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@aral It's a small thing, but it caught my attention that this is under the repo of an individual contributor, not an "official" google account.

Shameful? I think so.

@chrisg Yeah, they probably want it to look more grassroots or some other optics bs. Four Googlers on the authors; entirely aligned with Google’s business model, something tells me this isn’t a personal project :)

PS. My favourite issue so far: https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/issues/103

@chrisg @aral

The issue tracker was filled with issues mocking this proposal or arguing against it, this morning a helluva lot of them were closed by the person in charge (it seems), who proceeded to post this: https://blog.yoav.ws/posts/web_platform_change_you_do_not_like/

Essentially dismissing off hand any ethical concerns and that any proposal should be technical, when the fact is that the very core of the idea is rotten. It reads very much as "don't criticize us, just help us build this electric fence around the web"

@jherazob

Google: Here's a proposal to DRM the entire web.
Everyone: We don't want you to DRM the entire web.
Google: The proposal is not final so you cannot judge it as an attempt to DRM the entire web.

@aral

@chrisg @jherazob @aral Funny (actually not really), this behavior was characteristic of President Macron's first term, and each time all of a sudden it ended up being voted on without warning.

@aral @jherazob @chrisg As I mentioned previously (https://chaos.social/@fnwbr/110747859317899180), one of the authors of the proposal, Philipp Pfeiffenberger, otherwise works on something called “Google Privacy Sandbox”, which is literally saying that they’re using the whole “privacy” framing just as ways and means for economic and capitalistic motives.

@aral @jherazob @chrisg To put it bluntly, the way I read that: “Privacy? Yeah, that’s just the cover up we’re using because other browser vendors are not playing by our rules. We need more ads. More ads = more money. For us, for everyone. MOAR ADS!!!” (Emphasis by Google)

@fnwbr @aral @jherazob @chrisg

Yes, and this isn't just about advertising in general. Google's basic business model is to put ads in places that advertisers would not choose to run if they knew about them. This proposal would help Google continue to run ads from legit companies on sites whose data they can't trust, or that they won't admit working with.

https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-youtube-ads-invalid-placements/490301/

https://gizmodo.com/report-finds-80-percent-of-google-ads-fraudulent-1850588795

https://www.propublica.org/article/google-display-ads-piracy-porn-fraud

@oblomov

I am certain their worldview is that any non technical comment is noise, so it doesn't surprise me that 1) they say this and 2) they genuinely believe it.

@jherazob @aral

@chrisg Yeah, it’s scary what a six-figure salary and stock options can do to a person’s head.

@oblomov @jherazob

@aral

Absolutely true. I'm not trying to be all holy here, btw. I won't pretend that I wouldn't act similarly if my livelihood depended on it.

That's why, of course, these people bare a small part of the responsibility. Not zero, but small.

@oblomov @jherazob