11 ms·

Mozilla says Chrome’s latest feature enables surveillance

295 points by good8675309 5y ago

oblib 5y ago
"As you might expect, developers love this new feature—anything that can provide them with more information regarding how users are interacting with their apps is a positive." Here I am deliberately designing apps that track no user interaction data at all. Maybe that's why Google doesn't even list my app even though it's one of the longest running "web apps" alive and used to be listed #1 when it first came out. Now they have more ads for similar apps than search results on a search results page.
- JohnFen 5y ago
  You are working on the side of good. I hope that you have great success!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- Narretz 5y ago
  This API isn't equivalent with tracking. You can use this state entirely in the browser, without sending / storing the user behavior anywhere.
- halflings 5y ago
  > Maybe that's why Google doesn't even list my app even though it's one of the longest running "web apps" alive Is your hypothesis that Google would have some incentive that you collect user interaction data? Why would that be? > used to be listed #1 when it first came out Back in 2002. A lot has happened since then. Your app [1] is not comparable to what competitors like Zoho offer. There's plenty of potential reasons for not being ranked higher: from the landing page, to the increase in SaaS competition, to not keeping up with UX trends etc. [1] https://ezinvoice.com/ https://ezinvoice.com/
  - oblib 5y ago
    Zoho is a fine app, but it's described as such "Zoho CRM is an online Sales CRM software that manages your sales,.." That's not what ezInvoice does. There is a lot of crossover in the features we offer, but they're not really the same. As to keeping up, the ezInvoice app is a Cloud app, and it's also a "Single Page", Offline-First, and Local-First app, so you're either missing that or ignoring it. >> Is your hypothesis that Google would have some incentive that you collect user interaction data? Why would that be? Goggle is in the business of collecting as much data on users as they can, and that includes the users of the products advertised on their platform and those companies that place them. They offer services specifically for that purpose and as far as I know Google sells data to other corporations. https://cloud.google.com/solutions/financial-services/datashare https://cloud.google.com/solutions/financial-services/datash...
ghuin 5y ago
As long as you're asked for permission I don't see the problem
- vorticalbox 5y ago
  This is what I was just thinking. It asks for permission just like microphone or location. Both of which you could argue 'allow for surveillance'
  - throwawaynew23 5y ago
    Students last year were complaining about Respondus, and it’s privacy invasive nature, now chrome supports features similar to it. In response to this my school allowed teachers to give easier tests to students using Respondus since they could be sure they weren’t cheating and allowed more complicated tests to be made for those refusing to use Respondus. Maybe with this they’ll recommend chrome and allow a medium difficultly test to be provided to those students.
    - detaro 5y ago
      That's... not a good thing.
  - josteink 5y ago
    Those permissions have pretty clear use-cases which benefits the user itself and enables things which otherwise wouldn’t be possible. What user-oriented use-cases does this enable which couldn’t have been done otherwise? I really thinks this is apples vs oranges.
    - phnofive 5y ago
      Absolutely - and I think the typical user has long since been conditioned to click 'Yes' without reading.
    - Ajedi32 5y ago
      Usually the W3C spec for new features like this will contain a few paragraphs outlining intended use cases. In this case: > Making these distinctions is important for applications which have the option of delivering notifications across multiple devices, such as a desktop and smartphone. Users may find it frustrating when notifications are delivered to the wrong device or are disruptive. For example, if they switch from a tab containing a messaging application to one for a document they are editing, the messaging application, not being able to observe that the user is still interacting with their device, may assume that they have left to grab a coffee and start delivering notifications to their phone, causing it to buzz distractingly, instead of displaying notifications on their desktop or incrementing a badge count. Source: https://wicg.github.io/idle-detection/#introduction https://wicg.github.io/idle-detection/#introduction
mdoms 5y ago
Imagine if Mozilla spent even one tenth the amount of effort on their own crappy product as they do hand-wringing about Chrome. We might have another viable web browser.
- mccr8 5y ago
  The quote the article is based around is discussing a new web API in the context of deciding what Mozilla thinks about it. If Mozilla isn't going to have any opinions on new web APIs, then what is even the point of Firefox? (Disclaimer, I work on Firefox but I know anything about specs.) https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/453 https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/453
- recursive 5y ago
  Some of us already have such a viable browser, and it's firefox. I've used it for several hours already today. It's been viable the whole time!
nyanpasu64 5y ago
I already don't really like how websites can detect whether a tab is active or not (perhaps because callbacks/timers get delayed when a tab is inactive?). For example, dslreports's speedtest fails your measurement if you switch tabs, and Duo's web 2FA interface fails to approve a device which you've set to remember for 30 days if you're in a different tab.
- dillondoyle 5y ago
  There are a few ways to do it. First is document.hidden but that's the simplest monkey patch ever. Pass through iframe can detect some monkey patches though. visibilitychange too. you're right! at least before it was somewhat mitigated I think?, you can measure timing Chrome used to slow down inactive tabs with rounded ms I believe I'd have to check the fingerprinting JS i wrote a few years ago. Mouse movement is a good one too. I'm sure there are other hacks maybe onfocus the entire window and poll it. IntersectionObserver sounds like a good thread, there is a good polyfill library too.
- Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
  Do you have a clue of how to prevent or disable the active/focus/blur tab events as an end-user? Like going to uBlock Origin route or something? There is one portal that heavily used this event calls and I don’t mind. The issue if I want to generate a report or sending queries/message, I have to be on that tab for them to process it. They often take 10 seconds to 1 min to process it. If I leave the tab, I have to restart the process again. It is disruptive to my workflow since I have to be on that tab for it to do something. I wonder if there is a way to generate a fake/mock event to fool the portal that the tab is active while I am looking in another tab?
- AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
  You know who loves to use this feature? Recaptcha! When browsing Firefox in Incognito mode with uBlock Origin and uMatrix fully active, the Recaptcha challenges load painfully slowly. Like each picture might take upwards of five seconds to refresh. And to my delight, I have noticed that if I flip away from that tab while the panels are refreshing, they pause until I bring the tab back into active focus. It's a slap in the face that this kind of user-hostile design is allowed.
judge2020 5y ago
For reference, it requires a permission dialog and the demo is here: https://reillyeon.github.io/scraps/idle.html https://reillyeon.github.io/scraps/idle.html
- SquareWheel 5y ago
  Interesting that the minimum threshold is one minute. That might be too long for features like auto-saving documents, but lower-precision probably avoids a lot of nasty use cases too.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
deeblering4 5y ago
"We’ll have to wait and see how developers use this new API in Chrome. It could end being an absolute privacy nightmare—or it could be no big deal." Gee whiz! I guess we'll just have to wait and see if G ends up being evil or not
WallyFunk 5y ago
Think about it: if a device's gyroscope is left idle, it presumes the behavior of a virtual machine. I imagine trust scores use this as a metric when deciding if the user is human or a machine: `device was left in the same geo-coords for a long period of time`: then it is a bot.
- Forge36 5y ago
  Or a desktop. Or my laptop on a table. This is tangential to the articles topic
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  You're assuming mobile only. Laptops don't have gyroscopes.
  - iainmerrick 5y ago
    Hmm, they used to have drop sensors, at least! Or did those go out of fashion with spinning disks? ISTR the motion sensing web APIs worked on Mac laptops when they were originally added (then later stopped working, either intentionally or through neglect).
vfclists 5y ago
Says the company which has no intent whatsoever of providing a half decent alternative to Chrome. Instead of designing a system that allows third parties to offer alternative browsers they decided to be selfish and do everything by themselves for themselves, and wonder why their market share continues to plummet. Where is the GeckoView alernative for desktops that would allow their technology further reach?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  I've used Firefox for over a decade and a half and haven't ever had a use breaking issue where I felt the need to switch. Where are you getting this idea it's not a viable alternative? More likely their share is smaller because they're competing against one of the largest companies in the world.
  - passivate 5y ago
    Yeah, I'm genuinely puzzled as to where these commenters are coming from. FF is a fantastic product and I have it installed all my devices after moving away from Chrome and Google products. I also managed to convince our IT to ship it as default on all of our company PCs.
    - sumtechguy 5y ago
      I use both. As an end user the difference is fairly minimal. As dev maybe the debugger is a bit nicer in chrome, but that is just opinion. Also for me in some cases chrome is becoming the new 'IE'. The site will only work in chrome. For my wife if I switched out firefox for chrome I doubt she would even notice.
    - CountDrewku 5y ago
      I push both out to my users. Most people don't us FF but they're getting whether they like it or not ha ha.
JohnFen 5y ago
Another example of why I avoid Chrome like the plague.
afavour 5y ago
I am a privacy-conscious person but I really wish these debates could be a little more nuanced. This API is behind a permission prompt that can only be triggered in response to a user gesture, so the bar to entry is high. The example on web.dev is a chat app that would automatically set an active/away status: seems useful! IMO I ought to have the ability to cash in some of my privacy chips (so to speak) on a site that I know and trust and that I want extra functionality from. Relatedly, I feel like Safari is heavy-handed in the opposite direction. For example, it removes all locally stored data from a site if it isn't used within 7 days. There are sites I use less frequently than that where I'd still appreciate the ability to save information, but I don't have a choice. It all but guarantees sites need logins, backend storage etc. just to store simple data, which ends up being just as big a privacy danger!
- foxfluff 5y ago
  > The example on web.dev is a chat app that would automatically set an active/away status: seems useful! Every single feature on the web that gets misused has some useful applications too. For me, the useful applications hardly ever outweigh the downsides. The web has been getting progressively worse and worse.
  - afavour 5y ago
    > Every single feature on the web that gets misused has some useful applications too. That's why you have the permission prompt.
- mikojan 5y ago
  > 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.
  - occamrazor 5y ago
    How? You need a native app gor that. A web app can only know whether a user is actiwe _on the webpage_
EGreg 5y ago
How does Chrome find out? Is it watching my camera? Or just no mouse or keyboard activity for a while — because if the latter, my website could already know that. We built an app for distance learning which put something a lot more invasive (but with permission)… namely eye tracking and facial recognition to see whether the kids are paying attention. It’s actually LESS invasive than the current alternative — requiring the kid to keep their camera on. Now the teacher jusy knows when the kid is present and when not. Frankly, USA public schooling is about as invasive and controlling for kids as schooling can get. Every minute of their lives inside the school is regimented. So distance learning can be a respite.
- vxNsr 5y ago
  Likely it's using keyboard and mouse tracking. I'm not a fan of this at all.
orthecreedence 5y ago
A closed-source browser built by an ad company enables surveillance??? Do go on...
vxNsr 5y ago
I think the real story here is that the browser has really become the OS. But whereas before we left all decisions up to the users about what they could install and trust, and they trusted the dev to not do anything nefarious, the browser makers realized that users are a bad judge of character and devs cannot be trusted to be honest. So the browsers created a complex api access process to protect users from bad actors. To move this sort of paradigm back into OS would require a wholesale re-write of APIs and how they're accessed. Surprise! Both Apple and Microsoft did that, but neither of their new APIs caught on, because the benefit of being a native app was outshined by losing the easy access to the user data. So from the dev's stand point they may as well get the benefits of cross platform that web-apps afford if they're gonna have to deal with the gate-keeping anyways; native performance be damned.
code_duck 5y ago
Couldn't this information already be discerned fairly easily by user interaction such as mouse movements, requests or scrolling?
- syrrim 5y ago
  It detects whether the user is using the computer, not just the tab. If they were using another program for a prolonged period it would still report them as active.
  - code_duck 5y ago
    Thanks, I see. That does seem totally unnecessary and potentially harmful.
pteraspidomorph 5y ago
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_Visibility_API https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Page_Visibi...
- kevingadd 5y ago
  Interestingly, this API is one of the tools Youtube uses to stop you from playing videos in the background on mobile.
  - mrsalt 5y ago
    Here's an old thread about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21244440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21244440 It's obvious when you the Page Visibility API original editors/authors: https://www.w3.org/TR/page-visibility-2/ https://www.w3.org/TR/page-visibility-2/
pipahaha 5y ago
https://wordcounter.tools https://wordcounter.tools Essential smart apps for work
young_unixer 5y ago
If private companies spying on you is "surveillance capitalism", then the NSA spying on you is surveillance socialism?
mateo1 5y ago
Thats the sort of thing that will climax when video ads pause while you're not actively looking at them.
fuckchina 5y ago
We seriously need people to move from Chrome/Chromium to other browsers, Google(and pretty much any tech giant) shouldn't be able to do whatever evil bulls*t they want.

295 points by good8675309 5y ago

"As you might expect, developers love this new feature—anything that can provide them with more information regarding how users are interacting with their apps is a positive." Here I am deliberately designing apps that track no user interaction data at all. Maybe that's why Google doesn't even list my app even though it's one of the longest running "web apps" alive and used to be listed #1 when it first came out. Now they have more ads for similar apps than search results on a search results page.

JohnFen 5y ago
You are working on the side of good. I hope that you have great success!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Narretz 5y ago
This API isn't equivalent with tracking. You can use this state entirely in the browser, without sending / storing the user behavior anywhere.
halflings 5y ago
> Maybe that's why Google doesn't even list my app even though it's one of the longest running "web apps" alive Is your hypothesis that Google would have some incentive that you collect user interaction data? Why would that be? > used to be listed #1 when it first came out Back in 2002. A lot has happened since then. Your app [1] is not comparable to what competitors like Zoho offer. There's plenty of potential reasons for not being ranked higher: from the landing page, to the increase in SaaS competition, to not keeping up with UX trends etc. [1] https://ezinvoice.com/ https://ezinvoice.com/
- oblib 5y ago
  Zoho is a fine app, but it's described as such "Zoho CRM is an online Sales CRM software that manages your sales,.." That's not what ezInvoice does. There is a lot of crossover in the features we offer, but they're not really the same. As to keeping up, the ezInvoice app is a Cloud app, and it's also a "Single Page", Offline-First, and Local-First app, so you're either missing that or ignoring it. >> Is your hypothesis that Google would have some incentive that you collect user interaction data? Why would that be? Goggle is in the business of collecting as much data on users as they can, and that includes the users of the products advertised on their platform and those companies that place them. They offer services specifically for that purpose and as far as I know Google sells data to other corporations. https://cloud.google.com/solutions/financial-services/datashare https://cloud.google.com/solutions/financial-services/datash...

ghuin 5y ago

As long as you're asked for permission I don't see the problem

vorticalbox 5y ago
This is what I was just thinking. It asks for permission just like microphone or location. Both of which you could argue 'allow for surveillance'
- throwawaynew23 5y ago
  Students last year were complaining about Respondus, and it’s privacy invasive nature, now chrome supports features similar to it. In response to this my school allowed teachers to give easier tests to students using Respondus since they could be sure they weren’t cheating and allowed more complicated tests to be made for those refusing to use Respondus. Maybe with this they’ll recommend chrome and allow a medium difficultly test to be provided to those students.
  - detaro 5y ago
    That's... not a good thing.
- josteink 5y ago
  Those permissions have pretty clear use-cases which benefits the user itself and enables things which otherwise wouldn’t be possible. What user-oriented use-cases does this enable which couldn’t have been done otherwise? I really thinks this is apples vs oranges.
  - phnofive 5y ago
    Absolutely - and I think the typical user has long since been conditioned to click 'Yes' without reading.
  - Ajedi32 5y ago
    Usually the W3C spec for new features like this will contain a few paragraphs outlining intended use cases. In this case: > Making these distinctions is important for applications which have the option of delivering notifications across multiple devices, such as a desktop and smartphone. Users may find it frustrating when notifications are delivered to the wrong device or are disruptive. For example, if they switch from a tab containing a messaging application to one for a document they are editing, the messaging application, not being able to observe that the user is still interacting with their device, may assume that they have left to grab a coffee and start delivering notifications to their phone, causing it to buzz distractingly, instead of displaying notifications on their desktop or incrementing a badge count. Source: https://wicg.github.io/idle-detection/#introduction https://wicg.github.io/idle-detection/#introduction

mdoms 5y ago

Imagine if Mozilla spent even one tenth the amount of effort on their own crappy product as they do hand-wringing about Chrome. We might have another viable web browser.

mccr8 5y ago
The quote the article is based around is discussing a new web API in the context of deciding what Mozilla thinks about it. If Mozilla isn't going to have any opinions on new web APIs, then what is even the point of Firefox? (Disclaimer, I work on Firefox but I know anything about specs.) https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/453 https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/453
recursive 5y ago
Some of us already have such a viable browser, and it's firefox. I've used it for several hours already today. It's been viable the whole time!

nyanpasu64 5y ago

I already don't really like how websites can detect whether a tab is active or not (perhaps because callbacks/timers get delayed when a tab is inactive?). For example, dslreports's speedtest fails your measurement if you switch tabs, and Duo's web 2FA interface fails to approve a device which you've set to remember for 30 days if you're in a different tab.

dillondoyle 5y ago
There are a few ways to do it. First is document.hidden but that's the simplest monkey patch ever. Pass through iframe can detect some monkey patches though. visibilitychange too. you're right! at least before it was somewhat mitigated I think?, you can measure timing Chrome used to slow down inactive tabs with rounded ms I believe I'd have to check the fingerprinting JS i wrote a few years ago. Mouse movement is a good one too. I'm sure there are other hacks maybe onfocus the entire window and poll it. IntersectionObserver sounds like a good thread, there is a good polyfill library too.
Isthatablackgsd 5y ago
Do you have a clue of how to prevent or disable the active/focus/blur tab events as an end-user? Like going to uBlock Origin route or something? There is one portal that heavily used this event calls and I don’t mind. The issue if I want to generate a report or sending queries/message, I have to be on that tab for them to process it. They often take 10 seconds to 1 min to process it. If I leave the tab, I have to restart the process again. It is disruptive to my workflow since I have to be on that tab for it to do something. I wonder if there is a way to generate a fake/mock event to fool the portal that the tab is active while I am looking in another tab?
AdmiralAsshat 5y ago
You know who loves to use this feature? Recaptcha! When browsing Firefox in Incognito mode with uBlock Origin and uMatrix fully active, the Recaptcha challenges load painfully slowly. Like each picture might take upwards of five seconds to refresh. And to my delight, I have noticed that if I flip away from that tab while the panels are refreshing, they pause until I bring the tab back into active focus. It's a slap in the face that this kind of user-hostile design is allowed.

judge2020 5y ago

For reference, it requires a permission dialog and the demo is here: https://reillyeon.github.io/scraps/idle.html https://reillyeon.github.io/scraps/idle.html

SquareWheel 5y ago
Interesting that the minimum threshold is one minute. That might be too long for features like auto-saving documents, but lower-precision probably avoids a lot of nasty use cases too.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

deeblering4 5y ago

"We’ll have to wait and see how developers use this new API in Chrome. It could end being an absolute privacy nightmare—or it could be no big deal." Gee whiz! I guess we'll just have to wait and see if G ends up being evil or not

WallyFunk 5y ago

Think about it: if a device's gyroscope is left idle, it presumes the behavior of a virtual machine. I imagine trust scores use this as a metric when deciding if the user is human or a machine: `device was left in the same geo-coords for a long period of time`: then it is a bot.

Forge36 5y ago
Or a desktop. Or my laptop on a table. This is tangential to the articles topic
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
You're assuming mobile only. Laptops don't have gyroscopes.
- iainmerrick 5y ago
  Hmm, they used to have drop sensors, at least! Or did those go out of fashion with spinning disks? ISTR the motion sensing web APIs worked on Mac laptops when they were originally added (then later stopped working, either intentionally or through neglect).

vfclists 5y ago

Says the company which has no intent whatsoever of providing a half decent alternative to Chrome. Instead of designing a system that allows third parties to offer alternative browsers they decided to be selfish and do everything by themselves for themselves, and wonder why their market share continues to plummet. Where is the GeckoView alernative for desktops that would allow their technology further reach?

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
CountDrewku 5y ago
I've used Firefox for over a decade and a half and haven't ever had a use breaking issue where I felt the need to switch. Where are you getting this idea it's not a viable alternative? More likely their share is smaller because they're competing against one of the largest companies in the world.
- passivate 5y ago
  Yeah, I'm genuinely puzzled as to where these commenters are coming from. FF is a fantastic product and I have it installed all my devices after moving away from Chrome and Google products. I also managed to convince our IT to ship it as default on all of our company PCs.
  - sumtechguy 5y ago
    I use both. As an end user the difference is fairly minimal. As dev maybe the debugger is a bit nicer in chrome, but that is just opinion. Also for me in some cases chrome is becoming the new 'IE'. The site will only work in chrome. For my wife if I switched out firefox for chrome I doubt she would even notice.
  - CountDrewku 5y ago
    I push both out to my users. Most people don't us FF but they're getting whether they like it or not ha ha.

JohnFen 5y ago

Another example of why I avoid Chrome like the plague.

afavour 5y ago

I am a privacy-conscious person but I really wish these debates could be a little more nuanced. This API is behind a permission prompt that can only be triggered in response to a user gesture, so the bar to entry is high. The example on web.dev is a chat app that would automatically set an active/away status: seems useful! IMO I ought to have the ability to cash in some of my privacy chips (so to speak) on a site that I know and trust and that I want extra functionality from. Relatedly, I feel like Safari is heavy-handed in the opposite direction. For example, it removes all locally stored data from a site if it isn't used within 7 days. There are sites I use less frequently than that where I'd still appreciate the ability to save information, but I don't have a choice. It all but guarantees sites need logins, backend storage etc. just to store simple data, which ends up being just as big a privacy danger!

foxfluff 5y ago
> The example on web.dev is a chat app that would automatically set an active/away status: seems useful! Every single feature on the web that gets misused has some useful applications too. For me, the useful applications hardly ever outweigh the downsides. The web has been getting progressively worse and worse.
- afavour 5y ago
  > Every single feature on the web that gets misused has some useful applications too. That's why you have the permission prompt.
mikojan 5y ago
> 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.
- occamrazor 5y ago
  How? You need a native app gor that. A web app can only know whether a user is actiwe _on the webpage_

EGreg 5y ago

How does Chrome find out? Is it watching my camera? Or just no mouse or keyboard activity for a while — because if the latter, my website could already know that. We built an app for distance learning which put something a lot more invasive (but with permission)… namely eye tracking and facial recognition to see whether the kids are paying attention. It’s actually LESS invasive than the current alternative — requiring the kid to keep their camera on. Now the teacher jusy knows when the kid is present and when not. Frankly, USA public schooling is about as invasive and controlling for kids as schooling can get. Every minute of their lives inside the school is regimented. So distance learning can be a respite.

vxNsr 5y ago
Likely it's using keyboard and mouse tracking. I'm not a fan of this at all.

orthecreedence 5y ago

A closed-source browser built by an ad company enables surveillance??? Do go on...

vxNsr 5y ago

I think the real story here is that the browser has really become the OS. But whereas before we left all decisions up to the users about what they could install and trust, and they trusted the dev to not do anything nefarious, the browser makers realized that users are a bad judge of character and devs cannot be trusted to be honest. So the browsers created a complex api access process to protect users from bad actors. To move this sort of paradigm back into OS would require a wholesale re-write of APIs and how they're accessed. Surprise! Both Apple and Microsoft did that, but neither of their new APIs caught on, because the benefit of being a native app was outshined by losing the easy access to the user data. So from the dev's stand point they may as well get the benefits of cross platform that web-apps afford if they're gonna have to deal with the gate-keeping anyways; native performance be damned.

code_duck 5y ago

Couldn't this information already be discerned fairly easily by user interaction such as mouse movements, requests or scrolling?

syrrim 5y ago
It detects whether the user is using the computer, not just the tab. If they were using another program for a prolonged period it would still report them as active.
- code_duck 5y ago
  Thanks, I see. That does seem totally unnecessary and potentially harmful.

pteraspidomorph 5y ago

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

kevingadd 5y ago
Interestingly, this API is one of the tools Youtube uses to stop you from playing videos in the background on mobile.
- mrsalt 5y ago
  Here's an old thread about this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21244440 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21244440 It's obvious when you the Page Visibility API original editors/authors: https://www.w3.org/TR/page-visibility-2/ https://www.w3.org/TR/page-visibility-2/

pipahaha 5y ago

https://wordcounter.tools https://wordcounter.tools Essential smart apps for work

young_unixer 5y ago

If private companies spying on you is "surveillance capitalism", then the NSA spying on you is surveillance socialism?

mateo1 5y ago

Thats the sort of thing that will climax when video ads pause while you're not actively looking at them.

fuckchina 5y ago

We seriously need people to move from Chrome/Chromium to other browsers, Google(and pretty much any tech giant) shouldn't be able to do whatever evil bulls*t they want.