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by 40acres 2517 days ago
Is this not anti-competitve? I don't know Google's share of the browser market but this action feels like tearing down a merchant stand at the farmers market. These firewalls are how publishers display their prices and establish a good faith "sample" of the work. If this goes to trial I can see myself on the side of publishers.
3 comments
zamadatix 2517 days ago
I'm amazed that an article about a tracking loophole being closed is posted on HN and the top comment is "is this not anti-competitive". This is not Google subverting advertiser networks for their benefit this is Google fixing a flaw in Incognito mode that has been lazily applied to prevent users from working around article limits.

The browser is an agent of the user, don't expect it to reliably hold information that determines what content they have rights to on your server.

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magduf 2517 days ago
Your analogy just doesn't work in the digital world, just like so many other analogies with physical things.

The publishers are happily sending their entire articles to people whether they pay or not. Then they add in some Javascript code to cover up the article if they don't pay up. Google has done nothing more than prevent this code from running, which is what the users want. The users own the computers, and they have every right to choose what code to run on it.

Nothing is forcing the publishers to send the entire article to non-paying users. They only do it because it's convenient for them. If they don't like Google's actions, they're free to come up with a different technical method of hiding their articles from non-paying users. Most other subscription-based sites don't do these things: they force you to login to access premium content, so the only way to get that data is to either have a valid login, or to hack the site somehow (which is obviously illegal).

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LegitShady 2517 days ago
no. the users are allowed to use incognito mode. that there was a flaw in it that made it less effective is not google promoting competition, and fixing said security flaw is not about competition again.

Is windows fixing security flaws anti competition? Sounds like anti virus companies should sue.

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