It’s no secret that Google has a very large influence. They have influenced web pages into being highly optimized for high search engine rankings, and have pushed AMP: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/07/googles-amp-canonical-web-and-importance-web-standards-0. However I haven’t found any concrete examples of Google pushing web standards that have been adopted and require browser support. I’ve read comments here and there like this one, that the Shadow DOM was created and pushed by Google, perhaps to make it harder to block ads, but didn’t find any sources on that.
They really tried with Web Environment Integrity:
https://github.com/explainers-by-googlers/Web-Environment-Integrity/issues/28
There was enough pushback that they dropped that proposal, but expect to see it back in mutated form soon.
Likewise Topics API.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WebRTC#History
I don’t think I could summarise it better than that Wikipedia section.
WebRTC isn’t necessarily a bad specification.
But that history shows how they draft a specification, implement a service around it at a fast pace (in this case even with a takeover), and many years later the draft turns into a än official specification.
Other browsers have no choice but to fall in line behind the draft if they want to stay relevant. And they did.
IE did the same shit with their marquee-tag back in the day. Last I checked it still works on Firefox. (It’s still not in any w3c specification)
IIRC: webp webm file extensions, and VP8/VP9 video format.
WebUSB and Webbluetooth to name a few
Google is one of the largest members of the Private Advertising Technology Community Group, which allegedly seeks to replace traditional advertisement tracking with new, more private advertisement tracking. (Other members include Facebook, many ad corporations, and an unfortunate name you my recognize.)
If you have heard of Topics, FLoC, “Privacy” Sandbox, etc, those proposals are all closely linked to this group.
The W3C launders and legitimizes sponsors this commission, so these may become canonical web standards in the very near future.
I’ve talked to a few people who have insisted that the standards established by this committee should be mandatory… Not on the web level, but on a government level.
