[mholt]

I never loved the idea of GSB or centralized blocklists in general due to the consequences of being wrong, or the implications for censorship.

So for my masters' thesis about 6-7 years ago now (sheesh) I proposed some alternative, privacy-preserving methods to help keep users safe with their web browsers: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/7403/

I think Chrome adopted one or two of the ideas. Nowadays the methods might need to be updated especially in a world of LLMs, but regardless, my hope was/is that the industry will refine some of these approaches and ship them.

[notepad0x90]

Block lists will always be used for one reason or another, in this case these are verified malicious sites, there is no subjective analysis element in the equation that could be misconstrued as censorship. But even if there was, censorship implies a right to speech, in this case Google has the right to restrict the speech of it's users if it so wishes, matter of fact, through extensions there are many that do censor their users using Chrome.

[like_any_other]

> censorship implies a right to speech, in this case Google has the right to restrict the speech of it's users

I don't follow. Even if Google does have the legal right [1], that does not make the censorship less problematic, or morally right. And even if it's hard to make a legislative fix ("You want to ban companies from trying to protect their users from phishing?") [2], that doesn't undo the problems of the current state, or mean we should be silent about it.

[1] This is far from certain, as it could be argued to be tortious interference, abuse of market power, defamation if they call something phishing when it's not.. Then there's the question of jurisdiction..

[2] It's a very common debating tactic to assert that a solution is difficult, to avoid admitting a problem exists.

[notepad0x90]

Certainly they have the legal right as you pointed out. Freedom of speech is a legal right not a moral prerogative or entitlement.

HN bans users that violate its rules for example. If I were to insult you severely, HN mods have every right to protect you from my speech and censor me by deleting my message and banning me. The threats posed by these malicious sites are far worse than insults on a forum.

Companies like Google are expected by the public and governments alike to protect their users. they would even be entitled to requiring every site a user visits requires an EV cert and age verification enabled if they want. it isn't just their legal right, everyone, not just corporations, has the right to pursue what they feel is the correct way of doing things. Their responsiblity is to their investors first, users second, governmental regimes third and everyone else after that. Your presumed entitlement here is as everyone else.

For #2, I don't recall claiming a solution being difficult (unless you thought banning companies from protecting their users, was somehow a thing I was saying should be done). Matter of fact, I am near incensed that HN users are utterly and shamefully ignorant on harm users suffer. You should be ashamed of your ignorance. Not only this but I've had long debates on HN on similar lines when it came to topics like the play store require developer authentication. It almost makes me wish your freedom of speech was entirely taken away from you so you can have some understanding of the suffering people undergo, and what such measures are trying to prevent. Freedom of speech has never been a right obtained at the expense of harm to others. The moment someone is harmed, you lose your freedom of speech, that is the case in a public arena where such laws exist, but even more so under private platforms. But i did say almost! I think you're just used to problems being of a technical nature, where as in this case it is a human threat (crime) problem.

Furthermore, I am constantly disappointed at the sheer dereliction of duty exhibited by HNers when it comes to security. Your product must protect your users by default, there is absolutely no acceptable amount of harm users should experience for the sake of non-users. Site owners have no entitlements to browsers, they only have privileges. Browsers can and do absolutely play gatekeepers to websites.

As far as #1, I have argued tortious interference about Google's practices myself before. I am not a lawyer, so I don't know if this qualifies or not, but can I also claim tortious interference if HN bans me, if I miss out on HN job posts or exposure to the startup scene? can I claim defamation for being banned on HN wrongfully? is HN abusing it's market power because of the sheer number of silicon valley types that aggregate on this site? And I suspect you're not a lawyer either, because jurisdiction is a concept that applies to a judicial body (hence: juris), Google is not a judicial body, and they're not handing out a judicial sentence.

I wonder, are you aware of the CA/B forum? hmm..

The fact is, a browser is a software used to access network resources. Part of that feature set, as advertised explicitly to users, is that it will make attempts to keep their access to the network safe and secure. In other words, all of your claims of entitlement are nullified by the simple fact that the "censorship" is an advertised feature, one that not only most browser users use, but it is an opt-out-able optional feature. Not only that, there is always an option to click through the safebrowsing warning and visit the site anyways.

Both from a moral and legal perspective, I challenge you to make yourself liable to all damages people suffer as a result of not having safebrowsing enabled. Insure them free of charge. Next thing I know you'll be claiming enterprise networks shouldn't "censor" either, or better yet, they can but people who can't afford multi-million-dollar firewalls shouldn't be protected for the sake of access you feel entitled to.

As far as libel, simply being incorrect doesn't make it libel, it needs to be intentional. so long as they can back up the reasonable cause of your site making it on their list, it isn't libel. Just same as your IP can land on their lists and gmail will refuse to accept email from you (just same as every public email provider).

Freedom of speech is not freedom of access, both morally and legally. You dilute actual freedoms when you try to abuse them to gain advantages like this. It is important to understand when being able to do something is a right versus a privilege. It is also important to solve the root cause of problems, even though I disagree with you on this topic, Google's monopoly is a big problem, as is Microsoft's and other companies, but your solution being "there shouldn't be a solution" is (I'd dare say) morally objectionable and abhorrent considering the types of harm people suffer as a result. Perhaps appeals to block lists could have a more legally regulated process? But there are more pressing issues like payment processors banning merchants and users alike all the same (worse than browsers than site in terms of impact?), and not a single government would dare claim that is out of line, let along regulate it. The right of companies to do business how they want is highly protected in free market economies, and something like Chrome isn't even a paid product or service to where you can have a commercial or contractual claim over it.

Since this is a long comment, I'll add this finally to it: If you seriously think Google cant' block arbitrary sites on its free software and service, then by that logic users should also have entitlements for bans on sites like HN, and even on things like your open source project, you can't just not accept pull requests or ignore them, if it is affecting a user and they're relying on it, your features preventing them from doing things is tortious interference. claiming negative things about pull requests is libel.

[like_any_other]

> Freedom of speech is a legal right not a moral prerogative or entitlement.

No, the 1st amendment of the US constitution is a legal right. Free speech in general is a much broader concept, not limited to its legal implementation.

> For #2, I don't recall claiming a solution being difficult

You didn't, but it is how these discussions usually develop, and I thought of saving some time. And indeed that's how it went.

[notepad0x90]

it did not go that way, the problem is not difficulty of doing anything, a private corporation offering a free product has the right to do whatever it wants with that product. their reasoning behind GSB is not for you to debate.

Free speech in general is a legal concept. rights in general are not moral concepts, when you say you have a right to do something, it is always in the context of a rules based framework. When you say something is right (same word, different meaning) or wrong, that is morality. Speech can be right or wrong. prohibiting someone from speaking can also be right or wrong, but it isn't called "freedom of speech" or "censorship". If you can't articulate why something is morally wrong without referring to a right under some rule based framework, then you're not talking about morality, you're talking about not liking some rule.

When you are in someone's house, they have the right to decide what you can talk about or not talk about, because it is their home and your presence there is a privilege. Replace home with business, and then replace business with a free product that you're not even paying for and that's this situation.

"I don't like it" is not a moral reasoning. You need to be able to articulate why something is immoral if you're going to use morality as a reason. Similarly, you need to explain what specific laws grant you an entitlement if you feel like a legal entitlement is violated.

[like_any_other]

> Replace home with business, and then replace business with a free product that you're not even paying for and that's this situation.

And then replace business with country and society that enables that business' existence, and in whose sovereign land that business is located (i.e. in whose house it is), and that's still this situation.

> Free speech in general is a legal concept.

So if someone says "free speech", you just have no idea whatsoever what they're talking about, until they also tell you which country/jurisdiction they're talking about, do you?

And I didn't make a moral argument - I said that there is a moral (not just legal) argument to be made. I don't have the time or inclination to walk you through why free expression is desirable, or why letting a handful of giant entities crush speech and smaller businesses is undesirable. If you need that explained to you, I don't think we'll see eye to eye no matter how long we debate.

[rstupek]

I know for a fact that GSB contains non-malicious sites in its dataset.

[notepad0x90]

It is possible for sure. what's your point? spamhaus does too with IPs, abuse.ch does too, every enterprise firewall's reputation list does too. that's the whole point of reputation, if it was reliable 100% it wouldn't be "reputation".

[rstupek]

You claimed they all are malicious sites or they wouldn’t be included but that’s factually incorrect

[notepad0x90]

I assumed a human review is always in place, if not then you're right and I was wrong.