Digital Restrictions (DRM) Promoted by Google on the World Wide Web
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Google’s nightmare “Web Integrity API” wants a DRM gatekeeper for the web
Google's newest proposed web standard is... DRM? Over the weekend the Internet got wind of this proposal for a "Web Environment Integrity API. " The explainer is authored by four Googlers, including at least one person on Chrome's "Privacy Sandbox" team, which is responding to the death of tracking cookies by building a user-tracking ad platform right into the browser.
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Google's post-cookie world could turn into DRM for the [Internet]
The new proposal details "Web Environment Integrity," which would use what sounds like Trust Tokens to ensure that the client viewing a website is a human without revealing too much about them. Google suggests the system could be an alternative to captchas and other solutions that websites utilize to block bots, online game cheaters, and other malicious actors.
However, the GitHub page admits that servers could use the tokens to block visitors based on what they're using to access a site. The result could theoretically be DRM prohibiting ad blockers, extensions, or modified operating systems.
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Google's next big idea for browser security looks like another freedom grab to some
This therefore starts to slide the web toward a time in which only authorized, officially released browsers will be accepted by websites.
And since Chromium serves as the foundation of not just Google Chrome, but also Microsoft Edge, Brave, and a number of other browsers, WEI could have a broad effect on the web – if and when it gets deployed and adopted.
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Google's Web Integrity API branded 'attack on the open web'
A working draft specification for a new browser API from Google has raised outcry from the technical community about ethics, trust and adding DRM to the internet.
The Web Environment Integrity API (WEI) is not a heavily promoted project - the documentation is only hosted on an employee's personal Github account, rather than an official repo - but there are signs that Google is actively working to build the feature into Chrome now.