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"... in the data they're collecting from Chrome users." What percentage of Chrome users consented to the data collection? (Is consent even required?) Does th

by 3xblah 8y ago

"... in the data they're collecting from Chrome users." What percentage of Chrome users consented to the data collection? (Is consent even required?) Does the data represent all Chrome users or only those who have consented?

hawski 8y ago
I assume it's at best opt-out so 90-98% would be my guess. Although I'm talking out of my ass.
taneq 8y ago
All of them, it's on page 1312 of the EULA. Didn't you read it?
- londons_explore 8y ago
  Take a look at Google's user-directed legal jargon. They have slimmed it down to only a few pages and now have very simplified statements. Obviously every statement is now very carefully worded...
_phaq 8y ago
Actually consented, as in understood the implications and freely decided that Google should have this data, probably none. That would take a lot of generosity, especially to pay that team of lawyers and technical experts, so that you have any chance of actually understanding the implications. Unwillingly consented, that's the vast majority of Chrome Sync users. Unless you enable the end-to-end-encryption (for which they require a second passphrase, so probably less than 0.1% actually use that), they will use your data for ad profiling etc.. Yes, that is on page 1312 of the Chrome Sync privacy statement. (They're only required to write it into there, if they do it, so it is quite certain that they didn't just want the bad PR for nothing.) Is consent required? Assuming they actually do collect this data from their Chrome Sync data or through similar personally identifiable ways, consent would be required in many jurisdictions, especially the EU. However, if they cared enough, it would be possible for them to collect this particular data point without personal identification. You could for example create a UUID per installation that's only associated with this one data point. Or you could have a time-based solution where each Chrome instance goes out to "vote" for their default search engine e.g. every 4 weeks. If you then look at the statistics on a weekly basis, you can just take these values times 4 to even roughly correct numbers. It's certainly going to be representative enough, you don't need every browser instance to have their vote in every week's statistic.
- londons_explore 8y ago
  Look at the linked patch. These metrics are from UMA stats. They are collected from everyone who ticks the box to report stats when installing Chrome. They only get histograms of counts of visits to search engines, not the entire URL, and not search engines or other sites not in the list of things they track (which is at the bottom of the file).
  - 3xblah 8y ago
    It is ticking that box I was wondering about. How many users tick it? chrome://chrome-urls/site-engagement and other chrome-urls These can provide useful data for me but not sure why I would want send the data to Google.
    - londons_explore 8y ago
      So that Google can make Chrome render fast on the sites most people use the most often, for example?
      - 3xblah 8y ago
        Well, the first question is why are the pages rendering slow to begin with? One way to make the pages I visit load faster is to disable Javascript. Another is to remove (or block) advertising. Another is to put DNS data for these sites into local hosts or zone files. Those actions are how I prefer to approach the problem. However as far as I can tell, those are not actions Google wants to take. They have their own preferred approach. It is possible there are users who are aligned with Google in terms of how they want to approach the problems created by misuse/overuse of Javascript and advertising. It is also possible there are some users who have no idea why pages are slow to load. Those groups might want to send usage data to Google. However I am not in either group. I dislike the web advertising business that Google depends on and therefore must nourish and support. As such, there is no reason I can think of why I would want to send data to Google. Also, I have not checked but I wonder if Google is restricted in how they can use the collected diagnostic data. Are they prohibited from using it for the purposes of selling advertising?

by 3xblah 8y ago

hawski 8y ago

I assume it's at best opt-out so 90-98% would be my guess. Although I'm talking out of my ass.

taneq 8y ago

All of them, it's on page 1312 of the EULA. Didn't you read it?

londons_explore 8y ago
Take a look at Google's user-directed legal jargon. They have slimmed it down to only a few pages and now have very simplified statements. Obviously every statement is now very carefully worded...

_phaq 8y ago

Actually consented, as in understood the implications and freely decided that Google should have this data, probably none. That would take a lot of generosity, especially to pay that team of lawyers and technical experts, so that you have any chance of actually understanding the implications. Unwillingly consented, that's the vast majority of Chrome Sync users. Unless you enable the end-to-end-encryption (for which they require a second passphrase, so probably less than 0.1% actually use that), they will use your data for ad profiling etc.. Yes, that is on page 1312 of the Chrome Sync privacy statement. (They're only required to write it into there, if they do it, so it is quite certain that they didn't just want the bad PR for nothing.) Is consent required? Assuming they actually do collect this data from their Chrome Sync data or through similar personally identifiable ways, consent would be required in many jurisdictions, especially the EU. However, if they cared enough, it would be possible for them to collect this particular data point without personal identification. You could for example create a UUID per installation that's only associated with this one data point. Or you could have a time-based solution where each Chrome instance goes out to "vote" for their default search engine e.g. every 4 weeks. If you then look at the statistics on a weekly basis, you can just take these values times 4 to even roughly correct numbers. It's certainly going to be representative enough, you don't need every browser instance to have their vote in every week's statistic.

londons_explore 8y ago
Look at the linked patch. These metrics are from UMA stats. They are collected from everyone who ticks the box to report stats when installing Chrome. They only get histograms of counts of visits to search engines, not the entire URL, and not search engines or other sites not in the list of things they track (which is at the bottom of the file).
- 3xblah 8y ago
  It is ticking that box I was wondering about. How many users tick it? chrome://chrome-urls/site-engagement and other chrome-urls These can provide useful data for me but not sure why I would want send the data to Google.
  - londons_explore 8y ago
    So that Google can make Chrome render fast on the sites most people use the most often, for example?
    - 3xblah 8y ago
      Well, the first question is why are the pages rendering slow to begin with? One way to make the pages I visit load faster is to disable Javascript. Another is to remove (or block) advertising. Another is to put DNS data for these sites into local hosts or zone files. Those actions are how I prefer to approach the problem. However as far as I can tell, those are not actions Google wants to take. They have their own preferred approach. It is possible there are users who are aligned with Google in terms of how they want to approach the problems created by misuse/overuse of Javascript and advertising. It is also possible there are some users who have no idea why pages are slow to load. Those groups might want to send usage data to Google. However I am not in either group. I dislike the web advertising business that Google depends on and therefore must nourish and support. As such, there is no reason I can think of why I would want to send data to Google. Also, I have not checked but I wonder if Google is restricted in how they can use the collected diagnostic data. Are they prohibited from using it for the purposes of selling advertising?