Inside the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), where the world's top engineers battle over the future of your data, by Issie Lapowsky July 13, 2021,
Protocol.comA lengthy and very interesting report of how something as geeky as W3C can be affected by personalities and biases. Here is one frightening paragraph:
...what is perhaps more alarming, [Ashkan] Soltani (former chief technologist to the Federal Trade Commission) and [Pete] Snyder (director of privacy at Brave) argue, is that the new entrants from the ad-tech industry and elsewhere aren't just trying to derail standards that could hurt their businesses; they're proposing new ones that could actually enshrine tracking under the guise of privacy. "Fortunately in a forum like the W3C, folks are smart enough to get the distinction," Soltani said. "Unfortunately, policymakers won't."
Remember "Do Not Track"? A bit of humor:
Perhaps it should have been a clear sign Do Not Track was doomed when, [Omer] Tene (vice president of the International Association of Privacy Professionals) wrote, the group tried to settle its dispute over the definition of tracking by seeing which side could hum loudest. "Addressing this method, one participant complained, 'There are billions of dollars at stake and the future of the Internet, and we're trying to decide if one third-party is covered or didn't hum louder!'"
tl;dl
While some developers are working to protect us, there are folks with lots of financial gain working just as hard to fight against our privacy.
You are the main entity that can protect your privacy;
be aware of where and what you are giving away whenever you use the web. Practice Safe Web Behavior!
