I18N objections to reducing accept-language

[aphillips]

This is a tracker issue. Only discuss things here if they are i18n WG internal meta-discussions about the issue. Contribute to the actual discussion at the following link:

§ explainers-by-googlers/reduce-accept-language#10

This tracks our discussion about changing Accept-Language. My comment said:

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The W3C Internationalization Working Group discussed this proposal in our 2023-03-09 teleconference and I was actioned with creating this response.

The I18N WG is concerned that reducing the accept-language header to just the first entry, while perhaps helpful in reducing fingerprinting, will have a potentially negative impact on multilingual users. We are especially concerned with the potential impact on the speakers of minority languages. A minority language speaker of a language may find that many sites do not support their language and thus they may desire to specify a second language (generally a more common one) to ensure the best match for their preferences.

For example, a speaker who prefers Breton (br) [Breton is a regional language found mainly in France] is likely to also speak French (fr, or perhaps fr-FR). They would thus like to have an A-L header something like:

Accept-Language: br,fr-FR;q=0.8

If the A-L header is reduced to a single entry, they would have to choose either French or Breton for their requests. If they chose Breton, they might find some sites defaulting them to another language (such as English), even when French is available.

We also note that for most users of most browsers the A-L header is usually set to a single entry matching the system runtime locale. Most users do not tailor this configuration. The users who do use the browser's user experience to modify their preferences are taking a specific positive action to assert what they want their browser to send on their behalf. Additional privacy warnings could be provided to users there, but users ought to be allowed to control what their browser emits on their behalf in order to receive the best possible Web experience.

Thanks!