Robin Berjon

User agents are pieces of software that represent the user, a natural person, in their digital interactions. Examples include Web browsers, operating systems, single-sign-on systems, or voice assistants. User agents hold, due to the role they play in the digital ecosystem, a strategic position. They can be arbiters of structural power. The overwhelming majority of the data that is collected about people, particularly that which is collected passively, is collected through user agents, at times… Show more

User agents are pieces of software that represent the user, a natural person, in their digital interactions. Examples include Web browsers, operating systems, single-sign-on systems, or voice assistants. User agents hold, due to the role they play in the digital ecosystem, a strategic position. They can be arbiters of structural power. The overwhelming majority of the data that is collected about people, particularly that which is collected passively, is collected through user agents, at times with their explicit support or at least by their leave. I propose to lean on this strategic function that user agents hold to develop a regime of fiduciary duties for them that is relatively limited in the number of actors that it affects yet has the means to significantly increase the power of users in their relationships with online platforms. The limited, tractable scope of software user agency as a fiduciary relationship provides effective structural leverage in righting the balance of power between individuals and tech companies. Show less

Online privacy is complex, but it doesn’t have to be.

This article presents a practical roadmap for scholarly data repositories to implement data citation in accordance with the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles, a synopsis and harmonization of the recommendations of major science policy bodies. The roadmap was developed by the Repositories Expert Group, as part of the Data Citation Implementation Pilot (DCIP) project, an initiative of FORCE11.org and the NIH-funded BioCADDIE (https://biocaddie.org) project. The roadmap makes 11… Show more

This article presents a practical roadmap for scholarly data repositories to implement data citation in accordance with the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles, a synopsis and harmonization of the recommendations of major science policy bodies. The roadmap was developed by the Repositories Expert Group, as part of the Data Citation Implementation Pilot (DCIP) project, an initiative of FORCE11.org and the NIH-funded BioCADDIE (https://biocaddie.org) project. The roadmap makes 11 specific recommendations, grouped into three phases of implementation: a) required steps needed to support the Joint Declaration of Data Citation Principles, b) recommended steps that facilitate article/data publication workflows, and c) optional steps that further improve data citation support provided by data repositories. We describe the early adoption of these recommendations 18 months after they have first been published, looking specifically at implementations of machine-readable metadata on dataset landing pages. Show less

Defines the widget URI scheme and rules for dereferencing a widget URI, which can be used to address resources inside a package (e.g., a Widgets package or similarly packaged application). The dereferencing model relies on HTTP semantics to return resources in a manner akin to a HTTP GET request. Doing so allows this URI scheme to be used with other technologies that rely on HTTP responses to function as intended, such as XMLHTTPRequest.

Defines the security model controlling network access from within a widget, as well as a method for authors to request that the user agent grant access to certain network resources or sets thereof.

Defines a media feature to match the different visual presentation modes that can be applied to web applications and thereby apply different styling based on these different modes using CSS Media Queries.

Privacy is an essential part of the Web. This document provides definitions for privacy and related concepts that are applicable worldwide as well as a set of privacy principles that should guide the development of the Web as a trustworthy platform. People using the Web would benefit from a stronger relationship between technology and policy, and this document is written to work with both.