I’m sure you’ve heard by now.\u00a0 Google released a new web browser.\u00a0 Chrome.<\/p>\n
My first reaction to this is one of dismay.\u00a0 Another freaking web browser?\u00a0 What do I need that for?\u00a0 I’m still having to check for bugs in IE6 — a browser that should’ve died years ago.<\/p>\n
My second is one of anger at Google.\u00a0 I like Firefox.\u00a0 I think Mozilla has a good heart in addition to having a great browser.\u00a0 If Chrome is going to steal market share, it’s most likely going to steal from Firefox — not IE.\u00a0 Most of the people who use IE are either enterprise (and can’t download another browser) or not tech-savvy (don’t know how to download another browser).\u00a0 If they haven’t downloaded a browser besides IE6 (like Firefox, Safari, Opera, etc — they have plenty of choices and they’ve had plenty of time), it’s unlikely they’d download Chrome.<\/p>\n
So great.\u00a0 Google steals from FF’s market share.\u00a0 And Google paid up on their Mozilla contract till 2011 to keep their bases covered, but if Chrome catches on, I bet you Google will kill that contract.\u00a0 Leaving Mozilla broke with about half of it’s market share poached.<\/p>\n
Great.<\/p>\n
What’s even better is Google’s terms of service with Chrome.\u00a0 Check this out:<\/p>\n
By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Google a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the services. This license is for the sole purpose of enabling Google to display, distribute and promote the services and may be revoked for certain services as defined in the additional terms of those services.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
What?\u00a0 I know I’m no lawyer, but what that says to me is if ANYONE displays a website in Chrome (ANY website), then Google then has the right to distribute that website, in part or in whole, worldwide.\u00a0 What?\u00a0 How can they claim to have that right?\u00a0 If you’re looking at this site in Chrome now, does that mean Google thinks it’s their right to adapt, modify, publish, display, ‘publicly perform’, etc?<\/p>\n
My favorite little logical twist is that technically, if you ‘submit’ your credit card # via Chrome, since you’ve agreed to their terms of service, they then have a right to ‘distribute’ it.\u00a0 Now that’s a business model.\u00a0 Stealing credit card numbers on a massive scale and then moving to Switzerland.<\/p>\n
AND the real kicker is this: Chrome is distributed under the BSD license — which is a particularly open open-source contract.\u00a0 You could logically say that if you submit your credit card number via Chrome that then EVERYONE owns it.\u00a0 Resulting in something less like Switzerland and more like the end of Fight Club.<\/p>\n
But really, what the BSD license means is that, if you don’t like Google’s terms for Chrome you can download the code in its entirety, take out their logo, recompile it under your own terms and use it however you want.<\/p>\n
So, kids.\u00a0 It’s time to get those compilers chugging.\u00a0 Who wants to to follow Google’s rules when they can so easily walk right around them.<\/p>\n
Google looks more and more like Microsoft every day.\u00a0 Throw a few class actions lawsuits at them and the two would be virtually indistinguishable.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’m sure you’ve heard by now.\u00a0 Google released a new web browser.\u00a0 Chrome. My first reaction to this is one of dismay.\u00a0 Another freaking web browser?\u00a0 What do I need that for?\u00a0 I’m still having to check for bugs in IE6 — a browser that should’ve died years ago. My second is one of anger […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,25,6],"tags":[159,157,158,70,160],"class_list":["post-338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general-nerdiness","category-nice-one","category-rants-and-raves","tag-bsd","tag-chrome","tag-firefox","tag-google","tag-terms-and-conditions"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarke.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarke.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarke.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarke.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarke.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarke.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":339,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarke.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338\/revisions\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarke.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarke.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jeffclarke.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}