Back in July, Google's work on a Web Integrity API emerged and many equated it to DRM. The company announced today it's not proceeding...

The Chrome team says they’re not going to pursue Web Integrity but…

it is piloting a new Android WebView Media Integrity API that’s “narrowly scoped, and only targets WebViews embedded in apps.”

They say its because the team “heard your feedback.” I’m sure that’s true, and I can wildly speculate that all the current anti-trust attention was a factor too.

  • El BartoEnglish
    35•7 months ago

    What’s funny is how these companies refer to ads as if it’s something we should be excited about.

    “Good news! We’re implementing a new ad delivery feature for your enjoyment! You can now choose what ads to watch, yay!”

    • @[email protected]English
      9•7 months ago

      Some people actually like personalized ads!

      I have no idea why, it feels counter productive to want them to influence you to buy shit you don’t need.

      I like my ads to be as unrelated to me as possible, because I wouldn’t spend money on those things anyways.

      I have to admit that it can be funny with personalized ads when you google something extremely expensive and get ads for it for months after. Many years ago I searched for a high speed camera (like the one the Slow Mo Guys use) and while I very much want one, I could never afford to spend 0,5 to 1,5 million Euro (or whatever the price was) on one camera. So it was amusing to see all the ads urging me (a then teenager) to buy one.

      • @[email protected]English
        5•7 months ago

        The most interesting and absurd ad I ever got on youtube was for a device for inspecting the coils on a huge grid transformer.

        • @[email protected]English
          3•7 months ago

          this has me thinking, i might actually be interested in looking at ads if they had only completely random things, like literally anything that exists. At least i wouldnt be annoyed with them so much.

      • @chellomereEnglish
        5•7 months ago

        I looked up the backgammon start position, since then all Google wants to sell me is backgammon boards.

      • RoboticideEnglish
        3•7 months ago

        In my experience, ad personalization is still so bad it has no impact, like in your last example. But at least now I’m not seeing random shit. I don’t really bother to try and counter targeted ads, and the vast majority of the ads I get are for products I actually already bought or never intended to buy but was researching for other purposes. Yes, Google knows I spent a lot of time researching drills, but guess what, Home Depot isn’t telling them I bought a drill, so I’ll get drill ads for a month. And yeah, I looked at a bunch of luxury sail yachts, private jets, and cars, but it’s not because I suddenly make more money. It’s because I’m interested in design and engineering. But Google just stupidly assumes I became a billionaire overnight and gives me 100’ yacht ads.

        I’d honestly be more worried about a random ad getting lucky and pre-emptively catching my interest. Targeted ads are so reactive it’s not a problem.

      • e$tGyr#J2pqM8vEnglish
        10•7 months ago

        more targeted ads means more spying. That’s bad news in theory and in practice.

      • @[email protected]English
        2•7 months ago

        There’s also a difference between me being a good target for an ad they are going to run and that being a useful ad for me to see. Google optimizes stuff for the advertisers, not for the users.

        If it actually tried to find ads for the users instead of finding users for the ads, maybe it would be okay. But that will never happen.

      • ඞmirEnglish
        1•7 months ago

        It obviously isn’t a necessity looking at how many Lemmy servers are running on nothing but good will

      • shamelessEnglish
        1•7 months ago

        deleted by creator