[emn13]

The point is that nobody relevant is going to get stopped by this DRM. That's because nobody relevant is likely to even try copying it in the first place, and if an economically relevant party were so unwise, I expect google's legal resources are sufficient to discourage plain copying, even if a court case is never won. They might learn some tricks sure, but the chances of gmail's client side bits doing anything that novel that's also competetively important are slim to none. (And if there really is some kind of secret sauce that needs protecting, relying on DRM seems quite... optimistic. Finally, we're only talking front-end here, not backend; and surely that's at least as important a part of the value proposition here.

While there may be a case for DRM in some places, gmail is almost certainly not it.

[v8dev123]

>> I expect google's legal resources are sufficient to discourage plain copying, even if a court case is never won.

Attackers don't care about laws. All they care about their end goal.

You have fraudsters who game the AdWords, reCaptcha etc

Gmail is a strategic tool.

>> the chances of gmail's client side bits doing anything that novel that's also competetively important are slim to none

You are underestimating value of Gmail product. I'm not allowed to share what kind of value the client side has but it certainly does.

>> While there may be a case for DRM in some places, gmail is almost certainly not it.

Again, you are underestimating value Gmail provides to consumers.

This country is a democracy. Companies can obfuscate or de obfuscate code at their wish whether there is value or not.

Privacy people can use Privacy oriented tools or go build their own seriously.

DRM is a billion dollar industry!

[emn13]

How exactly is a post-logged-in-app obfuscation supposed to be relevant to fraudsters that game the AdWords and reCaptcha etc?

Obviously people and corporations can choose to obfuscate; their prerogative. Doesn't mean it's effective nor wise in every instance, though, does it? Gmail is entirely free to waste effort and make its app slower and less (easily) maintainable, no question there.

[v8dev123]

The same fraudsters are gaming Gmail. Using web interface to send emails using Google Source IPs.

You might call them spammers but they are often fraudsters.

[emn13]

So your claim is that they can't automate the UI (well) via conventional browser automation tools, and can't access whatever endpoints gmail the client-side-app uses without being detected, but could if the code wasn't obfuscated?