I picked this up from StupidEvilBastard, which he found at Beyond Binary:
The auto-suggest feature of Google’s new Chrome browser does more than just help users get where they are going. It will also give Google a wealth of information on what people are doing on the Internet besides searching.
Provided that users leave Chrome’s auto-suggest feature on and have Google as their default search provider, Google will have access to any keystrokes that are typed into the browser’s Omnibox, even before a user hits enter.
What’s more, Google has every intention of retaining some of that data even after it provides the promised suggestions. A Google representative told CNET News that the company plans to store about 2 percent of that data–and plans to store it along with the Internet Protocol address of the computer that typed it.
In theory, that means that if one were to type the address of a site–even if they decide not to hit enter–they could leave incriminating evidence on Google’s servers.
Welp, that leaves me out of the Chrome Revolution. Every time I install new software, I just okay all those user agreements, because … what choice do you have? The checkbox you click on is basically to let you acknowledge: “I agree to be ****ed up the wazoo by this and all other software companies, now and in the future, forever.”
But if Chrome is going to spy on me, and I DO have a choice, I’m taking the other route.
Back to Firefox.