
Google Chrome Receives Heavy Criticism in Germany - nickb
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2008-09-07-n33.html
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toki
I am from germany. You shouldnt overestimate the warning. Some background
information:

1\. You have to know the context: The situation is very special in germany at
the moment. Here is a big discussion about privacy and data security. There
was a big scandal some weeks ago because a call center company sold some data
from its customers and other companys abused these informations. Somehow the
politicians and goverment agencys have a "bad conscience" now.

2\. Im a lawyer and i think if the warning is really an official warning it is
rather problematic (for the goverment agency, not for google). But one has to
know that in germany some ministries understand themselves somehow as consumer
protection agencies. It is a little bit different than in other countries i
guess.

3\. The warning is more directed to people who dont know much about the
internet: mums and dads and aol-users and so on. The goverment agency didnt
tell them anything different then that what every reader of this page here
already knows.

------
ken
> Furthermore it was said to be risky that user data is hoarded with a single
> vendor. With its search engine, email program and the new browser, Google
> now covers all important areas on the internet.

Good thing no other company offers this trifecta. Or if they do, they must be
really small, for the German government not to have heard of them.

------
irrelative
The thing I find most interesting about journalistic coverage of Chrome is
that they haven't brought up the elephant in the room: Chrome will not and
will never have an (official) ad blocker.

Sure, Google also wants to have a stable client side for their javascript-
based software, but the reality is that those programs don't make them the
kind of money that search advertisement does. With Microsoft controlling the
browser, they could conceivably release an ad blocker in IE8 and turn it on by
default. Google would be in serious trouble very fast.

I'm not trying to say that this will happen, just that Google's being smart
and mitigating risk. Until they start making serious money from their office
applications, however, creating their own browser seems to me to be a
defensive move, not an offensive one.

~~~
snprbob86
Microsoft is trying to build a large ad business also. Why would they release
an ad blocker?

I doubt we will ever see an ad blocker from any commercial entity. Unless, of
course, ad blocking is the only motivator behind the entire business. Somehow,
I don't really expect that either. Consumers of ad blocking software probably
wouldn't be the kind of people who pay for things like that :-)

~~~
volida
is it even legal to create an ad blocker or use one?

assuming it's altering the content of the site it's directly violating the
copyright of the site.

~~~
pmorici
Of course it is legal. Is it illegal to throw away the advertisements from
your newspaper before you read it?

~~~
axod
But is it legal for a 3rd party to scan in your newspaper, remove the ads,
then print it out and sell it to you?

That is a more accurate analogy. It's stealing and depriving the publisher of
their income.

In any event, getting past adblockers is really really simple. It always will
be, and if you think an adblocker can block anywhere near all adverts, you
should go read up on how things work.

~~~
Jem
Educate me - which adblocker is it that you know of that removes the adverts
from websites and then sells the resulting ad-free site to the user?

To suggest that blocking an advert is stealing assumes that the author of the
web page would make money off that advert in the first place. Furthermore,
that logic suggests that anyone who chooses to ignore advertising rather than
just blocking it is also guilty because they're depriving the publisher of a
potential income too. Total rubbish.

~~~
axod
Blocking an advert when viewing an ad supported website is stealing.

You are stealing bandwidth, processing power, storage, electricity, etc

Society is about give and take. Adblocking is about take.

~~~
Jem
Like I said, by that logic anyone who chooses not to click adverts are also
stealing.

Do you click every advert you see just to make sure you're compensating for
'stolen' bandwidth, processing power, storage, electricity?

FYI: I redistribute scripts under GPL licensing. I don't ask for donations,
nor do I litter my pages with advertising. I consider that pretty "giving" -
and no, I don't have problems with people 'stealing' my bandwidth, processing
power, storage or electricity.

~~~
axod
No, I treat websites with the benefit of the doubt. If they provide
advertising that is useful to me, I click on it.

By blocking all advertising on all websites you're sticking your fingers in
your ears.

Personally, I find adverts useful. Websites that resort to crappy user
experience adverts - popups/unders/flash etc usually aren't worth visiting in
the first place.

