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AMP pages displaying your own domain

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Re: AMP pages displaying your own domain

#271

Post by proaralyst »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #262
codedokode wrote: post #232

It's ridiculous. Google wants to keep users at its domain so much that it invents a whole technology to substitute address bar contents. This shows how harmful it is when a company has a significant market share in several different areas (browsers and search engines). I hope at least Mozilla doesn't adopt this technology and will show the true URL. This technology is complicated. Browser vendors have to implement al…

This is the exact opposite of "keeping users at its domain". That was the situation _before_ they implemented this standard. Now users will get sent to the publisher's domain instead (via a prefetched page load).

But it's served from Google, so they still control all the analytics

Re: AMP pages displaying your own domain

#272

Post by Ajedi32 »

codedokode wrote: post #269
Ajedi32 wrote: post #264

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The URL you see _is_ the actual URL. It doesn't matter where the content was initially loaded from because the page is signed by the publisher's private key (the publisher has full control over the page contents, Google can't alter it).

The content is served from Google's servers according to Google's (not publisher's) privacy policy. While Google cannot alter the content, it sees the unencrypted HTTP request. I don't want neither Google nor publisher to control contents of my address bar.

Google already knows the unencrypted contents of the page, and they know you clicked on a link to it (from their search results page). The signed exchanges system doesn't reveal any information to Google _or_ the publisher that they don't already know.

Your browser controls the contents of the URL bar, not Google or the publisher.

Re: AMP pages displaying your own domain

#273

Post by duozerk »

dwild wrote: post #216
duozerk wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can't if you block all their shitty domains and don't use google services. Things that many privacy-conscious users do.

We are talking about their AMP cache. If you don't use Google Service, except if you like to prepends their amp cache URL before your links, you'll never get there. Their AMP cache happens only on their search service. They already know which links you click... having an AMP cache on top doesn't give them MORE information than they already get. The use of that cache also make sure the website doesn't get more informa…

That's not entirely true though, is it ? any link shared on reddit, or here, on on any social network by a chrome user can be an amp one.

Re: AMP pages displaying your own domain

#275

Post by Ajedi32 »

proaralyst wrote: post #271
Ajedi32 wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the exact opposite of "keeping users at its domain". That was the situation _before_ they implemented this standard. Now users will get sent to the publisher's domain instead (via a prefetched page load).

But it's served from Google, so they still control all the analytics

No they don't. The page contents are controlled by the publisher and cryptographically signed so Google can't alter it. Another improvement over the previous situation.

Re: AMP pages displaying your own domain

#276

Post by codedokode »

hedora wrote: post #242
eudora wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sneaky because now you don't know what server a web page is coming from? Because yes that's true, although cryptography it's maybe half true.

Sneaky because (especially for news articles), the most common web-based attack is google (or fb, etc) slurping up my information. Now, they want to remove the remaining user interface element that says they’re spying on me! Also, this makes it even harder to ad block their junk at the network layer (is foo.com down, or is this more amp bs?)

On their page about AMP Viewer Google admits that they are collecting user's data when they view AMP pages [1]:

> The Google AMP Viewer is a hybrid environment where you can collect data about the user. Data collection by Google is governed by Google’s privacy policy.

With replaced URL it will be more difficult to spot.

[1] https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/about-amp

Re: AMP pages displaying your own domain

#277

Post by codedokode »

fartcannon wrote: post #228
jefftk wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as if the lift of transforming HTML into AMP HTML wasn't already big enough for your average web site owner, implementing signed exchanges will be over the head of 99% of the folks building web pages on the Web Converting web pages into AMP isn't something you can automate, but supporting signed exchanges is. You need certificate authorities to support the flag and web servers support the protocol, but if this catc…

How do you personally feel about AMP? It looks like an attempt to make the web a walled garden.

And replacing the URL bar contents makes it more difficult to spot the walls [1].

[1] https://developers.google.com/search/docs/guides/images/amp0...

Re: AMP pages displaying your own domain

#278

Post by codedokode »

cannedslime wrote: post #135
jsnell wrote: post #119

This is such a strange reaction from HN. The AMP cache URLs have been a top 3 complaint about AMP here. "I can't copy-paste URLs, it's hard for users to understand which site they are on, it looks like the content is provided by Google rather than the real provider", etc. Now there's a solution that preserves the preloading and validation benefits of AMP caches but maintains the original URLs, in a way that's cryptog…

My biggest quarrel with this is that its just another way for google to take control over the internet. Does any other search provider than google use AMP? Does any browser other than googles own support this? How busy are you? You can't wait 0.5 seconds for an HTTP request? And you think its worth feeding google with more precise data about your movements online than they already have? And as a business integrating…

Also Google controlling AMP specifications means Google can decide what widgets (from what companies) can be there on the page, what ad networks and analytics systems can be used.

Re: AMP pages displaying your own domain

#279

Post by codedokode »

Agebor wrote: post #139
strictnein wrote: post #55

Remember the talk about how the Chrome team was going to "rethink" the navbar, and what domain and site identity really mean? And people were a little worried about this? Turns out people were right to be suspicious. This is hot garbage. You can no longer ask a user "What URL does your navbar say you're at?". It is no longer a source of truth. They will actively be lied to.

But what does it mean that you are on a particular URL? For a long time already it's not being connecter to a particular physical server. Now it's the next step - to be completely decoupled from the server and just mean content instead.

You are not decoupled from the server. Google still sees HTTP request you make in plaintext and collects your data according to their privacy policy. It just won't be obvious because of publisher's URL in the address bar.

Re: AMP pages displaying your own domain

#280

Post by spartas »

lucb1e wrote: post #265
codedokode wrote: post #232

It's ridiculous. Google wants to keep users at its domain so much that it invents a whole technology to substitute address bar contents. This shows how harmful it is when a company has a significant market share in several different areas (browsers and search engines). I hope at least Mozilla doesn't adopt this technology and will show the true URL. This technology is complicated. Browser vendors have to implement al…

Indeed, Google just has too much market share. Last week I blocked Google from my domains (blog: lucb1e.com/!130), hopefully others will follow suit and degrade the search quality until people get better results (at least for some more obscure content) elsewhere, or perhaps until Google notices we are really not okay with their behaviour.

Are you blocking GoogleBot by IP range or User-Agent match? Why aren't you using your robots.txt file to block GoogleBot instead or in addition to your server-side logic?
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