Notes on Google Search Now Requiring JavaScript
John Gruber has a post about how Google’s search results now require JavaScript[1]. Why? Here’s Google:
the change is intended to “better protect” Google Search against malicious activity, such as bots and spam
Lol, the irony.
Let’s turn to JavaScript for protection, as if the entire ad-based tracking/analytics world born out of JavaScript’s capabilities isn’t precisely what led to a less secure, less private, more exploited web.
But whatever, “the web” is Google’s product so they can do what they want with it — right? Here’s John:
Old original Google was a company of and for the open web. Post 2010-or-so Google is a company that sees the web as a de facto proprietary platform that it owns and controls. Those who experience the web through Google Chrome and Google Search are on that proprietary not-closed-per-se-but-not-really-open web.
Search that requires JavaScript won’t cause the web to die. But it’s a sign of what’s to come (emphasis mine):
Requiring JavaScript for Google Search is not about the fact that 99.9 percent of humans surfing the web have JavaScript enabled in their browsers. It’s about taking advantage of that fact to tightly control client access to Google Search results. But the nature of the true open web is that the server sticks to the specs for the HTTP protocol and the HTML content format, and clients are free to interpret that as they see fit. Original, novel, clever ways to do things with website output is what made the web so thrilling, fun, useful, and amazing. This JavaScript mandate is Google’s attempt at asserting that it will only serve search results to exactly the client software that it sees fit to serve.
Requiring JavaScript is all about control.
The web was founded on the idea of open access for all. But since that’s been completely and utterly abused (see LLM training datasets) we’re gonna lose it.
The whole “freemium with ads” model that underpins the web was exploited for profit by AI at an industrial scale and that’s causing the “free and open web” to become the “paid and private web”.
Universal access is quickly becoming select access — Google search results included.