SoylentNews

frojack writes:

Two stories about Google graced The Register in recent days.

The First was about Google (allegedly) stripping SSL from British Telephone (BT) mobile users search requests, even when the users had started from https pages, and were using BT WiFi subscribers piggy-backing off wireless connections, (I have no idea what exactly is meant by piggy-backing in this context). Personally, I would suspect BT of having a hand in that.

The open secret here is that for some VIP customers, search requests coming from their networks have SSL stripped as a service. This was mostly developed for schools where Google supplies their mail , web, and search services. Some of these places are statutorily obligated to filter their networks. BT may have been setting this bit themselves, but is difficult to tell.

A google engineer Adam Langly posted in a public forum that you can bypass any institutional ssl stripping by always accessing Google Searches via a different URL:

"However, if you want an encrypted search option, 'https://encrypted.google.com' is always encrypted and isn't affected by these methods."

You might want to set that as your Google landing page on mobile devices if you use wifi on some business or school campuses.

The second story concerns a trial balloon that Google is floating in a few markets called "Contributor" where, for a small(ish) fee, Google will strip ads out of pages, and share that fee with the web site in lieu of advertising revenue. The monthly fee, ranging between $1 and $3 per site, will be paid to the site operator after Google takes its cut.

El Reg speculates:

Perhaps Google and websites heavily reliant on ads are tired of netizens using ad-blocking browser plugins. Perhaps Google just wants to prove that the vast majority of people are OK with ads, and few want to spend even $1 a month on a web subscription.

So the question is, Soylentils: Are there any sites you would be willing to pay a dollar a month to visit without ads?