775087 - Google search suggest in Firefox on Android with an opt out.

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 769145

(mozilla.org :: Security Assurance: Review Request, task, P2)

Description

[Curtis Koenig [:curtisk-use curtis.koenig+bzATgmail.com]]]

+++ This bug was initially created as a clone of Bug #772242 +++

Priority for your Team:
High

Timeframe for Completion:
a week

Goal:
Advance Firefox on Android

Business Objective:


Other Party:


Description:
We'd like to include Google Suggest suggestions in Firefox on Android's "awesomescreen." This means that, when a user types in the combined URL/search bar, we would use the Google Suggest API to show some google search suggestions for what's been typed so far; these suggestions would show up in their own area of the screen, above the suggestions pulled from the user's own history/bookmarks (i.e. awesomebar results).

The value here is that the suggestions very often short circuit the need to type out the entirety of what the user is searching for. This is a capability that other mobile browsers take advantage of, and that we currently lack.

To be clear - this is using the same mechanism as in the desktop Firefox search bar, but more integrated into Firefox on Android's one search/awesomebar screen. Included in the feature is an option in browser preferences to turn it off.


This has been built in bug 586885 (it's currently in Nightly builds).
Here is a screenshot from the nightly: http://www.flickr.com/photos/madhava_work/7538623222/in/photostream



So, to the question. A bug has been opened to make this feature explicitly opt-in rather than on by default with an opt out in prefs. UX's opinion is that this is of such great user value that we should not put any speedbumps in the user's way, and that the opt-out pref exists for those with concerns. Does that seem reasonable? Would our privacy policy have to change?

Thanks!

Comment 1

[Curtis Koenig [:curtisk-use curtis.koenig+bzATgmail.com]]]

[+geekboy]
I think you and I have talked about this, and in bug 586885 we asked for a pref to turn this off if a user so chooses. ATM this is off by default and they want to change it to on by default, the pref to opt out would still be there.

Do we need to do a full privacy review on this or is what we have already done sufficient?

Comment 2

[Stefan Arentz | :st3fan | ⏰ EST | he/him]

I was poking a bit at this and I noticed that the requests that are done to Google are not going through my proxy server, even though I have configured one. I do see other requests, both HTTP and HTTPS, go correctly through my proxy server.

Is this on purpose? Or is the code that retrieves the suggestions maybe not looking at the proxy settings?

Comment 3

[Sid Stamm [:geekboy or :sstamm]]

(In reply to Curtis Koenig [:curtisk] from comment #1)
> Do we need to do a full privacy review on this or is what we have already
> done sufficient?

I think we should do a privacy review, though we can skip over most of the nitty gritty and get right to a public discussion (which is probably already happening).  The main thing is to document what issues are brought up and how we resolve them.

Procedural stuff aside, I'm not convinced on-by-default is the right choice, although it's the easiest to implement.  Instead of turning it on by default, I think we can get a little creative; what if we show (where the suggestions *would* be, were it on) an "on" switch that says something like "enable suggestions (sends keystrokes to Google)"?

Comment 4

[Jishnu Menon :jishnu]

+1 with Sid's approach. 

Curtis - has this or the previous version gone through data safety?

Also, to answer your question, yes, we will need to modify our privacy policy with either implementation so we should get started on that text - Curtis, please reach out to Alina to start both the data safety process (if it hasn't happened yet) as well as start modifications of the privacy policy.

Comment 5

[Curtis Koenig [:curtisk-use curtis.koenig+bzATgmail.com]]]

jmenon: I have no idea as I am not involved with the Data Safety stuff, I am only program managing the technical privacy side. I think it would be more appropriate for the team championing this change to drive the process with data safety and in regards to modifications of our privacy policy.

Sid: I will go ahead and start that process today (just coming back from 2 weeks of PTO).

Comment 6

[Curtis Koenig [:curtisk-use curtis.koenig+bzATgmail.com]]]

Link to dev-planning discussion https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/mozilla.dev.planning/u7zWfj3oTsQ

Comment 7

[Sid Stamm [:geekboy or :sstamm]]

The team is implementing an opt-in UI in bug 769145.