Google has defended its Web Environment Integrity on the grounds that it aims to make web browsing more private and safe through tokens.

Attacks and doxing make me personally MORE likely to support stronger safety features in chromium, as such acts increase my suspicion that there is significant intimidation from criminals who are afraid this feature will disrupt their illegal and/or unethical businesses, and I don’t give in to criminals or bullies

Kick a puppy
Get attacked for kicking a puppy
“These attacks make me MORE likely to keep kicking puppies, as I don’t give in to intimidation from criminals and bullies that want healthy puppies for their nefarious ends.”

  • lazyvar@programming.devEnglish
    701·
    1 year ago

    The proposal is bad enough as it is, but it’s the duplicitous gaslighting BS that really pisses people off.

    If they came out and said “We came up with this thing to prevent loss of revenue on ads and prevent LLMs from capturing data” then people would still be against it, but at least it would feel like an honest discussion.

    Instead it’s just another page out of Google’s playbook we’ve seen many times already.

    1. Make up some thinly veiled use cases that supposedly highlight how this would benefit users, while significantly stretching the definition of “users”
    2. Gaslight every one by pretending that people simply misunderstand what you’re proposing and what you’re trying to achieve
    3. Pretend that nobody provides reasonable feedback because everyone is telling you not to commit murder in the first place instead of giving you tips on how to hide the body
    4. Latch onto the few, inevitable, cases of people going too far to paint everyone opposing it in a negative light
    5. Use that premise to explain why you had to unilaterally shut down any and all avenues for people to provide comment
    6. Make the announcement that you hear people and that you’re working on it and that all will be well
    7. Just do what you want anyways with minimal concessions if any and rinse repeat

    For what it’s worth I blame W3C as well.
    Their relatively young “Anti-Fraud Community Group” has essentially green lit this thing during meetings as can be seen here:

    https://github.com/antifraudcg/meetings/blob/main/2023/05-26.md

    https://github.com/antifraudcg/meetings/blob/main/2023/07-07-wei-side-meeting.md