Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If we are goign to get something like Do Not Track, then it should have been drafted out of the public eye, had a nice short period for public comment and then recieved some sort of backing in law. I'm confused by this—how would drafting the law / specification / whatever out of the public eye have helped the process?
I think doing it out of the public eye might have stopped premature use and implementations. Inconsistencies really had to be avoided, but without much of a concrete draft, implementations like Microsoft's sort of derailed the effort.
Sure, but so doing might carry its own risk—namely, no community investment once the proposal was released. A very consistent proposal by which no-one feels represented isn't necessarily an improvement!