> To apply for an Issuer (and its key commitments) to be included within Chrome, the Issuer’s operator must file a new bug on the Chromium Issue Tracker, and provide...

The implementation within Chrome isn't a community thing that anyone can make use of. They are controlling who can use this feature. That is vendor lock in.

Between the whole HTML5 / XHTML2 thing (which they lost to WHATWG) and the fact that they're a pack of sellouts (the Encrypted Media Extensions debacle), I would not trust a single thing coming out of the W3C. If Trust Tokens are of any use then it should be handed over to WHATWG (which is where I understand it should be anyway given it's an API thing).

Which is not to say I'm fond of advertising tracking like this by any means, I hate it, but if we're going to have it foisted on us by Google et. al. then it should at least be managed by a more competent group than the W3C.

I don't see how that will be better. WHATWG are basically Google and Apple as it stands. Used to be them plus Mozilla and Microsoft but Firefox is at ~5% market share while MS have forked Chromium. So it won't make any difference whether it is WHATWG or W3C except with the latter the companies can at least claim they're promoting an established standards body, so it's better optics.

In what way are the browser vendors that would participate in this in the W3C different than the browser vendors that would participate in this at WHATWG?

This hits hard and true.

That doesn't necessarily mean they're not co-opted.

Then say they’ve been corrupted and name the corrupt members so the discussion can continue past vague implication.

If you are interested in the context and generally unfamiliar with the W3C, maybe these articles will help:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/07/amid-unprecedented-con...

https://www.defectivebydesign.org/blog/w3c_sells_out_web_eme...

I would prefer to err on the side of caution when looking at the actions of key strategic pieces of large corporations.

The burden of proof for not being corrupted lies with the people and organizations that wield tremendous power.

We can't just have blind faith and wait for proof of corruption first. Instead we should assume it, and look for proof that there isn't any and be thankful when that's the case.

Normal folks: Keep the above post in mind next time you see an post thats overly cynical. This is the logic that the top minds of HN use to come to their viewpoints.