Re: Dynamic HTML documents with client pull

H&kon W Lie (howcome@w3.org)
Fri, 28 Apr 1995 20:38:18 +0500


Bill Trefzger writes:

> I connected to Netscape's server to see if this was true (or documented).
> It is both (http://home.netscape.com/assist/net_sites/dynamic_docs.html).
> In the words of the documentation: "the content creator has total control".

I'm happy see the list's reaction to the described fuctionality which
leaves too much control to the content creator.

In the style sheet discussions at the WWW conference in Darmstadt we
were faced with a similar issue. Several people argued that the
content provider should have the last word when deciding how to
present a document. lee@sq.com writes:

> At the WWW conference in Darmstadt, there was a short session in the
> Developer's Day about style sheets.
>
> One thing that came out is that there may be situations where the author must
> be able to override the user's style sheet preferences -- e.g. for legal
> liability reasons.

Just as "legal liability reasons" are being used to take the control
away from the reader in issues of style, they can also be used to defend
the unwanted client pull mechanism. I'm not too scared about reading
or hearing legal statements, but the fuctionality will be too tempting
for advertisers.

Let's put the legal disclaimers in the HTML3 banner area
(http://www.hpl.hp.co.uk/people/dsr/html/banners.html) and make sure
the reader has control of the rest.

-h&kon

Hakon W Lie, WWW project CERN, CH-1211 Geneva 23
http://www.w3.org/hypertext/WWW/People/howcome/