Apple has deployed a system called Private Access Tokens that allows web servers to verify if a device is legitimate before granting access. This works by having the browser request a signed token from Apple proving the device is approved. While this currently has limited impact due to Safari’s market share, there are concerns that attestation systems restrict competition, user control, and innovation by only approving certain devices and software. Attestation could lead to approved providers tightening rules over time, blocking modified operating systems and browsers. While proponents argue for holdbacks to limit blocking, business pressures may make that infeasible and Google’s existing attestation does not do holdbacks. Fundamentally, attestation is seen as anti-competitive by potentially blocking competition between browsers and operating systems on the web.
However unlike Google, CloudFlare doesn’t have a history of killing off products just as users begin to adapt to them.
That’s not why Google is harmful though - they’re harmful because almost all of their revenue comes from advertising - everything else they offer is just a funnel to gain data on the worlds population in order to better target advertising.
As for cloudflare - they showed their true colours last year with kiwifarms. They’ll happily host the worst websites in the world as long as they don’t get bad press.
Slight correction, generally cloudflare doesn’t host any sites (this is untrue in specific circumstances, but in your example they certainly didn’t host the site) - they just sit in front of existing sites and store some static assets, otherwise acting like a transparent reverse proxy.
CF has only been public for a few years. Give it a decade and I’m sure they’ll be just as evil as Google.
The main risk with Cloudflare is that if they think your device is malicious, it gets very hard to browse the internet, as every site hosted behind Cloudflare starts showing CAPTCHAs or rate limiting you. This could get worse if new APIs that determine if you’re legit don’t like you for whatever reason.
