[$] Browsers, web sites, and user tracking

Browser tracking across different sites is certainly a major privacyconcern and one that is more acute when the boundaries between sites andbrowsers blur-or disappear altogether. That seems to be the underlyingtension in a "discussion" of an only tangentially related proposal beingmade by Google to the W3C TechnicalArchitecture Group (TAG). The proposal would change the handling ofthe User-Agent headers sent by browsers, but the discussion turnedto the unrelated X-Client-Data header that Chrome sends toGoogle-owned sites. The connection is that in both casessome feel that the web-search giant is misusing its position to the detriment ofits users and its competitors in the web ecosystem.