Hasty Briefsbeta

Google is killing the open web

5 days ago
  • #WebStandards
  • #OpenWeb
  • #Google
  • Google is accused of killing the open web by leveraging its dominant position to enclose and control the digital commons.
  • The article highlights Google's decade-long war on XML technologies, including RSS, XSLT, and other standards that support an open and decentralized web.
  • Key events in Google's campaign against open web standards include the sunsetting of Google Reader in 2013, deprecation of XSLT and SMIL, and the introduction of proprietary technologies like AMP.
  • The article criticizes the WHATWG for becoming a tool for corporate interests, sidelining the W3C's more user-focused standardization efforts.
  • XSLT is defended as a powerful, standard technology for transforming XML documents, with potential benefits for reducing web bloat and improving performance.
  • The author calls for resistance against Google's efforts, urging readers to use and advocate for XML and XSLT, complain to browser vendors, and support alternative implementations.
  • The piece concludes by naming and shaming specific engineers involved in proposals to remove open web technologies, accusing them of undermining interoperability and the open web.