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Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

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Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#321

Post by api »

doliveira wrote: post #18
c0l0 wrote: post #5

I feel like I have to repeat this, since so much is at stake here, where it is about the preservation of the web as we know it today, at the peril of having it turned into yet another walled garden: The only way around the dystopia this will lead to is to constantly and relentlessly shame and even harass all those involved in helping create it. The scolding in the issue tracker of that wretched "project" shall flow l…

Yeah, financial and social pressure is basically the only weapons we have against corporations when regulations don't exist. And honestly, financial pressure doesn't work at this scale or in this case.

Financial pressure won't work because you are not Google's customer. Google's customers are its advertisers.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#322

Post by Brian_K_White »

jjoonathan wrote: post #102
doliveira wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, financial and social pressure is basically the only weapons we have against corporations when regulations don't exist. And honestly, financial pressure doesn't work at this scale or in this case.

Yes, but this will be an uphill battle. Every campaign must be financed, so every politician must effectively be vetted by monied interests. The same monied interests that we see here on a strategic offensive against the rest of us. Regulators will tend to be sympathetic to them, not us, until things get really bad. Is EFF still the place to send money?

I think so. I don't know of any better.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#323

Post by paganel »

mardifoufs wrote: post #264
mozball wrote: post #26

If this isn't the straw that breaks the camel's back, there is never going to be one. Google needs to be broken up. They own the browser market. They own the web (through Adwords). They own Search. They own mobile. They own most of the video sharing market with 2.5 billion monthly annual users. They own a good chunk of email with 1.2 billion monthly annual users. They have amassed an incomprehensible amount of power…

Why should the US break up an asset like Google? Would be completely self defeating. This isn't like standard oil or at&t, that mostly had influence and market share inside the US. It would basically be handing power to foreign competitors who would pounce at the opportunity And I'm not American so it's not even some sort of patriotic comment. If Europe , or anywhere else, had a Google sized Behemoth, they wouldn't m…

> Why should the US break up an asset like Google?

I'm also European and I think almost pretty much 100% as you think on this, but to play devil's advocate, and how I think this should have worked in theory in a free-market economy, is that the US, by allowing companies like Google to do their nefarious and frankly evil things right now and in the near future is also, at the same time, not allowing future potential companies, more innovative than Google is now, to take Google's place.

But what happens is that the US is focusing on having a strong and national security-enhancing company (Google) on its side now and in the near future, versus having an even stronger and, potentially, even more national-security enhancing company (the one that would have taken Google's place had the free market been allowed to do its thing) in the medium to long future.

On the face of it this compromise of security now and in the near future vs security in the medium to long future looks like a decent bet, the problem is that evil colossuses like Google are actively getting rotten from the inside, and at some point in the medium to long future they'll fall almost in an instant, with no company to take their place. That will leave the US highly vulnerable at that point in the future.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#325

Post by tzs »

tolmasky wrote: post #197

Mozilla should call for Google's removal from the W3C over this implementation of Web Environment Integrity. "But Chrome has 65% market share, what good is the W3C without them?” If Google can take unilateral action to fundamentally change the basic principles of the web, then the W3C is already useless. This will give Google a clear choice: if they want to maintain the idea that the W3C matters, they should withdraw…

> If Google can take unilateral action to fundamentally change the basic principles of the web, then the W3C is already useless. This will give Google a clear choice: if they want to maintain the idea that the W3C matters, they should withdraw this implementation.

It's pretty generally accepted that the correct way to do web standardization is for proponents of some new thing to implement that thing and deploy it and then once it has been shown to actually work bring a spec to the the standards folks for standardization.

That usually works fairly well, although sometimes if that first pre-standard implementation does too well the original implementor may have trouble replacing theirs with something that follows whatever standard is eventually approved, because there are often significant changes made during the standardization process.

An example of that would be CSS grid layout. That was a Microsoft addition to IE 10, behind a vendor prefix of -ms-. Nearly everyone else liked it and it was standardized but with enough differences from Microsoft's original that you couldn't just remove the -ms- prefixes from your CSS and have it work great with the now standard CSS grid.

It was 4.5 years between the time Microsoft first deployed it in IE 10 and it appearing in other browsers by default (Chrome had it within a year of Microsoft, and Firefox had it about two years after that, but both as an experimental feature the user had the specifically enable). In that 4.5 years enough sites that only cared about IE were using the -ms- form that Microsoft ended up stuck with that on IE 10 and 11 instead of the standard.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#326

Post by coldpie »

yyyk wrote: post #296
coldpie wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So can Microsoft and Amazon, surely? Yet they're getting a lot of scrutiny from the FTC right now.

Yes, but Google has a strong existing relationship, the D party owes them for that one and some other favours. Can you find a link for any recent FTC action against Google (not against Google's competitors or some tiny subsidiary of Google)? I hope I'm wrong here.

I don't see anything significant from the FTC specifically regarding Google, but there is an ongoing DOJ lawsuit. Possibly they don't want to step on that? I admit I don't really understand the roles of the DOJ versus the FTC regarding anti-trust enforcement. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-sues-googl...

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#327

Post by alistairSH »

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #236
alistairSH wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google broke itself up in 2015. What are you even asking for here? No, it didn't, it restructured itself into Alphabet, with many subsidiaries. But, all the core businesses are still under that umbrella organization, with most web-related businesses remaining inside the current Google entity. A forced divestment of the browser business might help. Same for the productivity products.

But what does breaking up even mean? Separate companies, each publicly traded with their own C level staff, shareholders, etc? Because to me it just feels like it might be legally separated, but still owned and directed by the same handful of people. And it being separated makes it safer, in that they can't forward e.g. large fines to the parent company. Disclaimer: I don't know anything about large corporations. or…

Yes, breaking up a company means divesting some business units. The new businesses would have their own BoD, leadership, shareholders, etc.

The US did this with Standard Oil in 1911, Bell/AT&T in 1983. And the same laws were used against Microsoft in 2001, though the company was able to avoid a break-up.

Breaking up Google might not be the best option. Perhaps more rigorous regulation by the government would be better, similar to Microsoft. But a break up should be an option.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#328

Post by danlindley »

The web is not dying, it is being killed. And the people that are killing it have names and addresses.

Shame on Rayan Kanso

Shame on Peter Pakkenberg

Shame on Dmitry Gozman

Shame on Richard Coles

Shame on Kinuko Yasuda

Shame on Rupert Ben Wiser: https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity

Google needs to be broken up.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#329

Post by scarface_74 »

idlewords wrote: post #148
scarface_74 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You may not use Gmail, but every email you send and receive goes through Google infrastructure.

I might need to tell my corporate IT department that our emails are going through Gmail.

Besides, I can’t remember the last time I actually sent a personal email to anyone besides forwarding something from another business.

Re: Google is already pushing WEI into Chromium

#330

Post by AshamedCaptain »

goalieca wrote: post #41
leesalminen wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But why do they care so much about this? Is it only for DRM on media playback?

It’s far worse. If you go back to to the html and http protocols, they are extremely open and friendly. I would say extremely elegant and helped build the web we know today. But google has been iterating away from open and accessible standards in favour of controlling experiences (see amp, WEI, etc). I’m all in favour of secure boot chains with options for unlocking because of the security benefits. There’s absolutel…

I know it's not exactly what you mean, but this is why I dislike HTTP2 and 3 (both also heavily pushed by Google but also others). While open, they are the opposite of "welcoming and friendly".
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