Paolo Redaelli
Google’s corporate motto is “Don’t be evil“. For a convenient definition of “evil” it seems when you read news such as this:
The default behavior of hotword, a new, black-box module in Chrome (and its free/open cousin, Chromium) causes it to silently switch on your computer’s microphone and send whatever it hears to Google.
Google says that hotword isn’t supposed to switch on unless users enable it, but developers have documented instances in which the module triggered the mic without user intervention.
Chromium, the free/open version of Chrome, also got the module as a default update. Google blamed the package maintainers for this, saying they should not have chosen a closed module for inclusion in their version.
Falkvinge countered Google’s explanations saying: “The default install will still wiretap your room without your consent, unless you opt out, and more importantly, know that you need to opt out, which is nowhere a reasonable requirement.” He says a hardware switch to disable the microphone and camera built into most computers is needed.
Voice search functions have become an accepted feature of modern smartphones, but their movement into the home through the smart TV, and now browser, have caused concerns over the possibility of being listened to within the home.
While most services require a user to opt in, privacy advocates have questioned whether their use, which requires sending voice recordings over the internet to company servers for processing, risks unintentionally exposing private conversations held within the home.
Source: Chrome update turns browsers into covert listening tools – Boing Boing
I stopped using Chrome because it’s proprietary more than an year ago. I also stopped using Chromium, it’s far, far more memory hungry for me who keeps having dozens of tabs open at the same time. Now I do have sound, solid reasons to avoid them. While I could control Chromium I could never be trust Chrome anymore.
It seems that the “Don’t be evil” era has really actually finished, Google seems to be turning to the dark side. Too much power corrupts, that’s why monopolies shall be avoided.
The rounding wheels of life are funny sometimes: after I started to use software libero (software librè) in the years 1996-1997 the evil dark knight were Microsoft, Apple were the battered white knight that still stood on the side of people’s (user?) freedom and Google were still relatively small.
I still have my once shiny iBook G3 bought in 1999 (yes, it still works even if I seldom use it).
Now Apple has been locking its users into golden prisons for years using DRM and proprietary software, still leveraging software libre.
I can’t actually blame Apple using software libre for pursuing their own profit and success, really I can’t: when forced by licenses (i.e. GPL and LGPL) they still contribute to the software librè projects such as WebKit which it’s useful to remember it springs from KDE, or LLVM or Cups. Each of this are separated stories though.
Today Google has destroyed another pillar of trust. Sadly for them trust is easily and quickly destroyed while requires long, long time to rebuild, and sometimes it seems entirely not possible.
I am an example of this, following the infamous “Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes“: “I fear the Greeks, even when they bear gifts” (from Virgil’s Aeneid); even if they released the entire C# .Net infrastructure under a MIT license (which is non-copyleft and still allows proprietary forks) I still really can’t induce myself to trust Microsoft. Since when I still were using an Amiga tasting the bitter side of proprietary formats (i.e. MS Office), during the last two decades they showed too many a time that actually don’t care about customers.
Oh, those are interesting time, who once was an ally is turning an enemy and vice versa.
Not speaking of Oracle and the issue of copyright over API. Who said Java?
Even for this reason I think my next phone will run another OS. There are even too much choice, yet I think the feasible one are Firefox OS, Sailfish OS, Ubuntu Touch.