[Freedombox-discuss] on small programs; Android and things Google

Eric Mill kprojection at gmail.com
Sun May 8 03:12:32 UTC 2011


I'm pretty sure that "Allow all sites to track my physical location" has to
do with the W3C Geolocation spec, which allows individual websites to ask
for your location through JavaScript, and not to do with "phoning home" to
Google any information about you.

Even regarding W3C Geolocation, in my browser, which is Chrome 12 dev, the
default is to have each site have to ask you. If you've ever visited a
website and seen the "This website is asking for your location." dropdown at
the top of the window, that's what this is in regards to.

-- Eric

On Thu, May 5, 2011 at 7:47 PM, AnotherPeasant <versparis at gmail.com> wrote:

> Actually, Eric, I just went and checked in my Chromium browser.  It's
> under: (wrench)> Preferences > Under the Hood > Content Settings >
> (scroll down to the hidden part of the page) Location.  Now maybe it's
> just my copy of Chromium where it's the default, but the fact that
> "Allow all sites to track my physical location" is even in there at all
> concerns me.  "Non-evil" FAIL, I.M.O.  There may be other interesting
> "features" in there that I have missed completely.
>
> Android, I have no clue about, as I am a moron about cell phones in
> general.  I have a buddy who understands them in detail.  Talking to him
> helps me understand just how clueless I am about the things.  -But I'm
> learning (slowly).
>
> BTW, version of Chromium is 10.0.648.205 running on Ubuntu 11.04  -Cheers!
>
>
> > You're conflating Android and Chrome with their open source projects. All
> > phone-home code is added in a separate layer from the open source
> codebase.
> >  The Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and the Chromium open source
> project
> > are both free of tracking.
> >
> > -- Eric
> >
> >
> >
> >> Considering how much data scraping and invasive profiling Google does
> >> already, are you sure you want to use their base system for this?  I
> >> thought the point was to get away from centralized power like MS and
> >> Google.  The cell phone is the pen-ultimate invasive client, exceeded
> >> only by RF chips and implants :)  Look in their Chrome browser.  There
> >> is a place for you to change the DEFAULT of "allow websites to track my
> >> physical location"  Hello?  Seems like a not very freedom-enabling
> >> technology to me...
> >>
>
>
>
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