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Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

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191–200 of 427 posts

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#191

google never stood for anything, do no evil was mostly marketing. 2010s https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2011/08/26/real-canadian-ph... "we don't collet private data" https://europe.googleblog.com/2010/04/data-collected-by-goog... "ops we do" https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/05/wifi-data-collection... google wage fixing, all the way back from 2001 https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/apple-google-seek-ap... be…

Storing data from open networks is like recording people who are yelling.

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#192
post #25

Google might have pretended to stood for something, but they have been an evil corporation since they have been a corporation. That's what corporations do by design. One relevant example is that they've been doing the "only for ie5+" with their services for 10+ years now. They killed most of their browser competition not by having a good product, but by having or buying up good services that they used to force chrome…

I kinda feel like them removing ‘Don’t be evil’ from their motto was the canary in the coal mine.

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#193
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am kind of surprised none of the navigation apps divert your course slightly to pass in front of a large store or something yet. It could even announce the place. "On your right is such and such store where using the code Maps will give you a 10 percent discount."

You could actually package this up in a way that people would find palatable. What if maps only took you to places where you have a loyalty card - or the places that currently have discounts on things in your shopping list. Give it the right marketing spin and people would love it.

I can imagine Margrethe Vestager will start flexing her regulation muscles the minute Google even thinks about it.

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#194

To me it really seems like it is too late. I have the strong impression that the vast majority of people simply do not care and mostly don't even want to know. Most of the people I know are in this group. When they ask why I won't install the latest app they are playing with, they often cut me off before I even finish explaining. They seriously don't care about privacy, lock-in, loss of access to resources, right to…

> They seriously don't care about privacy, lock-in, loss of access to resources, right to repair, etc. They care even less about this stuff than they do about plastic pollution, or systemic inequality and racism, or PFAS contaminating the world's water, or pesticides and runoff decimating biospheres. They don't care about corruption at the highest levels of government and justice, black sites and torture, or illegal…

If I’m marginally informed there is no reason other people shouldn’t be.

If they already have the phone all the information in the world is literally at their fingertips.

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#195
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Microsoft could fund chromium based on their use in Edge. Etc…" Microsoft surely will continue to develope edge. That is my main issue with this thing, because they surely would like to be the one with the dominating browser again and if google has to drop chromium, Microsoft will just overtake it. Antitrust and breakup is not a simple thing to do right.

Then lets break up Microsoft too.

There's plenty of questionable business practices that Microsoft could probably be slapped on the wrist for of anyone cares, but I'm not actually sure there's a good antitrust claim that could lead to a breakup there.

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#196
post #17

It's time to start lobbying hard for an antitrust breakup of Google. This DRM plan, as abuse of a monopoly position, provides more political coverage for a forced breakup. It's pretty clear how to break up Alphabet, because it grew mostly by acquisition. - Google - search, ads on search pages and nothing more. - DoubleClick - third party ads on other sites. - Analytics - services to web sites. - Cloud - the money-los…

> So make lots of noise politically about that. How? I've seen similar ideas but the best they do is resonate really nicely in this echo chamber.

Send letters and call your Senators and House representatives. Donate to them the maximum you’re legally allowed to and when you get the staffer call asking for more money, give them an (respectful) earful.

All it takes most of the time is a dozen people pushing the issue for a rep to make up their mind on a bill. On contentious issues, a few hundred persistent constituents will convince even Senators in large states.

Seriously it’s not that hard when it’s not a culture war issue. The vast majority of the time our politicians get bought out for a pittance like $10k in contributions. It doesn’t take much to bend them the other way when coming from voters.

Speaking from experience.

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#197
post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s not “price dumping”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dumping_(pricing_policy) If you don’t charge a normal price for something anywhere, then it’s just a loss leader (costco hot dogs).

Just because the marketing dept calls it a "loss leader" doesn't mean it's not predatory pricing. Whether a company crosses the line is defined by the impact it has on the market: if a company with enough market power uses that power to damage competitors, then this is deemed predatory. And, when it comes to Google, their history of leveraging their dominant lines of business to force an advantage in new markets, inc…

> if a company with enough market power uses that power to damage competitors, then this is deemed predatory

I think the trick there is that you legally have to show intent. One could argue that anything a market leader does to grow or even just retain it's market share hurts the smaller competitors.

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#198
post #25

Google might have pretended to stood for something, but they have been an evil corporation since they have been a corporation. That's what corporations do by design. One relevant example is that they've been doing the "only for ie5+" with their services for 10+ years now. They killed most of their browser competition not by having a good product, but by having or buying up good services that they used to force chrome…

That’s not how I remembered it. Chrome really was a good browser and I would argue is still a good browser (for now). IE got displaced by Firefox’s predecessors because MS got caught napping - they disbanded the IE team thinking they have won. Firefox simply got outcompeted by Chrome as Google went crazy making it faster and faster. Firefox fell behind often enough that Chrome managed to take almost all of its market…

> Firefox simply got outcompeted by Chrome

Yes, a lot of issues are of Firefox's own making. Google sabotaging them helped, too: https://archive.is/tgIH9

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#199
post #39
post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google was made possible by a platform shift: From desktop apps to websites. First they positioned themselves very early in the web user experience: After the user turned on their Dell computer, booted Windows and started Internet Explorer, the next step was to use Google. Then they moved one step closer to the user by building their own browser: Chrome Then they moved even closer to the user by building their own OS…

The next platform shift are obviously DRM locked closed app platforms like TikTok, ChatGPT, Meta ecosystem and Apple apps. No APIs, no freedom. Everyone is very actively working on making the browser dead and serving you content exclusively via corporate controled apps on locked platforms. You can kill off Chrome, but the result isn't going to be a renessaince of Firefox, but a move into your content being only avail…

> Everyone is very actively working on making the browser dead and serving you content exclusively via corporate controled apps on locked platforms.

Aka cable box.

Re: Google’s Plan to DRM the Web Goes Against Everything Google Once Stood For

#200
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Money for developing chrome is not an issue. Google search could pay chrome to be the primary search engine just like they pay mozilla. Microsoft could fund chromium based on their use in Edge. Etc…

At that point nothing would stop AdCorp from cutting a deal with the new ChromeCorp that says "you get incentive payments for each page load that presents a remote attestation that no ad blockers are present". It wouldn't be seen as anti-competitive then because there are multiple ad serving companies and multiple browser companies, and anyway, legislators would expect and find it reasonable that browsers only get pa…

> At that point nothing would stop AdCorp from cutting a deal with the new ChromeCorp that says...

I suspect judges that just ordered an antitrust would not be kind to people to people who essentially ignore the order by recreating an informal structure.

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