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by radicalbyte 964 days ago
If this goes through without change the browser vendors should implement an UX which allows the user to disable these root certificates; ideally within different contexts.

I also hope that our community produces tools to allow the cert stack on our OSes to be purged of these certificates.

2 comments

Then they’ll ban that UX. Just like US banned the ability to disclose how much taxes you pay for airline tickets

EDIT: for clarification, they banned disclosing it in initial communications like emails. They can do same for browsers. Apple also successfully banned apps from disclosing links to buying stuff online etc.

I can still see taxes and fees when I'm booking a flight. I just checked on delta.com . I can see the total taxes and fees, and the breakdown of what they are and how much each one is. I'm in the US.
Oh wow, what a way to spin it!

Well, if Spirit Airlines is in fact being ingenuous, then they're -at best- one of the good guys demonstrating Why We Can't Have Nice Things.

What happens is that -in some countries I've visited- people can legally advertise a particular sticker price, and then when you actually go to pay, you pay a very different amount. That threw me for a loop the first time I encountered it. I felt they were being tremendously dishonest.

Where I live, you are totally permitted and encouraged to also provide an itemized price breakdown, but the sticker price is what I'm paying you at the end of the day. No surprises for the consumer.

> for clarification, they banned disclosing it in initial communications like emails

please give a source for that. That's the spin some airlines gave it, but as far as I understood the new requirement was to list the full price including taxes and fees in advertisements. This could be seen as hiding the fees and taxes, but the Airlines are still allowed to list fees and taxes.

In Europe, listing the full price is mandated for all industries as far as I know. Feels bad as a customer to not know what you will have to pay upfront, like it is in most industries in the US. But it also feels weird to me that this ruling was only applied to the air travel industry.

And I am all for it.

How much tax there is to pay is not my problem as a consumer. The only thing that matters is how much it will cost me to get the thing. Everything one must pay, including all fees and taxes should be included. Listing these will only cause unnecessary confusion and is often done in a deceptive manner.

It has nothing to do with adding root certificates to browsers. These are consumer protection laws against deceptive advertising. It may be surprising to Americans but in most of Europe, thanks to such laws, the price you see is usually the exact price you are paying. No taxes, fees or tips, it is all included, which I think is better for everyone.

We already have that option. At least on desktop OSes. On mobile it's hard, especially on Android it's no longer possible to add root CAs in the system store without rooting, ever since Android 7.

I believe on iOS you can do it with an MDM profile.