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Google tries to defend its Web Environment Integrity
(techreport.com)
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this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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There's an ongoing protest against this on GitHub, symbolically modifying the code that would implement this in Chromium. See this lemmy post by the person who had this idea, and this GitHub commit. Feel free to "Review changes" --> "Approve". Around 300 people have joined so far.
I don't think filling Google repositories with complaints and well-intentioned, but garbage issues/pull requests. At best they'll just delete them occasionally and at worst work less in the open, changing permissions on repositories, doing discussions more in internal tools.
What you can do is support alternative browsers, get other people to use them too and notify news as well as your local politicians about such problems. Maybe join organizations on protecting privacy or computer clubs (in Germany, support e.g. Netzpolitik.org and CCC).
Maybe acknowledge what the in-principle good things about WEI would be and support alternative means of achieving them. This proposal uses good things like less reliance on captchas and tracking, a simple to use API to enable a huge potential for abuse and power grab. Alternatives might be a privacy pass, as mentioned by WebKit https://github.com/WebKit/standards-positions/issues/234
(also @ridethisbike@lemmy.world)
Maybe it is pointless, maybe it is a bad idea. Maybe not. It's difficult to predict what this kind of small-scale actions will have on the big picture and future development. No matter what you choose or not choose to do, it's always a gamble. My way of thinking is that it's good if people say, through this kind of gestures, "I'm vigilant, I won't allow just anything to be done to me. There's a line that shouldn't be crossed".
Of course you're right about supporting and choosing alternative browsers, and similar initiatives. There are many initiatives on that front as well. I've never used Chrome, to be honest; always Firefox. But now I've even uninstalled the Chromium that came pre-installed on my (Ubuntu) machines. Besides that I ditched gmail years ago, and I've also decided to flatly refuse to use Google tools (Google docs and whatnot) with collaborators, as a matter of principle. If that means I'm cut out of projects, so be it.
Regarding WEI, I see your point, but I see dangers in "acknowledging" too much. If you read the "explainer" by the Google engineers, or in general their replies to comments and criticisms, you see that they constantly use deceiving, manipulative, and evasive language. As an example, the "explainer" says a lot "the user needs this", "the user desires that", but when you unfold the real meaning of the sentences it's clear it isn't something done for the user.
Note the "need for human users", but the sentence actually means "websites need that users prove...". This is just an example. The whole explainer is written in such a deceiving manner.
The replies to criticisms are all evasive. They don't reply the actual questions or issues, they start off a tangent and spout a lot of blah blah with "benefit", "user", and other soothing words – but the actual question or issue never gets addressed. (Well, if this isn't done on purpose, then it means they are mentally impaired, with sub-normal comprehension skills).
I fuc*ing hate this kind of deceiving, politician talk – which is a red flag that they're up to no good – and I know from personal experience that as soon as you "acknowledge" something, they'll drag your into their circular, empty blabber while they do what they please.
More generally, I think we should do something against the current ad-based society and economy. So NO to WEI for me.