Google’s Ongoing Efforts to Undermine the Open Web

Google has been strategically attacking the open web for over a decade, using its dominant position to centralize and control key technologies, making it harder for open standards and decentralized projects to thrive. The company’s gradual actions, such as sunsetting Google Reader and removing XML support in Chrome, have led to a significant erosion of the open web. These changes, often disguised as improvements or security enhancements, have real-world consequences, including the discontinuation of technologies like XSLT, SMIL, and MathML. The drive to centralize the internet is becoming clearer with every new step taken by Google, which uses its vast resources and control over services to create a more fragmented, corporate-dominated web. These moves have not only affected developers and open-source communities, but they also have broader implications for the future of the internet. This article highlights these actions, offering a deeper dive into the corporate-led encroachment on the web’s open and decentralized nature, and suggests what can be done to combat this trend by building alternatives and making voices heard.