• by Wendy Davis  @wendyndavis, August 22, 2013

The Obama administration intends name law professor Peter Swire to a panel that will examine surveillance by the National Security Agency, according to ABC News. The appointment likely means that Swire will stop serving as co-chair of the World Wide Web Consortium's tracking protection group -- a position he has held since last November.

The Internet standards group W3C -- made up of privacy advocates, computer scientists and industry representatives -- has tried for two years to arrive at a consensus about how to interpret do-not-track signals that users send through their browsers. But to date, the group has been unable to agree.

Swire said earlier this year that he anticipated the W3C would be able to put a proposal out for public comment by the end of July. But last month, he said that the group would miss the deadline. Given the group's failure to make any headway, it's not clear that the W3C's initiative will continue after Swire leaves.