this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Privacy
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A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
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What is WEI?
Stands for Web Environment Integrity. Beyond that, I know nothing.
DRM in the web.
excuse my ignorance, what is DRM?
Digital Rights Management. Usually DRM agreements are imbedded in the terms and conditions no one reads when they install software. It usually gives the software vendor the right to monitor your use of the software in real time via the internet.
Within the context of Chrome and other Chromium based web browsers, this means that Google will be able to monitor your web browsing in a new way any time you're using a browser based on Chrome/Chromium.
excuse my ignorance again, but how would monitoring software use in real time be different than how they currently monitor it? what would it really entail? serving more accurate ads and collecting/selling that more invasive type or information?
i haven’t looked into privacy much prior to joining lemmy, so i’m not very knowledgeable, but i’m very interested in learning more about it.
Not much, which is why this isn't really a privacy issue. Privacy is already long gone. It's a control issue.
Think about how many websites use Google Adsense. With this DRM, Google could force those websites to serve content only to users using chromium, and specifically those without adblockers installed. They're trying to subjugate the internet.
No force necessary there. Sites will do that on their own, to maximize their ad revenue.
Economic force is still force. The fact is, there is ZERO chance any website cuts off access to specific browsers, and thus potential customers/ad revenue, unless the financial hit of NOT doing so is greater. Firefox's market share is small, but it still exists, there's plenty of profit to be had from firefox users. Market share wise, Chrome > Firefox, sure, but Chrome + Firefox > Chrome alone.
The ONLY logical reason to cut them off would be if not doing so would cut you off from the bigger slice of pie, Google, and the ONLY reason not cutting Firefox off would result in being cut off from google is because Google chooses to do that. So yes, Google is trying to force this on them.
Digital Rights Management. Code that prevents you from doing what you want with the information you have.
Thanks.
Bascially, at its core, it allows websites to attest that the website shown in the browser is the one given by the server. In principle, this could be a good thing, but in reality, it's a very very very very very bad thing. Ad blockers will stop working. Accessiblity tools will stop working. At its worst, it will be a requirement to use a website that you only use appoved software and hardware. That means, only chrome, on windows for example. This is a very bad thing. It spells the end for FOSS. Firefox will be as good as dead. I don't think I'm doomsaying here. I believe this is what will happen.