-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Just Rich wrote:

Rumour has it that there might be a cpunks/cpunks (cypherpunks was taken).

This brings up an interesting prtoblem which I have been trying to solve. How can we fund content providers on the Web while not compromising privacy? Early on I targeted political and governmental sites as likely users of the Web. This also reflected a personal belief that I have in open government. What I did not anticipate was the speed with which the mainstream press started appearing on the Web. In part this was due to the Whitehouse server which has legitimized the Web in many corporated boardrooms. There is a problem though, nobody has a fully convincing revenue model yet. This will have to chage if sites like the NYT are going to stay online. Ideally I would like these sites to be free to the readers because it helps break down international chauvnism and petty minded nationalism. I believe that the significant number of trans-national relationships forged over the internet have lead to a significant shift in support for French Nuclear testing for example. Ten years ago many French supported terrorism such as the sinking of the Rainbow warrior in persuit of this policy, this time round there has been much less support for the government posistion. The challenge therefore is to find a means by which NYT etc can pay their staffs. Advertising is an obvious mechanism but here there is a problem. Advertisers need to know what they are receiving by way of value for money. Don't believe the stories of $50K per month advertising charges, many of these prices are very heavily discounted. $50K is what advertisers are willing to pay once they know for sure the Web works for them. If we apply traditional advertising logic it would be necessary to use very intrusive methods to discover how effective the Web is. This is not necessarily the case on the Web since it is an interactive medium. As Jock Gill pointed out at a recent conference we organised, instead of targetting customers the Web permits a participatory process which may be far more profitable for big name brands, allowing them to establish the high value long term relationships they really want. So the question is how can we square the circle? I have no problem telling the NYT's advertisers that NYT have a reader who is in the high tech goodies purchasingcategory. I have a serious problem allowing the government to know that I read the NYT, remember that in many countries that could lead to getting you arrested. I also think we need to be cautious about comapnies collecting similar information. Imagine for a moment that the US elected a fascist president opposed to "left wing intellectuals". It would be a bad thing if he could obtain a list of likely left wing intellectuals compiled from readership of various magazines, visiting of left wing Web sites etc. This is a live issue in Holland where no phone records are kept because stored records were used by the NAZIs when they were invaded to find out who was talking to whom. Some Ideas I had: 1) An anonymous session identifier generated by the browser constructed in a cryptographically secure manner so as to prevent linkage across sites. This would allow NYTs to find out that a reader had moved from the sports section to the politics section within the site but not to track them from the NYT to Time Warner. 2) A privacy code of conduct. Sites adhering to this code would be alowed to display a trademarked icon on their pages. This code would cover items such as not selling log files not maintaining online records of identity. There are many people who are willing to put in the effort to make the Web a place where people can interact in privacy. I know very senior people in very large companies who are as concerned as many cypherpunks on this issue. The point is that we need to come up with a scheme which addresses their legitimate business needs and protects privacy. Otherwise the market will decide and it does not care much about privacy. I have written up some working drafts. You can get them from the IETF in ascii text or via the web as W3c working drafts http://w3.org/ Phill Hallam-Baker - --- [This message has been signed by an auto-signing service. A valid signature means only that it has been received at the address corresponding to the signature and forwarded.] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 Comment: Gratis auto-signing service iQBFAwUBMToQuyoZzwIn1bdtAQFSZgGAwMeBfDr4g3yBclG08m6f8K2Ml1Gv07i1 L5wybpz4/8o4Gy7/P3UUP+82IcEpgGrl =hUU/ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----