Google's unloved plan to fix web permissions gathers support
Google has been testing a new way for websites to ask permission to access sensitive browser controls, such as the microphone and camera, despite longstanding opposition from Mozilla and Apple. Following recent refinements to the proposal, Mozilla now appears to be warming to the changes.
The debate is around the implementation of a proposed web specification called Page Embedded Permission Control (PEPC), which would allow browsers to render HTML buttons that make permission requests for access to the device camera, microphone, and geolocation data.
The proposal touches on a crucial question: whose interests does the browser serve? The user, the website owner, or the browser maker?
Related Knowledge Center: Digital privacy and data security
If you’re online, you’re generating a constant stream of information about yourself — sometimes voluntarily, sometimes unwittingly — that is assembled and used to craft your online experience. And generate wealth for data brokers. Meanwhile, designers and managers of the digital infrastructure on which the world depends are engaged in a never-ending effort to thwart attempts, by both criminal enterprises and state actors, to exploit vulnerabilities in those systems.
Signalgate | State surveillance