Unpacking Google’s new “dangerous” Web-Environment-Integrity specification

Yeah it's truly awful.

The worst part is how disingenuous it is. It clearly exists because Google:

Wants to circumvent ad-blockers since ads are its primary business model, and
Link butts in chairs more closely to web browsers so they can sell better advertisement targeting.

If they just said they were doing it because they're an advertising company and they need better ads targeted to people, at least they would have the benefit of honesty. And in that case you might actually get some big sites on-board; like if a site can explicitly say "I need to recoup hosting fees and the only way for me to do that is targeted advertising and that makes this easier/better" there's actually a value proposition there.

But don't pretend this is for the benefit of consumers or the Internet overall, and definitely don't cloak your meaning behind vague platitudes about identity authenticity.

Wouldn’t it be sick if once your company got up to a net worth of ONE TRILLION DOLLARS you’d just stop trying to shoehorn in new ways to make profit?
- It's comically perverted and epicly sad that leaders with power in society don't stop this kind of thing.

Guys, if you don’t like these proposals from Google, you need to switch to Firefox now! It’s the only way to defend freedom on the web!

Over 85% of Mozilla's income comes from their Google search deal. Google is keeping Mozilla alive to prevent antitrust issues. If Mozilla rocks the boat too much, Google will fund a more obedient alternative.
- So your answer to "Google is evil use another browser" is... if we all swap to Firefox google will kill it?
  
  Google is keeping Firefox alive because 5% of all web users using Google search by default is pretty useful for them.
  
  If you want to avoid that, simply use firefox and set your search to DuckDuckGo/Bing. If Google drops them, Microsoft have already shown a want to step up into that position.
About 5 years too late but appriciated still.

People just don't listen or care. They click on chrome because it's recommended by their daddy Google.
Why are you pushing Firefox when Vivaldi did the work of writing this article and Vivaldi has consistently been pro-user, pro privacy, and anti-google even while using Chromium as their backbone. Viva Vivaldi.
- Using any chromium fork is supporting chromium as the default browser, and choosing gecko-based browsers means you throw your hat in the ring to show websites that not just chromium browsers visit them. Using a chromium fork also means you accept that google will dictate standards less harmful than web integrity. While it's not the end of the world, the last time this happened IE9 happened. Using Firefox means google can't simply decide to implement any spec they want and that spec becomes true because all user agents have it (exactly what is at risk of happening here. Vivaldi may make nice blog posts but if this ends up happening they'll be happy to implement it else risk losing their entire user base)
  
  The would have been an argument to be made about performance but nowadays blink and gecko are pretty much at the same performance level.
- Because they use chromium
- Death to chromium forked browsers. Vivaldi is chromium.
- Because it's better to support a diversity of web render engines instead to avoid a situation like back in the days with IE.
- I have used Vivaldi and even led my kid to use it, but I still always go back to Firefox and/or LibreWolf for peace of mind and extensions like uBlock Origin and Anesidora.
- Firefox has officially stated their position on this https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/852

I really think the world needs a few more Elon Musks around. I mean, wouldn't it be great to have a Musk at Google to destroy it from the inside just like he's doing to Twitter?

Google needs to be elonned to hell
You had me at the first half, ngl.

Cory Doctorow talked a bit about this, among other enshittification problems, on his Pluralustic post today.

Thanks, enjoyed reading that
- Man that article points out some scary trends. It's just crazy the way they're using digital technology to economically enslave us with subscriptions for product function and maintenance. Then the way they use that technology to monitor us. I saw the end coming with the John Deere business some decades ago. My feeling was I sure hope that practice never comes to normal consumer products, but here it is. It's feudal for sure and a blatant violation of consumer rights. You don't own products anymore and you still get to pay for them like you do.
- It is a great write-up, but I can't say I enjoyed reading it
This is a fantastic overview of the issue with this proposal, in the broader context of enshittification.

I do not trust Google at this stage. I pine for the day when Google seemed like a good company. Gmail was awesome when it came out, for example, and Google search worked well. Now I feel they are harvesting all my data to jam ads down my throat. Google search now sucks ass and just returns websites that have a bunch of AI nonsense or aggregated content that is effectively worthless.

I am migrating away from Google.

Does anyone know a good way to migrate to a good gmail alternative?
- Proton Mail is a good alternative. A good thing to watch for a either a lack of or a very limited free account. This means they're not making money off harvesting your data. If it's free, you're the product.
- Get yourself your own domain and set up proton mail. It costs a little bit, but you can create email addresses for everything you want.
- Zoho is still a corprate mail service, ive ised it and they are "okay" in terms of integrity
Edit: wrong comment to reply to
Now I feel they are harvesting all my data to jam ads down my throat.

I'm curious: how did you expect them to pay for the overhead of providing this service? I'm sure you didn't think that they would just eat the cost of providing it forever, right?
- Not that I disagree, but this is a shit take IMHO. It's always been the case that ads paid for "free" services, but the scale and invasiveness of the ads and data collection has clearly accelerated beyond a reasonable level. They waited until they captured a large enough user base and crowded out enough of their competition before gouging their users for ad revenue. They have the size and reach of a small(or medium-sized, even) nation, the data they are able to collect is a wet dream for any three letter agency.
  
  Just because ads are what make the business model feasible doesn't mean they get a free pass to abuse their market position carte blanche. They should be cut down to size, and not just by user migration.
- This is not the users problem. This is googles problem.
  
  If they want to give away a thing for free, then don’t be surprised when people take that thing for free.
- Read more about their actual budget.
- recurrant subscriptions, Corprate mail hosting, non invasive ads, not double-dipping, notreadimg your mail
  
  It doesnt make all the money, but its not corrupt.
- Sometimes I wonder if people never blocked adds, would websites have less adds?
- Personally I'm surprised that there's not a premium tier that we can pay for to get quality back on Google services. Google business is the same crap but with a custom domain

Final nail in the coffin of don't be evil. Next they'll require this for accessing gmail

I have always struggled with this corporate motto from Google. If this is something you call out from day one then it feels like someone was thinking about doing evil but needed to be kept in check. It is like those “remove baby from stroller before folding” messages that you know is there because someone thought about it or did it already.
- Any time you employ MBAs, you need strong reminders to not be evil.
Oh well, it is not that difficult to swith to another email provider.
Bingo
You need to read everything in reverse for things to make sense. When you hear politicians making a promise they will do x and y if they get ellected, what they are really saying is that they will definitly not do it. In the same vein when companies like Google say "don't be evil" they are really saying "we're evil af lmao".

I hope the EU can get to a quick decision on this. I trust they'll provide a carrot on a stick to maintain the open internet in a way that'll make Google suffer if they decide to not play ball with Brussels' terms.

It's already being pushed to the Chromium repo, or so it seems:

https://github.com/chromium/chromium/commit/6f47a22906b2899412e79a2727355efa9cc8f5bd

Good article. Not clickbait/ragebait, and it explains the specification simply and succinctly, while also demonstrating why it's dangerous for the open web.

I’m really hoping this doesn’t make it into Brave their teams has removed a lot of Google crap in the past. Mullvad’s fork of Firefox can always replace them.

You don't seem to understand. This is not a feature that a browser can simply choose not to implement. The WEBSITES that you are accessing will be checking that you are using a verified browser and that you are a confirmed user.

I have no idea what this means

Eh something had to happen. The prevalence of ad blockers and people not wanting to pay for things.

Ad blockers are prevalent because ads are a giant fucking malware vector.
Maybe don't make websites 80% ads?
Step on me harder, daddy

Firefox should implement this next

I hope you were being sarcastic, because, ideally, nobody implements this.