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Google vs. the Open Web

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Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#161

Post by rapsey »

JohnFen wrote: post #154
rapsey wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Blocking Meta's acquisition of that VR company was braindead. Absolutely pointless.

So you're upset about that decision. Fair enough! I can't think of any regulatory agency that hasn't made a decision I thought was terrible at some point or another. But that doesn't mean that what they do, big picture, is pointless.

Fact of the matter is acquisitions are a corner stone of the tech economic model. If they actually cared about consumers and competition they would go after MS for bundling Teams. Or MS for round-tripping cash with OpenAI.

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#163

Post by 4oo4 »

lancesells wrote: post #157
4oo4 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My thoughts exactly. These GitHub protests, while emotionally satisfying, do not work. Google does not care and they are already drunk on monopolist power. Contact info for antitrust authorities: US: - https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/report-antitrust-violation - antitrust@ftc.gov EU: - https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/antitrust/contact_en - comp-greffe-antitrust@ec.europa.eu UK: - https://www.gov.uk/guidance/t…

Please share your template.

    I would like to bring your attention to Google’s recent proposal to add a feature to its Chrome (Chromium family) of browsers called Web Environment Integrity. This provides a mechanism to reinforce Google’s already dominant browser market position by creating a technological control that can be used to nullify a user’s choice of browser, device and operating system. This technology also has the potential for abuse by preventing users from using browser extensions that can enhance security by blocking unwanted and potentially malicious content, as well as browser extensions that help vulnerable users with enhanced accessibility needs, such as color blindness and visual impairment.
    
    Google’s dominant, near-monopoly position in the browser market already harms me as a consumer by reducing browser choices and preventing a competitive market for developing new browsers. Allowing Google to include this feature will reduce my browser choices and consolidate the browser market even further, and it is incumbent on [INSERT AUTHORITY HERE] to take action against this abusive behavior.

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#164

Post by spudlyo »

idreyn wrote: post #153
supriyo-biswas wrote: post #18

I mentioned this in the other WEI thread and I’ll do it here again: Instead of simply flailing our collective arms around complaining about an evil corporation, has anyone written to the respective competition authorities (such as the FTC in the US or CCI in India) about the potential anticompetitive effects of this proposal?

I wrote to the FTC: https://gist.github.com/idreyn/a37e4249b326243e1714b14780717...

This is excellent. Thank you.

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#165

Post by ajross »

lambic wrote: post #64
ajross wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clearly the implication is that rushing to join a professional discussion just to yell about some or another controversial proposal you read about on HN is not going to work to sway the stakeholders. If you want influence, you need to cultivate it over time by building trust in the community you want to influence. That's hardly controversial. In particular, taking a fairly dry proposal like WEI, which is intended as…

Your definition of shitposting is... odd.

Characterizing a fairly reasonable position like "we should have a way prevent bots at the client level" as an attack on "The Open Web" is pretty much the definition of a shitpost, no? It's a terrible strawman and it pollutes the discourse.

Do you really not agree that people might want the former and not the latter? You genuinely think that the standards folks are being driven by a conspiracy and not what they say they want?

There are ways to argue against WEI that don't involve the existence of enemies you have to fight. Maybe you could try them?

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#166

Post by anchovy_ »

multicast wrote: post #149

How can a bot create fake impressions? When a bot (or just a simple program) makes a http request he fetches the raw html code only. AFAIK if you don't actually render the html code in a browser or requesting all the contents afterwards again with http requests (like GET ad.jpg, GET logo.png etc.), no google ad server should be hit. Now you could argue that bots could inflate the popularity of a website and therefore…

Don't nail me down on this but I think since nowadays' websites are often dynamic, you most likely have to employ headless browsers in order to do whatever it is you want to do. This should then result in fake impressions.

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#167

Post by jsnell »

multicast wrote: post #149

How can a bot create fake impressions? When a bot (or just a simple program) makes a http request he fetches the raw html code only. AFAIK if you don't actually render the html code in a browser or requesting all the contents afterwards again with http requests (like GET ad.jpg, GET logo.png etc.), no google ad server should be hit. Now you could argue that bots could inflate the popularity of a website and therefore…

It's not about bots creating fake ad impressions by accident. It's people writing bots whose purpose is to fake ad impressions and clicks. They'll then run it on their own website that's running ads, with the goal of being paid by the ad network for this fake traffic.

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#168

Post by GeekyBear »

supriyo-biswas wrote: post #18

I mentioned this in the other WEI thread and I’ll do it here again: Instead of simply flailing our collective arms around complaining about an evil corporation, has anyone written to the respective competition authorities (such as the FTC in the US or CCI in India) about the potential anticompetitive effects of this proposal?

> has anyone written to the respective competition authorities

Just a reminder that several states have already filed an antitrust suit (in part) over a previous Google plan to turn the web into their own walled garden.

> Project NERA was Google’s original plan to create a closed ecosystem out of the open internet. Google documents reveal that Google’s motive was to “successfully mimic a walled garden across the open web [so] we can protect our margins.”

According to Google’s internal documents, the strategy would allow Google to extract even higher intermediation fees. A Google employee aptly described Google’s ambition for Project NERA to “capture the benefits of tightly ‘operating’ a property … without ‘owning’ the property and facing the challenges of building new consumer products.”

Google main strategy to do this was to leverage its popular browser, Chrome, to track users, by forcing them to stay logged into the browser. Google did this by logging users into the browser when they logged into any Google property such as Gmail or YouTube, and logging them out of services when they logged out of the browser.

https://mspoweruser.com/project-nera-state-attorneys-general...

https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.56...

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#169

Post by skydhash »

AlexandrB wrote: post #116

Makes me sad to think how locked-down modern computing is becoming. Between app stores, DRM, TPM, and proposals like WEI future generations of hackers will have a very different experience of what you can and can't do with a computer than I did.

There are still single board computers and Linux to play with.

Re: Google vs. the Open Web

#170

Post by lambic »

ajross wrote: post #165
lambic wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your definition of shitposting is... odd.

Characterizing a fairly reasonable position like "we should have a way prevent bots at the client level" as an attack on "The Open Web" is pretty much the definition of a shitpost, no? It's a terrible strawman and it pollutes the discourse. Do you really not agree that people might want the former and not the latter? You genuinely think that the standards folks are being driven by a conspiracy and not what they say t…

1. (noun) any content on the internet whose humor derives from its surreal nature and/or its lack of clear context. Differs from a meme: whereas a meme's humor comes from its repeatability, a shitpost is funny simply because it isn't a predictable repetition of an existing form. Shitposts can become memes, but memes cannot become shitposts. 2. (verb) to create such a post
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