this is absolute nonsense, and i don't really understand how it ended up on Techdirt, since as far as i'm aware Mike is pretty competent when it comes to technology.
the best explanation i can come up with is that the original article (https://every.to/thesis/why-aggregators-ate-the-internet) is trying to use the same origin policy as some sort of journalistic metaphor for data silos, but the way it's written doesn't really support that.
or, perhaps, Alex Komoroske is trying to invent the phrase "same origin paradigm" to refer to any kind of security isolation, but since that has almost nothing to do with the same origin policy, i don't see the connection.
needless to say, the same origin policy is not why mobile apps can't talk to each other. firstly because mobile apps can communicate with each other, if both apps implement the appropiate Android or iOS protocol to do that. secondly because apps are not websites; sandboxing between apps is a basic security measure, completely unrelated to the same origin policy.
the same origin policy is also not why websites can't talk to each other. if amazon.com and google.com want to talk to each other, all they need to do is implement a protocol to do that. that could be on the server side, but it can also be done on the client side, as seen in e.g. SAML. the reason they don't do that is not because of the same origin policy, it's because they don't want to.
and even if two websites wanted to communicate with each other using Javascript requests, they can already do that by using a CORS policy (the HTTP Access-Control-Allow-Origin) header, so the same origin policy doesn't even prevent that.
the same origin policy is a good thing and it's a fundamental requirement to allow web browsers to operate securely. i find it mildly disturbing that people are attacking it without understanding it; this really feels a bit like people who attack Section 230 without understanding it because it prevents them from passing whatever law they want.
Remember that the install fee was meant to be retroactively applied to all games. Including those where the developer no longer exists any more.
i doubt they care about that. sure, they "lose" some revenue from existing customers they can't enforce the terms on, but all new customers have to agree to the new terms, so they just need to wait a few years and everyone is following the new terms.
of course that didn't work out, so i don't know exactly what they'll do next, but i'll honestly be really surprised if they just leave things how they are now.
seems to me that the only question here is how long until they do the same thing again.
Unity paid $4.4bn -- over twice their annual revenue -- for advertising / tracking company ironSource, and they aren't going to let that go to waste; the per-install runtime fee was clearly designed to force developers to bundle ironSource with their games to track installs so they could pay Unity. that didn't work out, but you can bet they've spent the past year thinking of another plan to make that investment pay out.
i've noticed some people recently talking about KOSPA instead of KOSA. what is the connection between KOSA and KOSPA? is KOSPA just KOSA + COPPA 2.0 or are they different things?
at some point it might almost be worth Apple or Google paying some small state to buy software from people like Cellebrite or NSO, identifying the vulnerabilities it uses, and then fixing them. that surely wouldn't cost much more than they already pay in bug bounty payouts.
then again, if they're doing this well fixing the vulnerabilities anyway, perhaps not.
this is the first time i've ever commented on Techdirt (although i've been reading for a while) and hopefully admins can verify that.
i use the word "liberal" because, in my experience, it's mostly liberals who support laws like this. by "liberals" i mean people with generally left-liberal political opinions, who tend to vote for the US Democratic party or the equivalent left-liberal parties in various EU countries.
i didn't mean to suggest all liberals have that opinion, of course.
in contrast, i would certainly be quite surprised to see a conservative supporting this kind of law, and i believe Techdirt has also commented on how surprising it was for e.g. Musk to support the DSA once upon a time, given his other political views.
i apologise if "liberal" is some sort of politically charged term on Techdirt -- i honestly tend not to read the comments very much, so i probably missed that, but i didn't mean the word in any sort of perjorative context; i assume many people who read (and agree with) Techdirt would call themselves "liberals", and that's the sense i used the word in.
i will refrain from commenting if i'm causing undue friction though.
I know that people (especially in the EU) complain that my coverage of the DSA is unfair.
i wonder how true "(especially in the EU)" is. i live in the EU, and granted, a lot of EU residents do enjoy this kind of government overreach -- but whenever the EU passes a directive like this, i also see plenty of US liberals falling over themselves to demand that the US government pass some similar kind of law.
i feel like this is a problem with liberals of any state, not necessarily something that's particular to the EU.
Techdirt has not posted any stories submitted by ivy.
absolute nonsense
this is absolute nonsense, and i don't really understand how it ended up on Techdirt, since as far as i'm aware Mike is pretty competent when it comes to technology. the best explanation i can come up with is that the original article (https://every.to/thesis/why-aggregators-ate-the-internet) is trying to use the same origin policy as some sort of journalistic metaphor for data silos, but the way it's written doesn't really support that. or, perhaps, Alex Komoroske is trying to invent the phrase "same origin paradigm" to refer to any kind of security isolation, but since that has almost nothing to do with the same origin policy, i don't see the connection. needless to say, the same origin policy is not why mobile apps can't talk to each other. firstly because mobile apps can communicate with each other, if both apps implement the appropiate Android or iOS protocol to do that. secondly because apps are not websites; sandboxing between apps is a basic security measure, completely unrelated to the same origin policy. the same origin policy is also not why websites can't talk to each other. if amazon.com and google.com want to talk to each other, all they need to do is implement a protocol to do that. that could be on the server side, but it can also be done on the client side, as seen in e.g. SAML. the reason they don't do that is not because of the same origin policy, it's because they don't want to. and even if two websites wanted to communicate with each other using Javascript requests, they can already do that by using a CORS policy (the HTTP Access-Control-Allow-Origin) header, so the same origin policy doesn't even prevent that. the same origin policy is a good thing and it's a fundamental requirement to allow web browsers to operate securely. i find it mildly disturbing that people are attacking it without understanding it; this really feels a bit like people who attack Section 230 without understanding it because it prevents them from passing whatever law they want.
in practice, do we expect this to result in any changes to the EU's position on "big tech"? will his replacement be any better?
i almost wrote that he "got resigned" but i wasn't sure if people would get that reference. but, yeah. you can't fire him, he quit.
seems to me that the only question here is how long until they do the same thing again. Unity paid $4.4bn -- over twice their annual revenue -- for advertising / tracking company ironSource, and they aren't going to let that go to waste; the per-install runtime fee was clearly designed to force developers to bundle ironSource with their games to track installs so they could pay Unity. that didn't work out, but you can bet they've spent the past year thinking of another plan to make that investment pay out.
i've noticed some people recently talking about KOSPA instead of KOSA. what is the connection between KOSA and KOSPA? is KOSPA just KOSA + COPPA 2.0 or are they different things?
on the topic of social media and bad faith politicians...
... did everyone see that Thierry Breton has "resigned"?
at some point it might almost be worth Apple or Google paying some small state to buy software from people like Cellebrite or NSO, identifying the vulnerabilities it uses, and then fixing them. that surely wouldn't cost much more than they already pay in bug bounty payouts. then again, if they're doing this well fixing the vulnerabilities anyway, perhaps not.
this is the first time i've ever commented on Techdirt (although i've been reading for a while) and hopefully admins can verify that. i use the word "liberal" because, in my experience, it's mostly liberals who support laws like this. by "liberals" i mean people with generally left-liberal political opinions, who tend to vote for the US Democratic party or the equivalent left-liberal parties in various EU countries. i didn't mean to suggest all liberals have that opinion, of course. in contrast, i would certainly be quite surprised to see a conservative supporting this kind of law, and i believe Techdirt has also commented on how surprising it was for e.g. Musk to support the DSA once upon a time, given his other political views. i apologise if "liberal" is some sort of politically charged term on Techdirt -- i honestly tend not to read the comments very much, so i probably missed that, but i didn't mean the word in any sort of perjorative context; i assume many people who read (and agree with) Techdirt would call themselves "liberals", and that's the sense i used the word in. i will refrain from commenting if i'm causing undue friction though.