this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2023
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[โ€“] AFLYINTOASTER@lemmy.world 89 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[โ€“] ramblinguy@sh.itjust.works 38 points 1 year ago (2 children)

While I can see the plus side of being able to identify bots, I don't think the WEI is the right way to do it, and Google definitely isn't the right company to be handling it

[โ€“] VonReposti@feddit.dk 31 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Plus how do you spot the difference between a good bot and a bad bot? Web crawlers from search engines are for example inherently good, so they should still be able to operate, but if it is easy to register a good bot in WEI, it is also easy to register a bad bot. If it is hard to register a good bot, then you're effectively gatekeeping the automated part of the internet (something that actually might be Google's intention).

[โ€“] Bakersfield@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago

I was thinking the same thing about Google wanting their bots to be the only ones allowed to crawl and index the internet.

A bot that only reads your website is good, one that posts things or otherwise changes your database less so.

[โ€“] teawrecks@sopuli.xyz 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, even if the hardware can validate perfectly that it's not running any botting software, there's nothing stopping someone from spinning up a farm of these machines and using a central server as a hypervisor for them all. It's impossible to determine if your user is a bot.

[โ€“] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 5 points 1 year ago

Here is an alternative Piped link(s):

It's impossible to determine if your user is a bot.

Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.

I'm open-source; check me out at GitHub.

[โ€“] absGeekNZ@lemmy.nz 25 points 1 year ago

I just wish everyone would switch to Firefox.

It is because Chrome has a monopoly, is close enough to monopoly.