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Firefox Disables Loophole that Allows Sites To Track Users Via Battery Status (theguardian.com)

Posted by msmash on from the fixing-things dept.

New submitter xogg writes: Battery Status API allows web sites to read the battery level of user's system. The API was found to bring privacy risks and abuse potential and a number of implementation bugs. Now with apparent no legitimate use cases, Mozilla is taking the unprecedented decision to vaporize a browser API due to privacy concerns. And apparently, WebKit, powering Apple's Safari follows. Is that the first time a browser reduces functionality following research reports warning of privacy risks?

5 of 104 comments (clear)

  1. Reducing Functionality? by iYk6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I would hardly call this reducing functionality. Technically, sure. But a web browser is supposed to browse the web, and this API wasn't helping any.

  2. We've gone too far by Virtucon · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Stop introspecting the device within the browser framework. Browse the web, run sandboxed script code, but stop digging into the device. Leave the other information mining to apps with appropriate user controls to say fuck off when appropriate.

    --
    Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
  3. Better solution by presidenteloco · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Just replace the battery percentage value, if that's what the API was returning with an BatteryIsLow() boolean, which could be set at something arbitrary, like 30%.

    This way, the valid use cases, like control of video serving or "intensity", could still work, but the privacy concern would be gone. You can't effectively track someone in general just by knowing the times when they transition around 30%. That would be too rare to be a useful tracking data point.

    --

    Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
    1. Re:Better solution by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 4, Interesting

      How about just "on battery power" or "plugged in"?

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  4. Fuck you (-10000 Flaimbate) by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 5, Insightful

    There were many promising use cases for this functionality, which now have gone into the shitter.

    Horseshit. No website has *any fucking business whatsoever* accessing my hardware in such a fashion, period.

    And I am perfectly capable of reading my device's battery monitor on my own, thanks very much.

    And if websites didn't on serving up "video intensive" ads, ad blockers might not be in such high demand.

    And you're a complete asshole for wanting to be an enabler of this shit.

    Go die in a fire.

    --
    Il n'y a pas de Planet B.