It may be dead to its users anyway depending on how forceful Google is with this. If Brave doesn't work on 98.8% of all websites with advertising or indeed on 49.5% of all websites (approximately Google's ad network's reach), it becomes as niche as lynx.
A fork like Vivaldi, Brave or Opera could opt not to implement these changes
It doesn't quite work like that. They wouldn't choose to not implement the change, because the change comes from upstream via Chromium. They would have to choose to remove the feature which, depending on how it's integrated, could be just as much work as implementing it (or more, if Google wants to be difficult on purpose). Not implementing the change is zero effort; removing the upstream code is a lot of effort.
Brave is built on Chromium. So, by default, no they are not safe from this. Without extra effort, Brave will have this feature. I don't know if its feasible but there's a chance the Brave devs can remove the code from their distribution, but that's the best case scenario and just puts them in the same position as Firefox: they get locked out because they refuse to implement the spec.
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.
With only slight hyperbole, we can say that Google can do this monitoring already.
What's worse, is now they can:
- Refuse you access to information by refusing to attest your environment.
- Restrict your browser, extensions, and operating system setup by refusing attestation.
- Potentially bring litigation against you for attempting to circumvent DRM (in the USA it's illegal to bypass DRM).
- Leverage their ad network to require web site operators to use attestation if they wish to serve ads via Google. AKA force you to use Chrome to use big websites.
- Derank search results for sites that are not using attestation.
In my opinion, the least harmful part of this is the ability to monitor page access, because they can more or less do this for Chrome users anyway. What's really harmful here is the potential to restrict access to and destroy practically the entirety of the internet.
So far, the USA alone has spent more on this war than Russia has. And the USA is not the only one sending money and resources to Ukraine.
I don’t have to read into it because it is bs anyway.
"Thankfully, I'm prescient, so I know something is bs without having read it."
In case there was any doubt that you weren't actually willing to have a reasonable discussion, you cleared it up.
Why did I expect anything different?
Instead of reading the points made and perhaps agreeing or disagreeing, you get to shortcut the whole thing by just saying "I didn't read it, and yet I disagree!". Why even pretend to participate?
You'll notice I actually wrote a comment and made points of my own, and linked to a secondary comment going into more detail. You didn't bother to address either. Must be nice to be proud of being ignorant.
"When the facts are against me, shut the whole thing down with namecalling and dismissiveness!". Again, I guess I really shouldn't expect any different. Only one side is even trying to have a conversation; the other is just playing a game of yelling loudly with no substance and shutting down anyone with contrary views.
You're a blight on society.
I just looked at the mod log for that community and it doesn't show anything removed with your name, nor anything related to the CPC or China at all. In fact, there's almost nothing in the mod log for that community; it seems to remove hardly anything.
Embrace the narrative of Ukrainian victory. From the list you can tell that reality isn't a concern, it's about spin. It literally reads as a public image restoration campaign checklist.
I would actually argue that the foundation of fascism is purely economic
Yes, I do agree with that. I guess when I said foundation, that was the wrong word. I think hierarchy is the form it takes on or that protects it, and even if it's essential it's not necessarily foundational.
More reliable, I think, is to know intellectually and to continually remind oneself that humanity is very precious
Yes I also agree here. For me, empathy is an easy shortcut to what I know intellectually. I feel empathy for a fellow human and that shortcuts the need to remind myself intellectually that I should respect their humanity. But you make a good point that even for a person that makes it difficult to have empathy for, or for whom you find yourself struggling to have empathy, being able to resort to the intellectual approach is definitely beneficial. I will say, though, the specific context I mentioned empathy was: with regards to sexism (or racism, for example). I think there, you hopefully won't have to resort to intellecutalizing, because even if there's an individual of the opposite sex you don't feel empathy for, hopefully there are some you do or, short of that, you are able to feel empathy for the abstract notion of a human who is not fundamentally different than you in what matters most: being human.
Thank you for giving me reason to revisit this and give it more thought.
It depends on how Google wants to play this. If they require website operators to use WEI in order to serve ads from Google's ad network (a real possibility), then suddenly 98.8% of websites that have advertising, and 49.5% of all websites would be unusable unless you're using Chrome. It's probably safe to assume they'd also apply this to their own products, which means YouTube, Gmail, Drive/Docs, all of which have large userbases. The spec allows denying attestation if they don't like your browser, but also if they don't like your OS. They could effectively disallow LineageOS and all Android derivatives, not just browser alternatives.