the server's policy (E.g. they might declare that they won't track the user, but may retain logs for 24 hours of their HTTP requests), not just relying on the client "blindly" sending a DNT: 1 request header, and the server being "on their honor" to respect that.
Instead there should be a response header from the server to be treated as a declaration of how the server will treat a request with certain DNT flags, or to what extent. Browsers that change their policy based on
the reponse header (for example, the browser might make a HEAD request against / with referrer suppressed, to obtain a DNT declaration, before accepting a script or IMG tag for a remote domain, or requesting any pages from the host), and there could be a blacklist of sites that disclose false information in the DNT header.
Sites with no declaration will have functionality cutoff like cookies/remote load.
Sites in the blacklist get a "This site may track you and ignore your privacy preferences."
error message, when users attempt to visit the site.
And they will have to expand some hidden panels to find a 'visit this site anyway' link, which
when clicked will open up a warning dialog, requiring confirmation.
That would be an anti-Google biased way of looking at it.
Just because Firefox implemented an experimental DNT functionality that may become part
of a future standard, does not necessarily mean that DNT should be a development priority for other browsers.
It makes good sense to wait until the DNT standardization effort is completed, and see as to its fate, before
investing time and $$$ on wasted development effort in creating implementation that then needs to be rewritten or massively overhauled soon after, due to changes in the standard.
It looks like it may have been wise for them to wait, because Microsoft is planning on destroying the standard/convention by not implementing it properly in IE; e.g. by Default pretending that the user has opted out by
supplying a DNT 1 value; instead of the user taking no preference.
This will mean that a DNT header value of '1' no longer indicates an explicit user preference,
therefore, advertisers won't be able to rely on it as an opt-out.
Perhaps the DNT standard could be expanded to include opt-outs for specific advertisers, and
require the user agent implementing DNT to uniquely identify itself, and specify a label indicating the
mechanism that was used to establish the setting being presented, and the webserver itself to indicate
an explicit DNT header, indicating a declaration whether the browser's DNT requests will be honored, and
what portions will be honored...
For example; "DNT: 1 express-user-optout" OR
"DNT: 1 vendor-default", "DNT: 1 corporate-policy", OR "DNT: 1 browser-optout-plugin"
While they're at it, they could add specific Do Not Tags, or Allowed permissions for data tracking, for example
"DNT: 0 vendor-default targeted-ads:OPTIN market-research:OPTOUT share-with-3rdparty:OPTOUT keep-accesslog-history:OPTOUT"
This would be a fundamental flaw in DNT accurately expressing explicit user preference (rather than default preference).
I maintain, that a more reliable approach would be the original FTC proposal, of requiring companies that want to
track to register a list of domains/URLs OR support the new DNT flag, and browser makers will be able to incorporate the list into a blacklist.
Instead of asking browser's to present DNT information, the server should be required to also present a header,
Identifying if the user will be tracked, and how that information will be used, after the browser has made their request.
The server's DNT header response can be captured by third parties, as proof of what declarations the organization has made.
The server's DNT header response can be submitted to central databases, and used to construct blacklists of sites that do not honor users' DNT requests.
Browsers can consult the blacklist, and for sites in the list, refuse to remote-load content,
and when users attempt to navigate to it, present a warning similar to what Chrome presents
for a known malware infected site "This site may track your activity and ignore your privacy preferences"
Slashdot Mirror
If it's true that NASA is missing out on a seat that they need over a few million dollars, they should just pay the few million dollars.
They can't, the Russians decided to "auction" it, and the auction is done, with Brightman having won.
Their last bid might have been a few million dollars less, but that does not mean that they would have won if they placed a bid for a few more million.
It's possible Brightman was willing to pay 10, 20, 30, 40 more million.
The situation is idiotic regardless of money issues, though. The purpose of ISS was not to be a lucrative destination for tourists - it was to do useful research. That Roskosmos wants to charge for the ride, even with some extra to recoup its other losses, is reasonable, but they should just stick to one flat fee, and provide NASA (and other organizations with legitimate scientific missions) a priority. To make an auction out of it is reprehensible.
Agreed... they should simply ban tourists on the ISS, by requiring anyone visiting it have a scientific reason, certain training, and proper credentials, until such time as there is no contention between scientists and would-be tourists for seats on craft bound for it.
Huge multi-national discount chain doesn't want to sell a product the sole purpose of which is to get people to spend money somewhere else. News at 11.
That could have been money for Walmart, if they made a deal with Amazon, where Walmart would take a cut of the digital sales from units sold at their stores.
let's have the janitors install a new security system.
Corporate security would never allow it.... separation of duties would dictate, that whomever installs and maintains the security system, is not the person that holds all the keys, and cleans up the building/waxes the floors after everyone's left.
if janitors have the installer's knowledge of both the security system, and possess all the keys, and are the only folks there after hours, well, they could make off like bandits, and not be stopped by any of the physical protections.
For that same reason, you can't be having the accountants writing the financial software....
They've since invented codes that go along with the book - required to view online information and submit assignments, if the teacher is using their online framework.
Sounds like a lawsuit, or an administrative complaint to be made to the school, about being requested to make unreasonable expenditures to participate in the class, beyond the standard used book cost.....
Oh, I don't know... a printed image in a book has a pretty limited resolution. An on-line image can offer a lot more...
Including a hyperlink or button to open a high-res version of an image on a reliable site (no Geocities or john doe's website, that might be down tomorrow, or replaced with advertising) could be acceptable on an e-Book, intended for consumption on a tablet with a high-def display, with an internet connection available at all times.
You could read the eBook, and view the image in the same browser without exiting the book or 'breaking' your reading session or stream of thought; so it's as good as if the image were in the book.
However, in a print work, for an art class a picture of the art in the book itself, is indispensable, should be considered mandatory.
Anyway at $180 a book one would expect to be able to get photos in it. The $800 each for copyright clearance as TFS claims sounds totally unrealistic to me.
Perhaps it was just a small run book for one specific class at a specific school. So while the licensing fee for copyright clearance could be nominal, it might still be a lot of paperwork to be done, and a prohibitive cost for a book that might sell 60 copies a semester...
It would cut down on a lot of legwork, to just not bother with printing images in the first place, and give students links instead.
Although, of course it devalues the textbook as well (IMO)... for no pictures or diagrams, the book should be less than $50 a pop.
That depends on if he has clients agree to a budget that includes bribes for other editors, admins, and additional sockpuppets and massive numbers of IP addresses, to ensure that the "consensus" of any editing discussion is in favor of the client.
c is in vacuum always c. Regardless of your movement.
The physics is more a statement about your movement in a vacuum than light's. c is a fixed quantity, the rate of time light travels at, your experience of movement or magnitude of velocity and that of any observer is based on your position change per unit time, so if in a vacuum you have movement at a high rate, your experience of "time" slows, such that your change in position per unit time stays at or below c, and light always travels at c, regardless.
You can continue to accelerate -- you will never observe yourself having a velocity exceeding c or be observed having a velocity exceeding c.
You're also unlikely to reach near-light speed versus a planetary observer in the first place in your lifetime, regardless of how great your engine, the amount of energy required to accelerate any significant amount of mass near the speed of light is a large quantity, and at a rate of acceleration that humans could survive it would take hundreds of years to get anywhere near the speed of light, let alone "slow back down" after the experiment
So yes, I saw you arrive before I saw you leave.
The key word there is "before I saw you leave." , not "before you left."
There are such things as optical illusions. Human vision and radio receivers are not the arbiters of time. If faster than light travel is possible; it is an inherent fact, that your arrival could overtake all currently known methods of observing you leave.
But if you could send a faster than light signal announcing your departure, "I'm coming".... and then travel faster than the speed of light, then the message could still arrive ahead of you.
However, someone will observe you traveling faster than light, going from point A to point B faster than light would travel the same distance. If nobody sees you traveling faster than light, then how can you say you did so at all?
What method could they possibly use to observe you travelling faster than light?
If they watch for light emanating from you, it will only reach their eyes at the speed of light; the light emanating cannot move any faster.
If they point a radar gun, and repeatedly shoot it at you.... the radar will actually never reach them and be reflected back, so you will never get a reading.
How will they ever learned you travelled faster than light?
Your movement could appear discontinuous, or you could disappear from sight entirely, but then, that could also be the result of any extreme change in speed, at a long distance, and in that case, the observer would never know you were there; it would be impossible to remotely distinguish that from the observed object not existing at all...
If you have a faster than light travel/signalling then there will be an interial frame of referance in which that travel/signal went back in time.
If by "went back in time", you mean: observed the signal, earlier than the signal would have been observed, if the signal had travelled at the speed of light, then yes.
If by "went back in time", you mean: observed the signal, before the signal would have been emitted, then no.
Since the first postulate or relativity says that the laws of physics are the same in all inertial reference frames that means backwards in time travel/signalling is possible in all inertial frames of reference and we have killed causality.
Laws of physics being the same in all reference frames, does not imply that the observation will be the same in all reference frames.
There may be other occurences which are not considered by the theory.
Also "physics being the same in all reference frames", is not required for special relativity to be valid. It is a premise. It is possible that a difference will occur in the laws of physics in some frames of reference, once "space has been bent"; in that case, there will be exceptional cases where special relativity does not apply, because one of the premises is not met in one case, even if the model is valid otherwise.
Special relativity does not make provisions how you travel. If you travel from point A in space to point B in space, be it by warp drive, be it by wormhole, be it by magic, faster than a beam of light could do it in vacuum, you travel ftl. And this means timetravel.
If that were the case, it could very well indicate a problem with the theory of special relativity, requiring adjustment of the theory, to account for the additional geometry and other paths between point A and point B that do not require faster than light travel.
By definition, if you bend space, there are now multiple paths from A to point B, and light can follow any of those paths
Negative energy does not exist.
The word used to describe the negative energy term is Dark Energy
Next you'll be telling me that nothing can go faster than the speed of light. The "rule" is that nothing can accelerate past the speed of light
Maybe they do, and maybe they don't.... one thing is for sure, we won't be able to observe things accelerating past the speed of light as they do, because it's actually light that carries to us the details required to make our observation.
If something did accelerate past the speed of light, the limited speed of light, would restrict our ability to observe its acceleration.
Such as he expressed the desire to use the default search engine and some other points, which are in the bullet-point list.
There is a fundamental distinction between expressing a preference and accepting a default. Accepting a list of defaults does not express a preference; it's a choice to not express a preference, and just accept what the software developer suggested.
You work in a call center.... if you're a call center rep for answering calls, you're paid to be there at your desk, and take every call that comes in immediately
If you're not ready to do so, then you're not working, and your employer is entitled to know that.
Now the use of the term "bathroom break" might be offensive; but this could work either for you or against you.
They should probably have just specified a generic break reason of "Personal reasons"; "Personal hygiene";; or "Personal matter"
It would accomplish the objective of knowing when an employee is not at their terminal, without the embarrassment of having to identify a short respite as "toilet break"
You are so blind that you can't even see the stupidity of your own statements. You believe people should be able to be tracked unless they explicitly say otherwise.
No, but the marketing industry has made a decision that they will track people, until they say otherwise.
If the browser announces DNT by default, then DNT is not usable as an indication that they have said otherwise, period.
The IE user has made a choice. He has made the choice to use the default settings.
The user has not expressed a desire to opt out by using "default settings".
is like saying that clicking "I read and accept the EULA" does not mean that the user has read and accepted the EULA.
People click "accept" on EULAs all the time.
Over 98% of those users who are presented with EULAs, have not read the EULA at all, when clicking the 'has read and accepted' button.
It just sounds like you want uninformed users (the majority) to default to being able to be tracked instead.
NO. I want the DNT header to express useful information. The information that the standard says that the DNT header is supposed to express.
If it is set to 1 by default, then all the DNT header means is you are a typical user who installed MSIE with default settings, you have not specifically indicated an intent not to be tracked, you have just installed software that has falsely claimed that
You may be conflating advertisers with trackers; not all trackers are advertisers though. Do not track may include things like remembering users' preferences/personalizations when visiting the same site again later, for example: forum comment display preferences.
This sounds like the right thing to me. If most users are unaware of how pervasive the tracking is these days, then it should be opt-in. Let people who at least know that there is something to opt in to make a decision about opting in.
Go read the standard. DNT is an extra header that has 3 values null: User has not expressed a preference
0 User has chosen to OPT IN to tracking
1 User has chosen to OPT OUT of tracking
Until the human being has chosen to opt out, NULL is what the browser is supposed to send
Sending 1 by default, just means the sites cannot tell the difference between a user who has chosen OPT OUT, and a user who has done nothing at all, therefore, they will just ignore DNT, because the header no longer expresses useful information.
Previously, advertisers were taking flak and getting unwanted negative PR, and potential government scrutiny, for ignoring not honoring Do not tracking.
Now with the MSIE change, they will have a valid excuse for ignoring the flag, and the scrutiny, and pressure to respect DNT will definitely end, result: DNT will become worthless, it will become a complete NOOP, everyone will be OPTED back in, per-site "opt out cookie-based schemes (and cookies that expire)" will again be the only way for users to express opt out intent, and the internet will be back in the same situation we were in before DNT had even been proposed.
The user is presented with a "setup" screen at which he/she can choose "express" or "advanced" setup.
The screen *clearly* spells out that *if* you choose express settings then DNT will be switched on.
I'll still say they aren't gathering the user's express consent. It doesn't matter that in the laundry list of items they warn you that 'DNT will be set if you pick express'.
For it to be express consent, they would actually have to prompt the user specifically to choose to enable DNT or not, AND present it in such a way, that picking to enable DNT is definitely the user expressing a preference, eg by clicking a radio button, rather than just clicking Next.
Why are we trusting web servers to be honest? Advertising should be opt-in, not "opt-out, and then only if the server agrees to let you opt-out."
Because we don't have a choice. You are talking about advertising, but i'm talking about tracking. The status Quo is everything is opt-in by default, you can sometimes have to opt-out of tracking and you rarely if ever have any option to opt out of advertising, and the people running the web servers aren't going to agree to anything different; they're going to refuse to implement functionality that requires you to opt-in to advertising. Their business model relies on advertising -- if advertisers don't pay, the site goes away, therefore: You don't see advertising, then you can't visit this site.
Ultimately, you're going to have to somehow pay yourself, if you want to see professional content providers' content without advertising.
Right now, the best we can hope for is incremental improvement. Get technology in place, that lets users make their requests regarding tracking, and requires web servers to respond with declarations about what they will do, AND provides a mechanism to identify both web servers that are honest, and web servers that lie in their declarations, and what things they lie about.
In a much later incremental improvement.... some mechanism can be provided to allow browsers to opt-out by default, and the DNT framework can be extended with default opt-out, but only after DNT has acceptance and is implemented by the content providers, the browsers, and robust white lists and black listing functionality.
Browsers can become more intelligent over time and automatically refuse to load parts of popular sites that implement tracking functionality.
AFTER widespread DNT implementation, then an additional type of request and declaration could be added to DNT pertainining to types of advertising specifically.
So that users can opt out of specific kinds of ads, E.G. "BannerAds" "Popups" "Newsletters" "EmailMarketing" "ShareEmailwithThirdparties.
Sites would be required to declare those types of things, and browsers would warn the user before being able to enter their email address into a form on a page with DNT EmailMarketing tag, or DNT Opt-Out of e-mail marketing would require the site to suppress the form, or only offer subscription to Newsletters that don't involve spam.
Similarly "AdWare" opt-out would require sites that contain software, to suppress download links for any application that displays advertising on a user's computer.
While I like the idea of DNT, it won't be long until folks find a way around it.
What i'd like to see with DNT is a response header for each HTTP request for GET and HEAD operations, and both requestor and response headers to have _TAGS_ or other identifiers indicating more detailed optouts and more details about the server's policy (E.g. they might declare that they won't track the user, but may retain logs for 24 hours of their HTTP requests), not just relying on the client "blindly" sending a DNT: 1 request header, and the server being "on their honor" to respect that.
Instead there should be a response header from the server to be treated as a declaration of how the server will treat a request with certain DNT flags, or to what extent. Browsers that change their policy based on the reponse header (for example, the browser might make a HEAD request against / with referrer suppressed, to obtain a DNT declaration, before accepting a script or IMG tag for a remote domain, or requesting any pages from the host), and there could be a blacklist of sites that disclose false information in the DNT header.
Sites with no declaration will have functionality cutoff like cookies/remote load.
Sites in the blacklist get a "This site may track you and ignore your privacy preferences." error message, when users attempt to visit the site. And they will have to expand some hidden panels to find a 'visit this site anyway' link, which when clicked will open up a warning dialog, requiring confirmation.
That would be an anti-Google biased way of looking at it.
Just because Firefox implemented an experimental DNT functionality that may become part of a future standard, does not necessarily mean that DNT should be a development priority for other browsers. It makes good sense to wait until the DNT standardization effort is completed, and see as to its fate, before investing time and $$$ on wasted development effort in creating implementation that then needs to be rewritten or massively overhauled soon after, due to changes in the standard.
It looks like it may have been wise for them to wait, because Microsoft is planning on destroying the standard/convention by not implementing it properly in IE; e.g. by Default pretending that the user has opted out by supplying a DNT 1 value; instead of the user taking no preference.
This will mean that a DNT header value of '1' no longer indicates an explicit user preference, therefore, advertisers won't be able to rely on it as an opt-out.
Perhaps the DNT standard could be expanded to include opt-outs for specific advertisers, and require the user agent implementing DNT to uniquely identify itself, and specify a label indicating the mechanism that was used to establish the setting being presented, and the webserver itself to indicate an explicit DNT header, indicating a declaration whether the browser's DNT requests will be honored, and what portions will be honored...
For example; "DNT: 1 express-user-optout" OR "DNT: 1 vendor-default", "DNT: 1 corporate-policy", OR "DNT: 1 browser-optout-plugin"
While they're at it, they could add specific Do Not Tags, or Allowed permissions for data tracking, for example "DNT: 0 vendor-default targeted-ads:OPTIN market-research:OPTOUT share-with-3rdparty:OPTOUT keep-accesslog-history:OPTOUT"
This would be a fundamental flaw in DNT accurately expressing explicit user preference (rather than default preference).
I maintain, that a more reliable approach would be the original FTC proposal, of requiring companies that want to track to register a list of domains/URLs OR support the new DNT flag, and browser makers will be able to incorporate the list into a blacklist.
Instead of asking browser's to present DNT information, the server should be required to also present a header, Identifying if the user will be tracked, and how that information will be used, after the browser has made their request.
The server's DNT header response can be captured by third parties, as proof of what declarations the organization has made.
The server's DNT header response can be submitted to central databases, and used to construct blacklists of sites that do not honor users' DNT requests.
Browsers can consult the blacklist, and for sites in the list, refuse to remote-load content, and when users attempt to navigate to it, present a warning similar to what Chrome presents for a known malware infected site "This site may track your activity and ignore your privacy preferences"