Are these really principles?

[mnot]

Overall, the document does a good job of capturing ethical principles -- i.e., invariants that we use as a 'bright line' to make hard decisions. However, there are a few items that, while good goals, aspirations or values, are questionable as principles.

In particular, these items stand out to me:

• 2.6 The web enables freedom of expression
• 2.7 The web must make it possible for people to verify information and assess the trustworthiness of its source.
• 2.9 The web is an environmentally sustainable platform

I suspect the first and last are better expressed as values, not principles. The second is more of an aspiration at this point.

[torgo]

As discussed at the AC meeting, 2.7 relates directly to the concept of origin so it's definitely a "principle" that underpins some fundamental architectural pieces of the web, from our pov. cf https://www.w3.org/2001/tag/doc/distributed-content/ Naybe that needs to be made clearer in the text? As for the others, I'm not sure I agree with your differentiation between "principles" and "values". In my view a value is something like "we believe this" whereas a principle should be "when we do things we do them like this". 2.6 and 2.9 both seem to fit into the latter category for me.

[mnot]

Re: 2.7 - yes even just using origin as an example would clarify; otherwise it's very open-ended and dare I say it, speculative.

Re: 2.6 and 2.9 - I say they're values because they need to be balanced against other factors more readily, and they may need to adapt over time. But this isn't a severe criticism.

[torgo]

After discussing with the TAG we are in agreement that this can be discussed and adjusted in the next phase of work, after the current transition request. We'll leave this open to reflect that.