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Mozilla says Chrome’s latest feature enables surveillance

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Re: Mozilla says Chrome’s latest feature enables surveillance

#81

Post by darren_ »

ipaddr wrote: post #77
darren_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this isn't adequate for the IM use case at all? I spend the bulk of my time not focused on my chat app tab(s) but I definitely want to be reported as 'available' by those chat apps, because I am if someone messages me.

So after 20 minutes instead of logging you out the away status is set. Not sure I understand your special case here.

I don't see what's not to understand or what logging out has to do with it. I have a browser tab for an IM application, that's also available as a native app on my phone. That tab is always open on my desktop. If I have other tabs open and am doing stuff, I still want my IM status to be 'available', and I want all notifications about new chats to go to that tab and to no other devices, while I am on my computer doing stuff.

If I go out for a walk or I go watch some TV or otherwise stop using my computer, depending on the chat app I want to either automatically be 'unavailable' (for work chat app), or I want to stay 'available' but have notifications go to my phone instead of the chat tab (for friends' chat apps).

Re: Mozilla says Chrome’s latest feature enables surveillance

#82

Post by fsckboy »

Talanes wrote: post #76
fsckboy wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

giving the users explicit control over where their messages are sent is a good idea. being spied on supposedly so the system can decide where to send you messages is a bad idea.

An opt-in system to allow idle detection is an explicit control. It shouldn't be the only option, but denying that it should be an option at all feels a little infantilizing.

my point, that you glossed over, can be illustrated this way: I want my phone to have GPS so I can use it to figure out where I am, for mapping, etc. I don't want it used for spying on me.

An opt-in system to allow GPS (or idle detection) is an explicit control, but it is not toggling the usage of this low level feature, which is the important part that I want to approve. Approvals should not be blanket.

Re: Mozilla says Chrome’s latest feature enables surveillance

#83

Post by Talanes »

fsckboy wrote: post #82
Talanes wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An opt-in system to allow idle detection is an explicit control. It shouldn't be the only option, but denying that it should be an option at all feels a little infantilizing.

my point, that you glossed over, can be illustrated this way: I want my phone to have GPS so I can use it to figure out where I am, for mapping, etc. I don't want it used for spying on me. An opt-in system to allow GPS (or idle detection) is an explicit control, but it is not toggling the usage of this low level feature, which is the important part that I want to approve. Approvals should not be blanket.

It's a per-website toggle, how much more granularly approved do you need it to be?

Re: Mozilla says Chrome’s latest feature enables surveillance

#84

Post by pteraspidomorph »

I find the page visibility API, supported by every browser including Firefox, just as creepy. Perhaps even more, since most users don't know it exists and gave no permission for it to operate. Websites have no business knowing if I'm looking at them or not, and making assumptions about what I want them to do when I'm not.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Page_Visibi...

Re: Mozilla says Chrome’s latest feature enables surveillance

#85

Post by handoflixue »

ipaddr wrote: post #77
darren_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this isn't adequate for the IM use case at all? I spend the bulk of my time not focused on my chat app tab(s) but I definitely want to be reported as 'available' by those chat apps, because I am if someone messages me.

So after 20 minutes instead of logging you out the away status is set. Not sure I understand your special case here.

Can't speak for the other commenter, but I'm "available" when I sit at my computer playing Civilization for 6 hours, despite the fact that I won't touch my IM application that entire time. If you're trying to set "Away" based on how often I interact with the application, you're getting it wrong for 5 hours and 40 minutes of that period.

Re: Mozilla says Chrome’s latest feature enables surveillance

#86

Post by handoflixue »

_jal wrote: post #63
afavour wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This can easily be abused for stalkerish behavior Well, sure. Any away/active status can be used for bad things. Pretty much any form of text communication can, too. We all opt in and out of things according to our level of comfort, like with the permission prompt this API provides.

Why not add an API to allow servers to request your contact information and creditworthiness? You can just opt out if you're not comfortable with it.

That already exists. It's called auto-complete, and for plenty of users it knows everything necessary to make purchases.

Re: Mozilla says Chrome’s latest feature enables surveillance

#88

Post by ravel-bar-foo »

occamrazor wrote: post #49
mikojan wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The example on web.dev is a chat app that would automatically set an active/away status: seems useful! Okay, but you can already do that.

How? You need a native app gor that. A web app can only know whether a user is actiwe _on the webpage_

The point of an active/away indicator is to indicate whether the recipient of a message is likely to see/respond to the message in real time. If I'm active in another website and have notifications disabled I might not see it.

Re: Mozilla says Chrome’s latest feature enables surveillance

#89

Post by chris37879 »

ipaddr wrote: post #77
darren_ wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But this isn't adequate for the IM use case at all? I spend the bulk of my time not focused on my chat app tab(s) but I definitely want to be reported as 'available' by those chat apps, because I am if someone messages me.

So after 20 minutes instead of logging you out the away status is set. Not sure I understand your special case here.

His "special case" is that he goes more than 20 minutes between checking his chat client, but he is still available, so why should he be marked as 'away'?

Re: Mozilla says Chrome’s latest feature enables surveillance

#90

Post by chris37879 »

afavour wrote: post #42
dheera wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> active/away status This can easily be abused for stalkerish behavior. Even read receipts in chat apps like Facebook should be able to be disabled by the user. (You can, with some JS injection, but basically that means programmers' privacy is respected and non-programmers' privacy is violated.) Also micromanagement. I once had a coworker who would "pounce" on me when my Slack status became active, instead of respect…

> This can easily be abused for stalkerish behavior Well, sure. Any away/active status can be used for bad things. Pretty much any form of text communication can, too. We all opt in and out of things according to our level of comfort, like with the permission prompt this API provides.

Until you're required to accept the permission to keep your job. Tracking users to this level, even if you're paying them for work, is bad and will be abused. Is it handy? Sure. But maybe we all need to consider if we actually need to know the status of other people so much.
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