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Google employee responds to negative feedbacks on WEI

submitted by luag+(OP) on 2023-07-26 17:31:13 | 45 points 25 comments
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NOTE: showing posts with links only show all posts
2. rolph+S2[view] [source] 2023-07-26 17:40:40
>>luag+(OP)
https://www.ftc.gov/about-ftc/contact
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3. voytec+M7[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-07-26 17:55:37
>>rolph+S2
Quoting this[1] commit comment:

    US:
    https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/report-antitrust-violation
    antitrust@ftc.gov

    EU:
    https://competition-policy.ec.europa.eu/antitrust/contact_en
    comp-greffe-antitrust@ec.europa.eu

    UK:
    https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tell-the-cma-about-a-competition-or-market-problem
    general.enquiries@cma.gov.uk

    India:
    https://www.cci.gov.in/antitrust/
    https://www.cci.gov.in/filing/atd

[1] https://github.com/chromium/chromium/commit/6f47a22906b28994...
4. mikelw+6i[view] [source] 2023-07-26 18:32:26
>>luag+(OP)
I think the actual comment is this one? https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/...

On my phone this is collapsed and hard to find by default.

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7. kevinc+Nq[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-07-26 19:05:03
>>haburk+Nm
See the original note: It was much more of a "maybe we could do this, but it has a lot of problems": https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/...
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10. mthoms+sG[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-07-26 20:06:40
>>mikelw+6i
That one is 5 days old. The one being referenced is https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/...
11. mthoms+FG[view] [source] 2023-07-26 20:07:13
>>luag+(OP)
Direct link to comment: https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/...
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16. danShu+R01[view] [source] [discussion] 2023-07-26 21:34:48
>>haburk+Nm
I've commented in more detail elsewhere (>>36885174 ) but I don't understand how holdbacks solve anything about this issue; if anything they make me more skeptical of Google's motivations.

The TLDR is that I don't see how I'm supposed to believe that this discourages sites from using invasive fingerprinting techniques if those sites are essentially required by holdbacks to still have those invasive fingerprinting techniques at the ready: and 1 in 10 requests even from a browser that implements WEI will still be subjected to those fallback techniques, so your browser/device is still basically guaranteed to be fingerprinted by any site you visit regularly.

You can't discourage the development of something and require it at the same time.

And if the experience of non-participating browsers is so much worse that it's obviously better to implement WEI, then we're right back to the same DRM and competition questions that we had before.

If holdbacks are rare enough that sites can ignore them (or statistically filter them out and determine if a browser actually implements the spec), then those sites don't need to have a fallback mechanism and we're right back to DRM. However, if holdbacks are common enough that sites can't ignore them (and if they can't statistically determine whether or not holdbacks are holdbacks or a non-implementing browser), then everyone is still going to be subjected to the fallback techniques that Google says it's trying to discourage.

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