[whatwg] <a href="" ping="">

[Jim Ley]

On 1/19/06, Tyler Close <tyler.close at gmail.com> wrote:
> I think it would be fair to characterize current techniques for link
> click tracking as "opaque". In contrast, the proposed "ping" attribute
> explicitly declares in the HTML what is intended and how it will
> happen. Perhaps the right way to explain the "ping" attribute is as
> providing transparent, or explicit, feedback; shining a light on the
> dark corners of click tracking. If it is explained that the feature
> will make link click tracking explicit, controllable and more usable,
> I think the user base will react more positively.

No, they'll just disable it, as it does them directly no benefit and
has a cost, so if you educate them enough to make a decision, they
will not decide to be tracked.

Since the main use of tracking has a direct economic cost to many
parties the sites will then return to using the established successful
methods for tracking, no-one will gain and browsers would've wasted
lots of time that could've been spent on more productive features.

Jim.