Google Criticized For 'Opaque' Audio-Listening Binary In Debian Chromium

Posted by Soulskill on Friday June 19, 2015 @12:58AM from the ok-google-stop-listening-to-me-breathe dept.

An anonymous reader writes: Google has fallen under criticism for including a compiled audio-monitoring binary in Chromium for Debian. A report was logged at Debian's bug register on Tuesday noting the presence of a non-auditable 'hotword' module in Chromium 43. The module facilitates Google's "OK, Google" functionality, which listens for that phrase via a Chrome user's microphone and attempts afterwards to interpret the user's instructions as a search query. Matt Giuca from the Chromium development team responded after the furore developed, disclaiming Google from any responsibility from auditing Chromium code, but promising clearer controls over the feature in release 45.

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Google Criticized For 'Opaque' Audio-Listening Binary In Debian Chromium

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