- From: Adam Shannon <adam@ashannon.us>
- Date: Fri, 13 May 2011 19:02:34 -0500
- To: Kyle Simpson <getify@gmail.com>
- Cc: public-web-perf@w3.org
First, I think it's well known that prompting users for permission (or any purpose) doesn't actually work. Users tend to just "want" the page to work, and if a dialog is in their way they don't care. Secondly, can't a page already figure out how long you've been on the page? // Something like this (function () { window.mySecretCode.timestarted = +new Date(); })(); window.onunload = function () { var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest(); xhr.open('GET', '...' + '?timespent=' + (+new Date() - window.mySecretCode.timestarted), false); xhr.send(null); }; I think it is a huge privacy concern and I like the idea that this namespace could only be seen/used by same-origin scripts. On Fri, May 13, 2011 at 18:50, Kyle Simpson <getify@gmail.com> wrote: > One major privacy concern I (and others I chatted with on Mozilla's > #developers IRC) have is that third-party scripts (like ad providers, etc) > would be able to monitor this type of data (page visibility) and gain > valuable (to them!) information which a user might not want them to have, > such as how long I stay viewing a page, etc. > > I think this is possibly an intractable concern, unless there's some way to > enforce that only scripts which originated from the same exact domain as the > page could access such data, not all JS from any location. > > Alternatively (and possibly more usefully, for the user education/knowledge > perspective), maybe this feature could be an opt-in prompt similar to > geolocation... so that user-agents have to ask the user for permission (and > allow it to be a rememberable preference) before giving that information to > the page (of course, only if the page tries to access it). > > The prompt could be something like: "The site you are viewing wants to > monitor some aspects of how you use the browser window to view this page, > possibly for optimizing the performance while the page is inactive in your > browser." > > --Kyle > > > > > > -- Adam Shannon Web Developer University of Northern Iowa Sophomore -- Computer Science B.S. http://ashannon.us
Received on Saturday, 14 May 2011 00:03:22 UTC