Google’s Corporate Paternalism in The Browser

Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)

It’s a big year for the oozing creep of corporate paternalism and ad-tracking technology online. Google and its subsidiary companies have tightened their grips on the throat of internet innovation, all while employing the now familiar tactic of marketing these things as beneficial for users. Here we’ll review the most significant changes this year, all emphasizing the point that browser privacy tools (like Privacy Badger) are more important than ever.

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Chrome, the most popular web browser by all measurements, recently announced the official death date for Manifest V2, hastening the reign of its janky successor, Manifest V3. (...) [W]hat security benefits it has are bought by limiting what all extensions can do. (...) Put bluntly: Chrome, a browser built by an advertising company, has positioned itself as the gatekeeper for in-browser privacy tools, the sole arbiter of how they should be designed. (...) Google’s trackers are present on at least 85% of the top 50,000 websites. (...)

For what it's worth, Apple's Safari browser imposes similar restrictions to allegedly protect Safari users from malicious extensions. (...)

This is just another step in transforming the browser from a user agent to an advertising agent. (...)

Most recently, people with ad-blockers began to see a petulant message from Youtube when trying to watch a video. The blocking message gave users a countdown until they would no longer be able to use the site unless they disabled their ad-blockers. Privacy and security benefits be damned. YouTube, a Google owned company. (...)

Obviously this all sucks. User security shouldn’t be bought by forfeiting privacy. (...)

Complete article

> Read other articles by EFF about the fight for digital rights in 2023

Tags: #internet #google #alphabet #chrome #youtube #trackers #privacy #browser #safari #apple #profile #profiling #Manifest_V3