this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Can someone shed some light for me? I'm a noob and I'm not sure I understand what is being proposed by google here. From what I can tell, they're proposing a cryptographically signed token that details information about a website user's 'environment', which I take to mean, their device OS and browser information, for the sake of verifying their humanity for website owners and advertisers. Isn't this sort of information already collected when a user visits a webpage, and doesn't google (or whomever) already collect and use this data (and more) for fingerprinting? How is this new proposal different, and something to be specifically concerned about?
I know there are anti-fingerprinting browser privacy addons that spoof this information, or prevent its collection. Is the concern that these tools will become inoperable?
For the record I don't like google or any company collecting any fingerprinting information, but it's already being done widely and in an unregulated manner, isn't it?
The thought here is that, a website could be programmed to, for example, only be accessible to users of chrome (or even an android device), correct? Other than google itself, why would any website want to do such a thing? Is the idea that google is trying to bring users to chrome, by blocking google services on other browsers? That could be really transformative for the web, because then you'd have microsoft doing the same thing with edge, apple doing the same thing with safari, other companies like fb or whatever launching their own bespoke 'browsers' to access their services. Will users actually put up with the degree of fragmentation that this move might bring? Won't it just push users to the 'old internet' where you can simply go to a website and interact with it?
Sorry, I'm kind of talking out loud here trying to wrap my head around this. I see people grousing about DRM and ads, and I'm struggling to connect all the dots.
I can't speak for how other people browse, but when I come across an article with a paywall, I tend to say "eh, it wasn't that important anyway" and leave. Or if it really is important, I'll search for the title and try to find the information on a site without a paywall.
If there ends up being a "browser wall", I'll certainly do the same thing. No article/web app is so important or unique that it's worth quitting my preferred browser (Firefox) and switching to something I like less.
But what's scary to me, as a Firefox user, is that Chrome & Safari are so extremely dominant. If companies are forced to choose between supporting Chrome (60% share), Safari (20% share), or Firefox (3% share), it's clear that Firefox users will run out of sites to use pretty quickly.
Right, if this sort of browser wall thing happens (which, the doctrine of enshittification seems to dictate that it probably will), and it can't be spoofed or worked around. Alright, I'm seeing the issues here. Thanks for chiming in with your thoughts. This is a huge deal, if it goes in this sort of direction.
Who's seeing a pattern here?
YouTube and other platforms increasing ads Meta being Meta Twitter becoming X Reddit fucking API and the platform itself Now, Google coming up with their policies
Are we entering an era where we are silently being forced into becoming customers to these big monopolies, and being under constant surveillance?
Like what the fuck do they want, they already control every fucking thing, what more they want still? What they try to commodify still?
It's the entshitification of the internet which if you follow Doctorow you already know about. It seems to be spreading to non-web properties now too like obviously cars are trying to lock things behind subscription services.
I think there is a silver lining here and that is federated tech like this site is finally getting some attention as a real alternative to reddit/twitter/etc. Even better would be some real extreme trustbusting as a reaction from our governments but seeing as that would hurt their investments I'm not holding my breath.
Web devs can be pretty lazy and only want to support Chrome anyway. If Chrome is the only browser offering certain features ("proof" that user is human, potentially getting rid of adblockers altogether, etc), that's a good excuse to finally just stop supporting Firefox and Safari.
Didn't Microsoft try and do this with Silverlight back in the day?
Sounds like an open and shut anti-trust case if any governments care to pursue it.