Matt Cutts - Google

This is fairly controvercial...how about EGOL, Fathom and the rest spend a few P here and offer your opinion on this statement....

Cutts

In Chrome possibly but it still doesnt answer about whether this happens in the Google Toolbar, or how analyitics data is used.



Privacy issues with google have been at the forefront of news lately and I think that browsers are trending to more privacy. If Google did collect information through Chrome I believe that it would hurt Google more than it would help. Chrome is meant to be a direct competitor to IE and FF. IE8 is supposedly focused strongly on user privacy as FireFox has been for a long time.

Being open Source Shouldnt it be pretty transparent what and how data in teh browser is sent between Google and the User?

Cutts

So when you are not surfing and clicking on links information is going to Google?
I'm not surfing or clicking on links now so is this info going to Google? (and yes I am using Chrome)

Just like I didn't see a need to switch to Opera or Firefox I won't be using chrome (I tried it).

The average web user searches with Google.com I invest time there.

The average web user browses with IE... that's how I'll view the web... if 50% +1 head to Chrome... I will to!

I don't have any problems with Chrome - or any other Google service. Here's how I see it....

1) Google treats me great. They send organic traffic to my website, pay me adsense every month, let me use great tools like feedburner, gmail, documents, Earth, desktop, blogger, news, widgets, maps, directions, API tools, search and more.

2) I am not doing anything on the web that their knowing about it or handing it over the the police (or anyone else) will get me into any kind of trouble.

3) I use their tools knowing that they might use data from my PC for some purpose.

This is not an issue for me. If it was an issue I have the choice not to use their free stuff.

"- If you’re just surfing around the web and clicking on links, that information does not go to google.com."


But if you use it to bookmark pages?

When you install the browser you have an opt-in to pass data to Google regarding system use and events such as crashes


It may just be an attempt to try and dislodge IE's dominant position in the browser marketplace, but I wouldn't be surprised if when someone reverse engineers it you see browsing patterns passed back to Google (though it will probably not be traceable to individual users to guard privacy).

So essentially, by doing something active to the "omnibar" clicking on it, or typing into it, any information is passed on to Google (so long as you haven't opted-out), but if you were to click on a link from that page, that information (that click and potential change of page) won't be sent, it's a passive event.

That doesn't take into account the bookmarks, or the 9 most frequently visited sites page, two of the perhaps most important aspects of the browser, considering what google might read into it. I'd like a definitive ruling on that from Google.

If bookmarks and favorites are passed back, and a lot of people have your site on their most frequent visits I think you can be sure that it will effect your rankings, even if it's just a temporary trend/fashion boost. Hopefully that will get you actual solid links in the meantime.

That's how I read it. I'm not looking to switch from Firefox, but I can see that if Chrome takes off it could be a potent tool in Google's (and possibly our) arsenal.

It is a great stealthy opportunity for Google to collect information which they could not with their search engine alone.

Google definitely has some intentions to gather user data (analytics, trending, behaviour and stuff) and they are throwing mediums to gather all that. And they are doing so to make their search engines better (they claim), however, privacy will remain an issue, while they claim that Incognitio window will protect somewhat, but than who will protect from transferring data to google..?

Would that mean manual intervention in the coming time?? For example they see some malicious uploads or fake clicks/trends they can easily track leaving no ne to counter claim?

Umm I feel, if you see this all with a suspicious eye, then it will appear worse than anything.. However, to a layman, it might appear attractive..

There is definitely something going to happen with the information that is being sent.. and you cant do a darn thing about it except to uninstall the Chrome, Like I DID!!

I was eagerly waiting for it, but its a sheer disappointment.. except for the fact its quite fast due to process based modules,

My SEO tasks are being tracked.. oh lord! Uninstall, F1


PS: Gary and all, What would you interpret from this, what matt said here:



Well how will they do that?? Just by tracking the user data?? Isnt that obvious? no? or something else?

I completely agree with you EGOL and agree that I love Google but where do you think the line is between privacy and collected information? And will some seo not just manipulate the info anyway (like they are doing now anyway)?

Great strategy by Google. This is just by opinion:

a. Google looks their business ahead, and their algo relies on links which can be manipulated and can yield misleading results.

b. If they have a browser, user data can possibly give a much better view of the internet more than links by possibly gathering data. This raises a lot of privacy issues.

If they think of competing with IE and FF, will be a tough road. If they think of using user statistics to improve their searches, will be easy. Statistics gathered from Chrome users will validate their search results from their link based algo.

Though some privacy issues here.

Will we be seeing adverts in the omnibar any time soon?

The privacy issues are the same as those of the google toolbar, and both have an opt-out (although with a slightly (evil) misleading description admittedly). I don't like it any more than anyone else, but a large company was never going to do this without gaining something from it.

This is only going to help the algorithm's accuracy, cementing their dominance for years to come.

I think we can expect FF and maybe IE borrowing a lot of code from Chrome to play catch up, only difference is that people are more likely to be outraged if MS harvest anonymous user stats. :)

Well so far I have to say that I like the new browser. It's definitely faster all round, and the new Javascript engine is a big improvement on other browsers.

Am I concerned about it being used for tracking user stats? No. If Google want to track that then there's plenty of other ways for them to do so. Usage stats from Google search pages have been tracked for a long time now. If they wanted feedback then the Google toolbar seems a better method since I'd expect that to have a bigger market penetration (especially amongst IE users) than a whole new browser. Then there's Google Analytics -- that would seem to me to be an ideal way of gathering usage data to validate against other areas of their search algorithms.

Lastly, that it's open source would make it quite obvious to anyone that wanted to find out that they are tracking. Having openly stated what is and is not being passed to and from Google, it would be a marketing nightmare for them if it was revealed that there was far more going on than had previously been claimed. I love a good conspiracy as much as the next programmer, but I really don't think there's one to be found here.

If you're still that concerned then fine. Use IE, search via MSN, don't install Google Toolbar, don't have a Google account, don't use GWT, and don't use Analytics. Oh, and do keep that tin-foil hat on!!

To those that are so far unimpressed with the browser, bear in mind that it's still in Beta and only just launched. In 12 months from now, consider how many third party add-ons will be available in addition to the extra development work by Google themselves.

Yes, as it stands there's a few things I'd like to see done differently. Bookmark management for example is quite different to what I'm used to on Firefox. But a couple of minutes working out Chrome's way to manage them got over that stumbling block.

For general browsing and searching on Windows I'll be using it from now on. Once there's a Linux version I'll be using it much more extensively since I spend more time with Linux than I do with Windows. That's not to say I'll no longer be using other browsers though -- there's features in all of them that aren't available in others. For web dev work you just can't beat some of the add-ons in FF.