Mozilla opposes this proposal because it contradicts our principles and vision for the Web.
Any browser, server, or publisher that implements common standards is automatically part of the Web:
Standards themselves aim to avoid assumptions about the underlying hardware or software that might restrict where they can be deployed. This means that no single party decides which form-factors, devices, operating systems, and browsers may access the Web. It gives people more choices, and thus more avenues to overcome personal obstacles to access. Choices in assistive technology, localization, form-factor, and price, combined with thoughtful design of the standards themselves, all permit a wildly diverse group of people to reach the same Web.
Mechanisms that attempt to restrict these choices are harmful to the openness of the Web ecosystem and are not good for users.
Additionally, the use cases listed depend on the ability to “detect non-human traffic” which as described would likely obstruct many existing uses of the Web such as assistive technologies, automatic testing, and archiving & search engine spiders. These depend on tools being able to receive content intended for humans, and then transform, test, index, and summarize that content for humans. The safeguards in the proposal (e.g., “holdback”, or randomly failing to produce an attestation) are unlikely to be effective, and are inadequate to address these concerns.
Detecting fraud and invalid traffic is a challenging problem that we’re interested in helping address. However this proposal does not explain how it will make practical progress on the listed use cases, and there are clear downsides to adopting it.
It’s still part of their code of conduct, and Alphabet (which owns Google) has “Do the right thing” as their motto. Google did evil shit even when “don’t be evil” was their motto, and Alphabet continues to do evil shit today despite their company motto.
Turns out corporate mottos are absolutely meaningless when there’s profit to be had.
What does “the right thing” even means? Obviously for Google it means increasing shareholders value. Respecting privacy and keeping the web open means leaving some money on the table, which is obviously not “the right thing” to them.
Turn out “do the right thing” actually means “make number go up”
“Do the right thing” in corporate speak generally means to obey some business conduct to prevent any risk for the company to be sued. Mainly, take care of interest conflicts. Do not personally contribute to hide such issue and there should even be an internal team taking care that if you tell the truth your managers could not retaliate.
Mainly, “Do the right thing” is about protecting Google. Not “Do the right thing for the world and strive for progress”.
Google stopped to try to create progress. Instead they just need innovation. This is what they are after. Innovation, not progress anymore.
It’s a deliberately vague slogan that can be interpreted as recommending whatever Google wants to do.
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