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RE: Re: Cookies at XML Europe 2004 -- Call for Particip ation

• To: Strolia-Davis Christopher Contr MSG/MAT <Christopher.Strolia-Davis@w...>
• Subject: RE: Re: Cookies at XML Europe 2004 -- Call for Particip ation
• From: Elliotte Rusty Harold <elharo@m...>
• Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 17:41:10 -0500
• Cc: XML-DEV <xml-dev@l...>
• In-reply-to: <CA32291A48597E49B25211A09052F3FA018C9D65@f...>
• References: <CA32291A48597E49B25211A09052F3FA018C9D65@f...>

At 3:09 PM -0500 1/5/04, Strolia-Davis Christopher Contr MSG/MAT wrote:


>Right now the whole cookie issue is that people can use it to invade 
>our privacy.  It seems similar to the argument that a knife could be 
>used to kill us.  Should we prevent all knife sales?  Should we ban 
>the use of knives?  That's ridiculous.  We should punish people who 
>use knives to kill.

No, privacy is *not* the whole cookie issue. It's certainly one 
problem with cookies but it is not the only one, nor the one I am 
primarily concerned with here. I only brought up privacy because one 
of the other problems I noticed with the site was that it had no 
privacy policy.

The real problem is that cookies are completely contrary to the web 
architecture. They create resources that do not have URIs, and thus 
cannot be bookmarked, linked to, and otherwise referenced. They 
attempt to force state into a fundamentally stateless protocol with 
disastrous results. Even if there were no privacy implications, 
cookies would still be the wrong solution. Similarly, the fact that 
other solutions also have privacy implications does not mean they are 
as bad as cookies. Obviously I am giving up privacy when I choose to 
type my name into a registration form, whether it's stored in a 
cookie or something else. But there is no reason I should 
simultaneously give up the ability to bookmark or link to a page as a 
result of providing my name.


-- 

   Elliotte Rusty Harold
   elharo@m...
   Effective XML (Addison-Wesley, 2003)
   http://www.cafeconleche.org/books/effectivexml
   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN%3D0321150406/ref%3Dnosim/cafeaulaitA

• Follow-Ups:
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    • From: Rich Salz <rsalz@d...>
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    • From: Michael Champion <mc@x...>

• References:
  • RE: Re: Cookies at XML Europe 2004 -- Call for Particip ation
    • From: Strolia-Davis Christopher Contr MSG/MAT <Christopher.Strolia-Davis@w...>

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