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Wow, that was an amazingly skillful non-denial denial. Notice how he never said Chrome does not collect user information. Because, as we all know, it does. I've

by natch 15y ago

Wow, that was an amazingly skillful non-denial denial. Notice how he never said Chrome does not collect user information. Because, as we all know, it does. I've often wondered how much it collects, by what mechanisms (including via third parties or analytics added by third parties) and to whom the information is available and under what circumstances. The statement from Mike West does not appear to shed any additional light on this; maybe it's answered elsewhere -- does anybody know? I've seen the Google Chrome TOS and wasn't able to get a clear picture from that. BTW anyone in Mike's position still may not be privy to everything that is done with the data, as some data collection and sharing may be subject to national security orders that that most employees are not allowed to know about. So any statement his team makes about this should be couched with "to the best of our knowledge."

mikewest 15y ago
Chrome does not collect user information, unless you explicitly opt-in to sharing aggregated usage information and crash reports with Google. If you do opt-in to these metrics (and you have to opt-in, it's disabled by default), you can opt-out at any time via chrome://settings/advanced#metricsReportingEnabled The data collected is available for you to peruse at chrome://histograms/ All the data that Google collects is subject to the privacy policies at http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/ http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/, and Google of course complies with SafeHarbor regulations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Safe_Harbor_Privacy_Principles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Safe_Harbor_Priva...)
- asadotzler 15y ago
  "Chrome does not collect user information, unless you explicitly opt-in to sharing aggregated usage information and crash reports with Google" OR if you don't opt in to anything and you simply type some things into your Chrome Omnibox which get sent to Google for suggestions, or if you don't opt in to anything and you simply mistype a URL and that send data to Google for more helpful error pages, or if you don't opt in to anything and Google's phishing and malware service collects sites you're visiting. Oh, and where you don't opt in to RLZ, but you get it anyway. As I said on Twitter, I'm not really bothered by these things, but it's disingenuous to pretend they don't exist or to respond to peoples' privacy concerns by insisting that aggregate usage stats is the only information Google collects.
  - magicalist 15y ago
    I see (what I imagine to be) both perspectives. If you're a programmer, you think of course suggest is talking to google -- that's pretty much the only way it can work. That doesn't really fall under whatever mysterious third-party bodies collecting your browser history that the OP was trying to FUD up the place with. On the other hand, most people don't stop to think that search suggest is sending each character to get new suggestions, which is "user information" that is collected (though admittedly the privacy policy does say the logs are anonymized within 24 hours). So it really should be in the list of information that Chrome collects, even if it feels self evident to some. > As I said on Twitter, I'm not really bothered by these things Well I hope not, considering if you replaced parts of your comment: "if you don't opt in to anything and you simply type some things into your [Firefox search bar] which get sent to Google for suggestions, or if you don't opt in to anything and you simply [type a malformed] URL [into the AwesomeBar} and that sends data to Google for [a search page], or if you don't opt in to anything and [Firefox queries of] Google's phishing and malware service collects sites you're visiting" it still applies. and Mozilla essentially sells that information by selecting a third party default based on some non-transparent bid process :P Personally, I'm just sick of the FUD, especially in comments on an article asking to stop the insinuations and actually list problems so they can be fixed. There are and probably always will be defaults some people disagree with (and feel are doing users a disservice since users rarely change defaults), but there is a world of difference between that and "I don't need to give evidence, I can just feel it. We all know Chrome is etc etc"
    - bzbarsky 15y ago
      There is no bid process. Mozilla sets the default search engine to whatever search engine provides the best search results for its users, as far as that can be determined. This is why the search engine is different in different locales; for example Yandex has way better Russian search results than Google, and hence is the default search engine in the Russian localization of Firefox.
      - blasdel 15y ago
        Mozilla makes a 9 digit income in referral fees from setting search engine defaults, almost exclusively from Google. At least they no longer solicit donations, but for them to pretend they're viable without that omg privacy violating teat to suckle at is just gauche.
deleted 15y ago
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by natch 15y ago

mikewest 15y ago

Chrome does not collect user information, unless you explicitly opt-in to sharing aggregated usage information and crash reports with Google. If you do opt-in to these metrics (and you have to opt-in, it's disabled by default), you can opt-out at any time via chrome://settings/advanced#metricsReportingEnabled The data collected is available for you to peruse at chrome://histograms/ All the data that Google collects is subject to the privacy policies at http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/ http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/, and Google of course complies with SafeHarbor regulations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Safe_Harbor_Privacy_Principles http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Safe_Harbor_Priva...)

asadotzler 15y ago
"Chrome does not collect user information, unless you explicitly opt-in to sharing aggregated usage information and crash reports with Google" OR if you don't opt in to anything and you simply type some things into your Chrome Omnibox which get sent to Google for suggestions, or if you don't opt in to anything and you simply mistype a URL and that send data to Google for more helpful error pages, or if you don't opt in to anything and Google's phishing and malware service collects sites you're visiting. Oh, and where you don't opt in to RLZ, but you get it anyway. As I said on Twitter, I'm not really bothered by these things, but it's disingenuous to pretend they don't exist or to respond to peoples' privacy concerns by insisting that aggregate usage stats is the only information Google collects.
- magicalist 15y ago
  I see (what I imagine to be) both perspectives. If you're a programmer, you think of course suggest is talking to google -- that's pretty much the only way it can work. That doesn't really fall under whatever mysterious third-party bodies collecting your browser history that the OP was trying to FUD up the place with. On the other hand, most people don't stop to think that search suggest is sending each character to get new suggestions, which is "user information" that is collected (though admittedly the privacy policy does say the logs are anonymized within 24 hours). So it really should be in the list of information that Chrome collects, even if it feels self evident to some. > As I said on Twitter, I'm not really bothered by these things Well I hope not, considering if you replaced parts of your comment: "if you don't opt in to anything and you simply type some things into your [Firefox search bar] which get sent to Google for suggestions, or if you don't opt in to anything and you simply [type a malformed] URL [into the AwesomeBar} and that sends data to Google for [a search page], or if you don't opt in to anything and [Firefox queries of] Google's phishing and malware service collects sites you're visiting" it still applies. and Mozilla essentially sells that information by selecting a third party default based on some non-transparent bid process :P Personally, I'm just sick of the FUD, especially in comments on an article asking to stop the insinuations and actually list problems so they can be fixed. There are and probably always will be defaults some people disagree with (and feel are doing users a disservice since users rarely change defaults), but there is a world of difference between that and "I don't need to give evidence, I can just feel it. We all know Chrome is etc etc"
  - bzbarsky 15y ago
    There is no bid process. Mozilla sets the default search engine to whatever search engine provides the best search results for its users, as far as that can be determined. This is why the search engine is different in different locales; for example Yandex has way better Russian search results than Google, and hence is the default search engine in the Russian localization of Firefox.
    - blasdel 15y ago
      Mozilla makes a 9 digit income in referral fees from setting search engine defaults, almost exclusively from Google. At least they no longer solicit donations, but for them to pretend they're viable without that omg privacy violating teat to suckle at is just gauche.

deleted 15y ago

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