Chrome Security Team Considers Marking All HTTP Pages As 'Non-Secure'

from the moving-towards-encryption dept

Back in August, we noted that Google had started adjusting its search algorithm to give a slight boost to sites that are encrypted. That is, all else equal, sites that use HTTPS will get a slight ranking boost. The company made it clear that the weight of this signal will increase over time, and this is a way of encouraging more websites to go to HTTPS by default (something that we've done, but very few other sites have done).

Now it appears that the Chrome Security Team is taking things even further: suggesting that all HTTP sites be marked as non-secure:

We, the Chrome Security Team, propose that user agents (UAs) gradually change their UX to display non-secure origins as affirmatively non-secure. We intend to devise and begin deploying a transition plan for Chrome in 2015.

The goal of this proposal is to more clearly display to users that HTTP provides no data security.

More specifically:

UA vendors who agree with this proposal should decide how best to phase in the UX changes given the needs of their users and their product design constraints. Generally, we suggest a phased approach to marking non-secure origins as non-secure. For example, a UA vendor might decide that in the medium term, they will represent non-secure origins in the same way that they represent Dubious origins. Then, in the long term, the vendor might decide to represent non-secure origins in the same way that they represent Bad origins.

This seems like it could have quite an impact in driving more sites to finally realize that they should start going to HTTPS by default. There's really no excuse not to do so these days, and it's good to see the Chrome Security Team make this push. The more encrypted traffic there is, the better.

Filed Under: chrome, chromium, encryption, https, non-secure, privacy, security, ssl
Companies: google