True, sometimes people can be stupid and tinker around with their setups
without knowing what they are doing, and they end up preventing themselves
from being able to shop online, etc... Then they call the owner of the store
and complain that their system doesn't work, and then the owners call us and
tell us that the program we made for them does not work, and we have to
reverse the chain and explain everything once again. In my opinion, that is
working against the web. Someone can be identified uniquely and tracked
without losing their privacy - history and personal information doesn't
necessarily have to be linked to the identifier, which seems to be the big
fuss. That is a browser issue.
The whole purpose of web pages is to provide information EASILY to users.
Now, if the user's program refuses to identify itself or allow the correct
information to come in, whether by accident or intentionally, then that
becomes a problem. It's like someone standing outside an unlocked door to a
house they want to get in to, and they're shouting at the people inside,
"Let me in! Let me in!" Seems like most web users are fairly stupid, and we
can't expect them to learn everything. That's why the browsers should allow
the web page programmers to help the users without them having to learn
things.
You can use the old adage, "Give a man a fish and you'll feed him for a day.
Teach him to fish and you'll feed him for a lifetime." However, we just
cannot teach everyone that visits unless they want to learn, and if they
want to learn, they will most likely know before they even get to the site.
Jonathan
-----Original Message-----
From: Jeffrey W. Baker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2001 11:19 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: What the user in user agent means
Why are we talking about tracking again? The user agent acts on behalf of
the user. It is their agent. It is not your agent. Your content or
program is a guest of the user agent, not its master.
Learn to work with the web not against it.
