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Cynically, Google may be supporting this legislation because it believes that it will mandate that Browsers be secured from modification that could undermine th
by dleslie 3y ago
Cynically, Google may be supporting this legislation because it believes that it will mandate that Browsers be secured from modification that could undermine the efficacy of the legislation.
They have that Chrome change, whose name eludes me, which provides secure Browser validation to the host; this legislation would make use of that feature ubiquitous and mandatory.
- zerojames 3y agoWeb Environment Integrity? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity
- dcow 3y agoSay a site uses WEI to block Google’s crawlers. If Google actually respected that then maybe it’s a fair playing field. But knowing Google they’ll issue their crawlers valid certs and create a huge dystopian nightmare.
- extraduder_ire 3y agoIIRC, it's in the spec to have WEI fail some of the time randomly, so that sites are designed to deal with real failures. Though, that may just be in there to make the spec less unappealing.
- google234123 3y agoWhat? Google has respected robot.txt for ever, why do you think it will change now?
- mymacmachine 3y agoI'd imagine a different dystopian nightmare. Google don't care if an individual site blocks them (in my experience they are one of the better crawlers at obeying robots.txt) because they know - given their search monopoly - that the vast majority of the internet would never dare to cut them out. WEI is a way to cement their current position further without needing to play dodgy games with special Google certs. If they put out WEI and start encouraging sites to use it for better SEO, the majority of the internet will do it (and wont put in the same effort to support other crawlers because those search pages are only < 1% of traffic according to their Google Analytics) At that point, when change (legal, technical, social, whatever) comes to try and break apart their hold on search - there is yet another technical constraint that works in Google's favour. It won't be Google's "fault" that websites give them privileged crawl access and greater reach, but we'll all be stuck with it.
- Vriska1 3y ago[dead]
- ChadNauseam 3y agoI think almost no site would do that. So I don't see why google would risk the political consequences of doing that
- treyd 3y agoYou mean WEI, or "Web Environment Integrity".
- kelsey9876543 3y agowhat a bunch of assholes, that's like calling police "community environment integrity" officers
- mattstir 3y agoGenuine question: do you think that the police do absolutely nothing but make their communities worse? Like I get the attempt at a parallel but it's just weirdly forced.
- delecti 3y agoExclusively? No. But on the balance? The scale of budget they co-opt to pay for the harm they inflict makes a pretty strong case that they're net negatives.
- Jensson 3y ago> the harm they inflict makes a pretty strong case that they're net negatives Do you really think a private legal system would be better? That is the alternative, you can't enforce laws without a police force.
- gs17 3y agoThere's more possibilities than "corrupt, abusive police" and "corrupt, abusive private security". The police, in the US at least, are in clear need of some reform.
- Jensson 3y agoYeah, the US police probably needs to change, but it is a long stretch to argue they are net negative to society.
- Buttons840 3y agoI haven't seen any direct attacks on general purpose computing, but it sure seems like its enemies are starting to surround it.