We are not using a whitelist. Media Engagement Index is a metric built on each user's device that helps Chrome decides whether a website should be allowed to autoplay on page load. We then gather global behaviour across all Chrome instances that allow sharing of statistics and we mark the websites that are matching some criteria based on numbers we got as pre-allowed to autoplay as they are the most likely to be autoplayed later. These websites will only be allowed to autoplay while the user didn't build enough data locally to let Chrome make a device-specific decision.

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Is not it a whitelist that we refer to the global list of MEI?

I do not know the algorithm of the engagement index, but will not accept to the public, but will sites accepted by just a few people will not keep the engagement index low all the time?

Only sites accepted by the public will be able to play automatically, and sites that can only be accepted by some people will not be able to automatically play automatically.

Also, can MEI be personal information?
(Machine learning is an amateur, so it may be said that it is out of now.) Now we can judge various things by machine learning. Is not it possible to identify individuals from MEI data?

I think that I should listen to opinions of various people,
Why did you change to status wontfix soon?

Whether it's a whitelist or not, gman raises several valid points highlighting why the use of a MEI violates the spirit of net neutrality.

It's a whitelist. It's an algorithmically propagated whitelist designed to favor sites that already have high media engagement.

> We then gather global behaviour across all Chrome instances that allow sharing of statistics and we mark the websites that are matching some criteria based on numbers we got as pre-allowed to autoplay as they are the most likely to be autoplayed later.

This is systemically designed to give priority to sites that are already popular - read, sites like Youtube, CNET, etc... which is certainly a violation of the principles of net neutrality. The end result is that popular sites will effectively have access to more powerful APIs than startups.

That you customize this list after the user has installed a browser doesn't fix the problem. A user that is biased towards sites like Youtube from their first installation of Chrome is unlikely to switch to a competing site. This means that a competitor will never have a *chance* to have their MEI updated for that user.

The first visit to a site is crucial. This is why we spend so much time optimizing page load times and thinking about first time visitors. By starting the user off with a global whitelist, Google effectively gives their sites a running lead of every other competitor on the market.

The fact that MEI is entirely algorithmically determined and that it uses such a high threshold of engagement to take effect further underscores this bias. MEI's threshold of engagement is just high enough for someone visiting a third party site to get frustrated with the lack of autoplay and then switch back to something else. The fact that the feature is entirely hidden to the end user guarantees that a user will assume lack of autoplaying videos is a deficiency of the site itself, and not a browser setting.

Google of all companies should understand that algorithms aren't inherently neutral.

So gathering stats across multiple times until you decide that using website A is cool, is a better strategy then having a true/false setting in chrome that the use is prompt to allow or not like we currently have when we request a webcam feed?

Going to cnn.com to read the news doesn’t mean I want cnn.com to allow auto play. Clicking on a link on cnn.com doesn’t mean I allow the website to use auto play for video and audio and currently this is what you guys are proposing. If the developer chooses to add a auto audio/video to all anchor links then u didn’t resolve the problem

You are using a whitelist. Or at least it says so in your press release

https://www.blog.google/products/chrome/improving-autoplay-chrome/

"Chrome allows autoplay for over 1,000 sites where we see that the highest percentage of visitors play media with sound."

That's a whitelist

Considering this as a feature request and making the status to Untriaged so that the issue would get addressed.

Thank you!