Google's New World [Wide Web] Order

I'm not saying Google is going into this with the intention to cause harm, BUT...

Trusting a tech behemoth to uphold a "do no evil" philosophy becomes quite a challenge when they essentially possess the power to do whatever they want.

Google Web Environment Integrity Explainer:
_________________________________________________________

Chapters:

0:00 Web Environment Integrity
0:43 Google’s Proposal
1:47 Digital Rights Management
3:12 How WEI Works
5:32 Concerns
7:43 WEI Should Not Be Used
_________________________________________________________

Music:

Godmode: Time To Pass
Chris Zabriskie: The Life and Death of a Certain K. Zabriskie, Patriarch
Godmode: Traversing
Loopop: Wolf Mother
Jeremy Blake: Absolutely Nothing

[SantaFeSuperChief]

They removed "Don't be evil" from their code of conduct years ago for a reason

[XeZrunner]

The thought just occurred to me that with WEI, they're only going to trust known, popular software (OSes, browsers, etc.) that the majority uses. What if someone is developing a new operating system, a new browser (including engine) or any other piece of software that the attestation step does not approve of? It isn't just big name-and-size companies developing such software (look at SerenityOS and the Ladybird browser).
Especially considering that they want multiple attesters across multiple "owners" of said attesters, getting everyone up to the same page about the new pieces of software could be difficult, or even impossible for smaller individuals. This is anti-developer at the core.

[powerLien]

a couple additions to this:
1) it's worth considering how this may affect dissidents and journalists that use secure software (TAILS, tor, etc) to communicate sensitive information. said secure software would probably not succeed a WEI test, and could thus make their work even more difficult than it is
2) I believe I read in the WEI specification that, as part of the implementation, a small percentage of requests for attestation would be obfuscated/mixed up on purpose so as to discourage blocking based on factors such as the user's OS or browser extensions. I'm not 100% sure what to think about this, would be curious to hear interpretations as to how such a scheme might affect the use of WEI in practice

[HellDuke-]

Yep, this is the problem, and people complain about Manifest V3 that doesn't even do anything bad but somehow missed this. The problem isn't really Google itself trying to do harm, it's that it gives the tools for many others to do harm.

[TropicalPriest]

What an absolutely hilarious way to create a new man in the middle vector.

[CaptainMarvelsSon]

The Internet was designed and intended to be freely used by everyone. not "everyone who follows a set of integrity rules first." It's already bad enough that you can buy digital media (such as games in Steam) and then the service can choose to remove the game from their servers whenever they want but don't have to give you a refund.

[markusTegelane]

So, it's basically like Google Play Integrity, but instead of Android, it's for web browsers... disgusting!

[Lanausse]

Nice too see you also talking about this. Something like this would Screw over Web Archivists

[st.altair]

This is what happens when one megacorp has control over so much of the web/world

At this point, Google could just enable this in just one site: YouTube, and every browser including even Firefox would essentially be forced to follow suit to retain any relevance.

The web needs to be decentralized through something like the Fediverse, or this sort of enshittification will just keep on happening.

[thanosbirb]

i have been watching this channel for a while, and i can safely say it is criminally underrated.

[JamesSmith-ixjd]

The Internet is already ruined, for 15 years or more. You can't ruin it any more for an average user, but Google can ruin it for their competitors, other big corporations.

[seanthesheep]

I feel like these new APIs proposed by Chrome are overblown, largely because even though Chromium and Chrome itself dominates the browser market, they still don't control the web. Other Chromium browser vendors like Brave and Edge have previous stepped in against controversial APIs introduced by Google, and removed them from their versions of Chromium. For example, Google wanted to add an API to help ads track users (FLoC), and all other browsers did not ship it.

A decent number of people use Edge and Safari, and Safari is the only option available for iOS viewers, so websites either have to force their users to switch to Chrome, which would significantly reduce their userbase, or not require the controversial API.

[___aZa___]

Firefox is the only option.
and Firefox has become WAY WAY better than chrome and WAY better than it used to be.

[ryanasazaki]

"With all the resources and talent at their disposal you'd think that Google would separate users with good intentions from the bad actors but they don't."

I can attest to that. Exactly what happened to me last week when some outraged person from a comment decided to report a personal-use playlist of mine, and it got removed either way despite going back-and-forth with YouTube. Told me the playlist contained video that violate community guidelines, but they don't ever removed the original video to begin with, seemed like they only comply to the removal because someone was mad about it. Removing a playlist, is just an analogy for removing a container, with the stuff in it still available to be watched via the original uploader's channel. It effectively does nothing.
Kept reminded them that they should be going to the "root cause", the original video if they truly want the video to be removed entirely from their platform, and on a case-by-case basis, instead of removing a random user's entire playlist, for over four times but they kept sidelining that conversation.
Now I've lost hundreds of easily accessible videos in the playlist because of some violating video apparently, Big Brother Corpo are unjust.

The late-stage web is increasingly centralized more and more, we need to turn the tide before these corporations became the state government of the internet that has the dictatorship of saying what can be used and what cannot be used. I just signed up for an open-source front-end instance of Invidious right after Google/YouTube did that to me, after figuring out that my personal stuff isn't safe from Big Corpo Google.

[sxomus]

hey chm tech, been watching for about 6 years now, thanks for continuing to make videos after all this time :)

[_Nothsa]

Alright, see y'all on the Onion network.

[crimester]

2:12 u can screen record netflix if u turn off hardware acceleration

[SirAU]

I mean, Google already has a huge share in CAPTCHAs, the current "protection system". So, the claim doesn't seem too far-fetched.

[SsvbxxYT]

This is why I've switched to Firefox and encourage others to do the same.

[CuteSkyler]

Google, could, technically, use this to have their websites only work on Chrome. Some websites, such as Snapchat's webapp, already block the use of Firefox.