On 8/16/12 1:49 AM, Asa Dotzler wrote:
> On 8/8/2012 11:30 AM, Sid Stamm wrote:
>> On 8/8/12 10:23 AM, Zack Weinberg wrote:
>>> On 2012-08-08 9:51 AM,
[hidden email] wrote:
>>>>
>>>> On the subject of it sending everything to Google -- my understanding
>>>> is that Google handles search suggest user-data differently (more
>>>> privately?) than with thing generally entered into a Google search
>>>> field. Confirmation or other detail here from others on this list
>>>> would be very helpful.
>>>
>>> I just want to stick in here the observation that the additional
>>> privacy
>>> exposure from this feature is not simply because additional user
>>> data is
>>> revealed *to Google*.
>>
>> For me, it's about avoiding surprises. Firefox users may or may not
>> realize we're sending data to any third party (in this case, Google) as
>> they type stuff in the single text-entry field. So Google's treatment
>> of the data isn't the focus -- their privacy policy is fine. The focus
>> is whether or not users expect us to send data to another organization.
>>
>> With the proposed UI, it's not clear that the suggestions are coming as
>> a result of queries to Google; they seem to be suggestions from Firefox
>> saying "hey, you may want to Google these."
>>
>> Surprises in this scenario would manifest two types of reactions:
>> reactions of "I didn't know you sent Google what I just typed!" and
>> "OMG, you're using my data plan even though I don't want to search!"
>
> How is this different than the Search in Firefox on Windows/Mac/Linux.
> I don't believe that I could find any mainstream Firefox users who
> realizes that we're sending data to a third party when the user is
> typing into the search box -- the search suggestions seem to be
> suggestions from Firefox. The separate box probably helps us feel
> better about some other privacy issues but I can't see how it helps at
> all on the "avoiding surprises" front.
I agree with Asa. I also don't think many users can differentiate
between URLs and search terms [1], or the difference between a search
initiated from the awesome bar, search bar, or search engine homepage.
Isn't that why the conflation between search terms and URLs in the
omnibar/awesomebar developed in the first place?
That being said, just because the UI is already not clear in the desktop
doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to make it clear what's happening in
the phone UI, although it doesn't make sense that the phone UI should be
held to a higher standard than the desktop UI.
Monica
[1]
http://jonoscript.wordpress.com/2010/02/18/some-people-cant-read-urls/_______________________________________________
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