Thread · 6 tweets · 24 Mar 2021

I'm aware of the critiques (notably from Lina Khan) and in many cases I agree that they point to issues that need to be addressed. My thinking around a fiduciary UA regime is intended to be a narrow but effective first step in the area.

It's narrow because user agents are relatively few, they operate closer to the user (more enforceable), and present a clear architectural position. Effective because that where most of the data enters the system, and because they can develop rules to react to threats.

You ask about ads: people are generally not worried that ads exist, they are worried that ads 1) invade their privacy, 2) cause security issues, or 3) use too many resources or are annoying. All three of these aspects are being increasingly policed by browsers. As should be.

At heart, this addresses the issue that there is no one is the user's corner. In a world of automation, users are entitled to having an automated system in their corner. This is a much better governance architecture than the current system in which tricking the user is key.

Anyway — this is a *much* longer discussion. I have ~8,000 words of really terrible writing on this that I need to clean up and then have torn apart by smarter people :)

Oh, I forgot to note: the vision of the browser as fiduciary is clearly present in existing communities of knowledge. See RFC8890 broadly, but notable §4.2 tools.ietf.org/html/rfc8890#s… or the Priority of Constituencies w3ctag.github.io/design-princip….