Suggestion to stop using the term “third-party” in proposal explainers

[Šime Vidas]

I was taking a look at the explainer for LazyEmbeds [1], and I thought that the first sentence could have been more clear if it didn’t use the terms “third-party” and “first-party”.

> Third-party embeds enable sites to integrate engaging web experiences hosted by third-party origins on a first-party site.

I think this could have been written more clearly like so:

“Cross-site embeds enable sites to integrate engaging web experiences hosted by other sites.”

Also take a look at this document that argues against using the terms “first party” and “third party” in specs: https://tess.oconnor.cx/2020/10/parties

If the moderators agree with this suggestion, please consider posting a PSA about it in this group.

[1]: https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/g/blink-dev/c/PhLkO3KITyw/m/dMl_Nf5aAgAJ

[Johann Hofmann]

I generally agree with Tess' document to the extent that the party terms are currently not well suited for specification language because of their ambiguity. You're also right that ideally explainers and intent emails should make it easy to discern cross-site vs. cross-origin behavior (seems like a good issue to raise with that explainer).

However, I would be hesitant to forbid or discourage the usage of "party" entirely. It may be used colloquially on purpose, to hand-wave away some details that are provided later or elsewhere. "Party" may also be a defined term in some proposals, like in First-Party Sets. I think there are still acceptable reasons to use the term, and it's so commonly done that blanket-restricting it doesn't seem productive.

I think your email already serves as a good PSA that this is good practice :)

Cheers,

Johann

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