First, they do some dirty thing to gain a competitive edge when the industry is still new and unregulated. Later they develop an alternative way to achieve the same competitive edge, and then criticize other players for doing an old way, saying they should be "mature and responsible".

India and China are suffering from their own pollution and have incentives to "go green" all by themselves, not because the West demands it.

Green technology is often high tech and tech that is accepted in Western markets and is helping to lift people out of poverty through market mechanism, not finger pointing.

Finally the first world got rich several generations ago. We are not related in any way, shape or form to any real or perceived sins of our grandfathers. Any such idea is old testament biblical theology.

It's not really about pulling up the ladder, but a recognizing that growth doesn't have to mean completely destroying the planet. It's more about where the standards are set and what is socially acceptable or understood.

It's not recognizing anything, because it hasn't been demonstrated that growth is still compatible with not completely destroying the planet. It's deciding to not destroy the planet, and if that means pulling up the latter then golly gee sucks to be anyone who isn't up yet. We sure hope there are other ways up, but that's not much consolation.

We both are probably distant cousins due to our relation through Ghengis Khan, but that doesn't mean I should be bitter that I can't make my fortune by pillaging half the world like my distant ancestor did to great effect. It might be easy to make a fortune pillaging, but that doesn't mean I deserve to pillage because someone else did (or does), and I think I am in the right in detesting the scattered bands of warlords left in this world who do make their living by pillaging.

So, this is a round about way of agreeing with the hidden dark patterns that Google are bringing to the web. It must stop.

Doing unethical things because "We had to so the shareholders would make money" is such a cop-out. I see it just the opposite way. You have a duty to do things ethically so that in the long run customers continue to want to use your product. So that governments don't start going after you for the unethical things you do. So that other businesses will trust you and continue to work with you.

Here's an example: Huawei. They've reached out to me saying they'll pay me more than my employer and my commute will be shorter. No effing way. I'm sure I could make them a lot of money, but they're history of unethical behaviour is an instant deal-breaker for me. Others will, sure, but in the market of labor they're going to have a reduced supply because I'm surely not alone in this attitude.

It's unfortunate. Profit of their shares is the only thing a lot of people look at (and willfully ignore anything else unless it slaps them in the face/becomes a major mainstream media event).

Pretty sure that was their main reason for helping push https-everywhere. A good idea generally, but hurt every other entity trying to do tracking more than it hurt Google.

That's sort of a fragile assumption though. I mean, yes, there's enough specificity in this number that it could be used (in combination with other fingerprinting techniques) to disambiguate a user. And yes, only Google would be capable of doing this. So it's abusable, in the same way that lots of software like this is abusable by the disributor. And that's worth pointing out and complaing about, sure.

But it's not tracking. It's not. It's a cookie that identifies the gross configuration of the browser. And Google claims that it's not being used for tracking.

So all the folks with the hyperbole about user tracking for advertising purposes need to come out with their evidence that Google is lying about this. Occam says that, no, it's probably just a misdesigned feature.

> Occam says that, no, it's probably just a misdesigned feature.

Allow me to introduce to you "mabbo's razor": If someone can make money by doing X and it's impossible for anyone to tell whether or not they are doing X, then they are probably doing X or else will as soon as you believe they won't.

EDIT I just wanted to point out that a load of people have poured their lives into making Google Chrome the amazing bit of software that it is and suggesting that the end-goal has been entirely about supplying ads does a great disservice to their personal contributions.

But by this point, Google has dropped billions of dollars on salaries for those developers to build Chrome (call it >500 devs, >$200k salaries, >10 years). Google is not a charity. They didn't build Chrome with the intent to lose money on it. Everything else Google made that wasn't profitable is gone now, and yet here Chrome stands. Because it is an indirect profit center.

And you've pointed out the real issue: Chrome was about freeing the world of a truly terrible web browser. 'Was'. But it did that! So what is it about now? Why would Google continue to pour money into it if they didn't expect to extract more money out of it in the future?

You can make the world better and make money while doing it. Ideally, that's what we all are doing.

Chrome is about establishing more control over the web to further the business objectives of Google and Alphabet.

The problem with this belief of Google as some kind of 'benevolent actor' is a function of the new kind of branding they helped introduce, something that an entire generation of particularly young people are being duped by.

'Brand' used to be the image that companies presented - it was a decision, a marketing tactic, usually invented by agencies. Google was one of the first to change that, to effectively 'internalize' the brand so that they (staff, even leaders) really kind of believed their own kool-aid. There's an incredible aura of 'authenticity' to this; when leaders really believe their own schtick, it rings more powerfully. (This is an issue for another thread.)

But Google has proven that in the long run, they're just a regular company. I don't think they are bad actors, and in the big picture, they're better than most. But, they're just a self-interested entity: they will do whatever is in their power and which is also legal, to leverage their incumbency and stymie competition.

You put 'benevolent actor' in quotes as if the comment you are replying to contained that. It didn't.

I see a lot of that here, people misunderstanding basic speech/writing conventions. Maybe giving the op the benefit of doubt, assuming s/he knows what s/he is doing, can help avoid some of those.