Google is listening to you, Israeli tech-blogger reveals
Internet giant takes heat, backs down, after secretly installing software capable of picking up conversations
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An exterior view of the Google office in Mountain View, California. Google office image via Shutterstock)
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Google
secretly installed software capable of picking up conversations held in
front of a computer, a Melbourne-based Israeli tech blogger revealed
this week. Faced with an outcry over the practice, the internet giant
promised on Wednesday that it would remove the offending component.
Installed
in Chromium, the open-source basis for the Google Chrome browser (used
by close to 35% of people), the software was meant to support “OK,
Google,” a “hotword detection” feature which prompts a response when you
talk to it. But, in effect, Google’s code has actually downloaded
“audio listeners onto every computer that runs Chrome, and transmits
audio data back to Google,” according to a privacy website run by Swedish IT entrepreneur and founder of the Swedish Pirate party Rick Falkvinge.
A Google spokesman initially told the Guardian:
“We’re sure you’ll be relieved to learn we’re not listening to your
conversations – nor do we want to. We’re simply giving Chrome users the
ability to search hands free at their computers by saying “OK Google”
while on the Google homepage – and only if they choose to opt in to the
feature.”
On Wednesday,
however, Google announced it was removing the hotwording component
entirely from Chromium, acknowledging: “It is not open source, it does
not belong in the open source browser.”
Blogger Ofer Zelig offered a hair-raising account of what the listening component looks like from a user’s perspective.
“A
few days ago, while I was working on my PC at home, I noticed something
strange. My PC has a web camera (combined with a microphone) that sits
on top of my monitor, and the camera has a small blue LED that lights
when the camera and/or microphone are operating,” Zelig wrote on his
blog.
“While
I was working I thought I’m noticing that an LED goes on and off, on
the corner of my eyesight. And after a few times when it just seemed
weird, I sat to watch for it and saw it happening. Every few seconds or
so. I opened Task Manager (I’m working on Windows. Apologies.) and
looked for a process to blame on that dodgy activity. Who is listening
to me? I didn’t find anything. I know my PC pretty well and I didn’t
have any crappy malware accidentally installed. There were a few
suspicious processes that I shut down but it didn’t make any difference,
and I left it like that.
“And
then I’ve come across this bug report – it’s Google! And according to
them it’s not a bug! They silently put this new module in Chrome.”
The news had internet privacy advocates up in arms.
“Google
had taken itself the right to listen to every conversation in every
room that runs Chrome somewhere, without any kind of consent from the
people eavesdropped on. In official statements, Google shrugged off the
practice with what amounts to ‘we can do that,'” wrote Falkvinge.
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