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this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Technology
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So is the only way around it to not use Chromium-based browsers? Or does it pollute everything??
That will work until websites start requiring it. At that point browsers like Firefox have to either capitulate and implement Google's DRM or become unusable for the majority of websites.
And then we'll have a web where the corporations have complete control over what you can view and how. Ad blocking and anti-tracking will be things of the past, and corporate websites will have a unique key from your browser to help them track you around the web. And no more hiding your identity behind anonymous browsers over Tor or VPNs.
So we found out about this about 4 days ago, and when people objected they shut down people's ability to log issues or comment on the GitHub repo. And now they're already cramming it into their browser. This is strong evidence that Google knows it's unpopular and tried to keep it under wraps as long as possible so they could get it into the browser before people had time to react.
Let them require it. Search engines like DDG should really begin maintaining their own index, and they should exclude sites that use the tech from the index.
I can also see Apple taking a stand against this. They have a competing (and much more reasonable) implementation that respects user privacy.
If this gets implemented, it would ruin the ability for competitor search engines (such as DDG) to exist. If Google convinces site operators to require attestation, then suddenly automated crawlers and indexers will not function. Google could say to site operators that if they wish to run ads via Google's ad network they must require attestation; then, any third-party search indexer or crawler would be blocked from those sites. Google's ad network is used on about 98.8% of all sites which have advertising, and about 49.5% of all websites.
Even if the effects didn't go this far (which I agree they quite probably will), it wouldn't be feasible for other search engines to just exclude sites that implemented Google's DRM. If Google makes it attractive enough to the owners of major sites to implement this (and it will be attractive if it ensures they get ad views), then no one will use a search engine that omits all the most popular websites. The same goes for non-Google browsers. This is really a shocking attempt by Google to use its own browser's popularity to seize an effective monopoly of the web.