HTTP is a protocol that is not designed with the privacy of its users in mind. The language used in the HTTP specification explicitly says that
the protocol was designed with enabling the datamining of its users in mind, and contains features that are not absolutely necessary for the purpose of the
protocol, but allow the protocol compromise user privacy.
stated in the protocol specifications to aid in datamining.
</p>
<p><i>
"The User-Agent request-header field contains information about the user agent originating the request. This is for <b>statistical purposes</b>, the tracing of protocol violations, and automated recognition of user agents for the sake of tailoring responses to avoid particular user agent limitations. User agents SHOULD include this field with requests. "
</i></p>
<h3>Acknowledgement of HTTP's privacy problem</h3>
In the HTTP specification, the W3C explicitly acknowledges the serious privacy violations that implementations of this protocol are capable of comitting.
Section 15.1<sup><ahref="#2">[2]</a></sup> of the HTTP specification has a very detailed analysis of
the implications of the comprimization of privacy that the User-Agent spyware allows to happen and suggests how to use the User-Agent feature: as an opt-in
feature where the privacy concerns of using such a feature are properly explained to the user. Even though this is a good section, it shows a very naieve
viewpoint from the W3C- the expectation that this feature would not be abused, and the expectation that implementers of this standard would respect the
privacy of their users and would not use these features of the protocol to datamine users.
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