351–360 of 427 posts
one “side effect” of this would be enabling Google to effectively block ad-blocking. And, of course, plenty of people will insist that that’s not a side-effect, that’s the end goal.
How would this block ad-blocking?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah for sure, but the solution to an uneducated populous isn't large governments and regulation. That's a bandaid at best, but it's never sustainable.
If it was possible for everybody to be educated about everything, we'd indeed probably need neither regulators nor politicians. As much as I personally like discussing the economic and political impact of various web specifications – there are a lot of things happening in modern society, and everybody only has so much time and mental resources to care about every single one in detail.
If I think Google's latest antics are dangerous enough for society as whole to warrant government intervention, I first have to assume that the majority of people don't get it but would be opposed if only they better understood. What gives me the right to make that decision on their behalf? And if I don't know they would care, can I really push through my own intervention?
Not to mention the assumption we have to make that government regulators actually do understand and can relate in an unbiased way with only consumers best interests in mind.
I've been wary of Google for a while now, and this is further proof my wariness is justified. However, one thing I can't seem to kick is using Google search as a fallback. I use DuckDuckGo or Brave search for most of my searches, but half the time I have to add "!g" to the search to switch to Google to get actually useful results. Does anyone have any tips or tricks (or search engines I'm unfamiliar with) so I can br…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
1. Running a particular set of software _correctly_ i.e. the positive filter is positive insofar as the negative filter is negative. This logic applies to anti-virus if you predicate it's negative filtering on a positive filter that the problem itself hasn't been backdoored (which we arguably do as part of our intuitive trust model). I disagree with your characterization of metal detectors defining success on approva…
Your metal detector "that seems practically difficult" is exactly the issue: WEI does create a implicit whitelist (I believe the preferred term is allowlist). WEI will attest anything, but if you want it to be useful you have to already have some idea of what attestations you're going to trust. Keeping a continuously-updated list of all attestations you're interested in trusting does indeed sound practically difficul…
I'm still coming to the opposite conclusion: For example, as a web admin, it would be useful to me to block requests that forge the User Agent. In your mind, is this a white or black list?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This isn't a "partnership", it's an option for anyone who has purchased a Local Campaign product on Google Ads.
Despite not being privy to the details, I am familiar enough with this sort of marketing to be extremely confident that Google and McDonalds (and other big brands) did indeed negotiate specific terms including promotion of McDonalds locations beyond what is available to typical Google customers, rather than a McDonalds marketing manager just logging in and setting up some local campaigns.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's always bundling a web browser with their OS and giving it an unfair advantage over all other browsers, aka the exact thing they were sued for last time .
ChromeOS bundles its own browser and goes even further in preventing people from installing their own than Windows. Imagine if on the first boot of ChromeOS it asks if you want to use Chrome, Edge, Safari, or Firefox.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Call me old skool, but how about charging for it?
When every other browser is free, that sounds like a death sentence
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Your metal detector "that seems practically difficult" is exactly the issue: WEI does create a implicit whitelist (I believe the preferred term is allowlist). WEI will attest anything, but if you want it to be useful you have to already have some idea of what attestations you're going to trust. Keeping a continuously-updated list of all attestations you're interested in trusting does indeed sound practically difficul…
I'm not sure how you're arriving at the implicit whitelist statement. Can you link to section in the proposal that supports this conclusion? I'm still coming to the opposite conclusion: For example, as a web admin, it would be useful to me to block requests that forge the User Agent. In your mind, is this a white or black list?
""" Attester-level acceptable browser policy If the community thinks it's important for the attestation to include the platform identity of the application, and is more concerned about excluding certain browsers than excluding certain OS/attesters, we could standardize the set of signals that browsers will receive from attesters, and have one of those signals be whether the attester recommends the browser for sites to trust (based on a well-defined acceptance criteria). As new browsers are introduced, they would need to demonstrate to attesters (a relatively small group) that they pass the bar, but they wouldn't need to convince all the websites in the world. """
In other words, they realise it's infeasible for sites to keep up with new browsers and figure out whether to trust them. This is an implicit whitelist (I believe the preferred term is allowlist) because each site would have to keep a list of attested "platform identities" that they trust.
Instead, in the above paragraph, Google proposes that new browsers demonstrate to Google that they are worth attesting, and then Google will get the attester to say "Additionally, as the Google attester, I trust this browser". This is an explicit allowlist.
In other words, if you want to write a new browser, or fork an existing browser, or write or a site scraper, or whatever else, you either have to convince every site using WEI in the world to trust you, or you have to convince Google to trust you. Both methods involve an allowlist.
To use your example, as a Web admin, you wouldn't get information like "forges user agent". You would get a signal like "Genuine Chrome running on unrooted stock Android" (the attestation), plus "Google's attester recommends this browser for sites to trust" (the extra signal proposed by the paragraph I quoted above).
If you use the former signal, you have an explicit allowlist on your site. If you use the latter signal, you are relying on Google's allowlist.
Unpopular opinion here for sure as I see enty of calls for regulation and antitrust suits, the easiest answer is for people to simply stop using Google products. Sure that's easier said than done given how much we depend on them today, but is it really harder than convincing the federal government to step in and break up companies that pay huge lobbying bills, understand how tech companies work in the first place, de…
>simply stop using Google products Google squashed most of the competition in a lot of sectors, and the few remaining competitors aren't any better often. Aside, even if you do not actively use google, google will still be in your life, by tracking and selling you. Already there is realistically no way to entirely "ungooglify" your life as long as you live and partake in some modern western society. And soon it seems…
The sacrifice is almost entirely on convenience unless you're employment depends on it. Use Firefox, install some basic ad blockers, and don't use Gmail or Google maps. That definitely won't be totally de-googked but it goes pretty far.
If Google does force through this attestation model that's a different story. Though that is effectively Google killing the internet if companies decide to use the feature. Thankfully we survived without the internet for a long time, we can go back to going in person to our bank or calling them on the phone.