[Nicksil]

>It's difficult to argue about whether it's "surreptitious." It's certainly no secret. I think this is why you need organizations (perhaps government or otherwise) to establish standards for what is and isn't acceptable, so we don't have to quibble over words like "surreptitiously."

It is a secret, though. Outside of you, me, and a few other folks like ourselves, users of this software have no idea what's going on behind the curtains. There is no overt disclosure to the user explaining the myriad communication exchange, occurring on a nearly constant basis, between their device and some remote server(s); much less giving the user a say in the matter.

Stating the use of the word "surreptitious" (to act in a clandestine manner; exactly how these communications are executed) amounts to a mere quibble is disingenuous.

[edmundsauto]

I cannot easily see what information goes through an ASP form submitted with a ViewState parameter (where the page state is encoded in a blob buried in a JS var or HTML comment). Is that also surreptitious?

[Nicksil]

>I cannot easily see what information goes through an ASP form submitted with a ViewState parameter (where the page state is encoded in a blob buried in a JS var or HTML comment). Is that also surreptitious?

I can't say I completely understand the scenario, but if you're talking about a user filling out a form, then submitting that form, then no. That would be expected behavior.

Data may be encoded in any number of encodings depending on need. Encoded data isn't always human readable; especially so during secure transmission. It's not so much the inability for a human to read the encoded data as it is the data being consisting of only what is necessary to perform the action expected by the user; those expectations, of course, set via whichever means the user is interacting with the software.

Please correct me if I've misunderstood.

[baddox]

> That would be expected behavior.

That's exactly my point. "Surreptitious" is being used to mean "I think it's bad, and I think it's not expected." The "bad" part is obviously subjective, but even if we agree on that, the latter is where you really need standards bodies to agree on what is acceptable technology practices. To me, ad tracking is definitely expected (regardless of whether I think it's bad). I suspect it's also expected by nearly all HN participants, and ubiquitous ad tracking is even in the mainstream public consciousness outside of tech circles.