Every few weeks, Google releases some new features into their browser Chrome. Using Chrome, a user takes advantage of Google software. When a user searches to find websites, they might use Google Search. Google obviously controls the search engine. A web publisher might write material using Google Docs. The website might be hosted on Google Sites. Those sites generally add bits of tracking code so Google Marketing can track all that with Google Analytics. It could conceivably be said that a person using the internet is using Google.
If a user wakes to an alarm on an Android phone, starts the day with Google Assistant (through their watch, speaker, TV, or car), finds their way with Google Maps, reads a Google Book, discovers what’s around them using Google Notifications, uses Google Suite to conduct business, does some research with Google Scholar, teaches the kids with Google Education, orders meals through Google Food, tells everyone about it using Google Blogger with Google Photos and drifts off to sleep listening to music on YouTube… it could conceivably be said that Google is using its services to remove a great deal of inconvenience related to users otherwise more unstructured life experiences. Knowing all that, there’s typically nothing more you need to know about a new google software release… obviously, Google is going to make the whole end-to-end process incrementally better for its customers’ benefit. Google charges nothing for these services. What more could you possibly want? It’s a “no-brainer.”
But @davegleclair has published a story at howtogeek describing why forward-looking technologists at Mozilla and Apple have serious concerns about a new Chrome API. It might have some unprecedented privacy issues. Google explains the benefits of the new functions of the API on https://web.dev/idle-detection. It’s not apparent who owns that site, and since vetting sources are very important, investigation reveals that it is a legitimate Google site. It turns out that Web.dev is where Google explains features that can be used in the future – which, for the Idle API, has arrived.
An API stands for Application Programming Interface. It’s a window into your browser, allowing a website to essentially toss in some code; your browser will run the code on your computer. Just like the code that runs when you push the “OK” button – or play a song. This API can detect when “you are idle.” What does that mean? When you are “idle” is a new term. From what we can tell, it means; you are idle when you’ve stopped your swiping and typing completely. Not when you leave a particular website, not when you’ve stopped using the browser, not when you’ve stopped using whatever other software remains on your “device.” You are idle when you’ve stopped swiping and typing completely. When you are altogether idle, for instance, if you stare into space too long you’re not giving enough attention to your device, the device will “call home” using the code to alert their website of your condition. They can’t tell the difference between staring into space and any other pause in activity. Daydreaming can’t be distinguished from, say… going to the bathroom (unless you are a person of extraordinary regularity – as noted below). Since no one takes their device to the bathroom, they know your computer/device was not in use.
The time you’re allowed to stare into space before the program is notified is configurable by the API developer. Ten seconds – ten minutes. However long it takes you to do your non-computer-related business. Of course, API parameters are meant to be tweaked, so the timeout will probably not be static in sophisticated uses. The granularity (time before the call home) can be changed in real-time. At the most grotesque level, the software will report when you wake up and when you shut down – if you ever shut down. At the most granular – you can stare off into space for a few seconds before the message is sent, and whatever happens (to the website you were looking at) happens… if anything. On which device could this work? Any of them, all of them whenever you use Chrome.
As suggested above, some software specialists think the new Chrome capabilities have potential implications for users’ privacy. Mozilla’s Web Standards Lead Tantek Çelik says, it gives an “opportunity for surveillance capitalism motivated websites to invade an aspect of the user’s physical privacy, keep long-term records of physical user behaviors, discerning daily rhythms (e.g. lunchtime), and using that, for proactive psychological manipulation (e.g. hunger, emotion, choice).” Ryosuke Niwa, a browser developer at Apple, says, the API opens possibilities for “a very serious breach of the said user’s privacy.”
This is a completely predictable feature you probably assumed your browser installed computer or phone already had. And you’re probably already realized that what’s on your screen when you leave and what is front and center grabbing your attention when you come back… not always the same. That’s today, before this update. Other mechanisms are used for that behavior in your phone. A simple case is waking up your iPhone to find what Apple News suggests is important for a customer to see. Not that Apple News is disreputable or manipulative. When checked at https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/apple-news-bias/ and Apple News has “HIGH CREDIBILITY” and a bias rating of “LEFT-CENTER.” Not all browser content providers are so trustworthy. And not all browser content is staring out into space while you do.