What bugs me most about this stuff is the dishonestly.
This is about AdBlockers.
It's okay to say it's bad for your business and you don't want them. To make up all these other excuses is what is painful and just feels so patronizing.
Search engines have shown over and over that they'll talk all the money but hide behind the 'we're just the market' cover when one of their ads serves you with a virus.
It may not actually be OK to say that, since admitting it publicly could make antitrust regulators jobs easier when investigating how Google uses its stranglehold over the browser and search markets to enforce its stranglehold over the online advertising market.
There should be extra (and enormous) antitrust penalties for publicly lying. These lies can be proven with internal communications gained from discovery or from leaks (incentivized by large bounties).
It's both imo. The security issue is both true and a huge problem being actively exploited on a massive scale. Its a "Ah great, we can improve security _and_ cripple ad blockers" moment for Google.
This is about AdBlockers.
It's okay to say it's bad for your business and you don't want them. To make up all these other excuses is what is painful and just feels so patronizing.