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Comment by yarone | Hacker News Reader

Lots of "Live chat" customer-support type systems do it this way. You can see what your prospective customers are typing as they type. Every character, backspace, etc.

A bit creepy and violates privacy expectations, I think.

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What. Someone should do something about this. I absolutely am shocked by this.

It is really terrible. https://lifehacker.com/customer-service-chat-services-see-ev...

Do what? I would have been surprised if this wasn't the case. Websites see every keystroke you make while their targeted. People should realize that. If they don't, they're in for some rude surprises.

The browsers could buffer the text in text fields until the field loses focus (clicked another field or submit) or hit enter. It would break search-as-you-type functionality, but not the biggest loss in the world.

devs would just catch keyboard events and simulate text fields you're not getting this one back in pandora's box

There's always the option of typing your stuff in another program entirely and copy/pasting. Sure, not everyone would be willing to do that, but it's really not that inconvenient if you know your keyboard shortcuts (ctrl+a, ctrl+c, alt+tab, ctrl+v in that order, easy for a competent computer user). And socially anxious people may be more comfortable with that overall.

Copy+paste won't trigger keyboard events to my knowledge. So if the page was just simulating a text input field, paste wouldn't work. (Which would cause issues e.g. pasting account numbers to be fair.)

There are quite a few browser extensions that make this easier. The best is Pentadactyl, a complete UI overhaul for vi bindings everywhere that lets you hit Control + i to open any text field in any (blocking) external editor (gvim -f by default), so you can type out your message and then type ZZ to send all the text to the field at once. However, it’s only for XUL browsers. I think there are also WebExtensions that offer similar external editor support, but when I use browsers limited to them I use wasavi, which pops up a javascript-powered vi clone inside the browser (but still only sends the text down to the area when you save). IIRC SurfingKeys also has a similar thing, with a codemirror-based editor that’s IME more limited than wasavi. Of course none of these work on exceptionally complicated things like Google Docs, but they often work on simpler WYSIWYG rich text areas, and wasavi and maybe SurfingKeys even support converting the HTML within them to Markdown while editing, and back when you save.

How about disabling all network actions until user hits send button. I know very complicated to implement.

receiving raw keyboard events should require special permissisions then like audio and video.

Maybe we can achieve that when we create the next internet.

Browsers already have good UX reasons to do something like this. They should offer version history on textareas, for example, so you don't need to ever worry about losing state.

But they don't. So I build it (draft system) for my users by saving what they type as they type it, and they are very thankful.

If you would kill my ability to build that feature, then you better replace it with a solution.

For a site being creepy that way it's usually shoved into a database somewhere. Not shown to a human.

Yeah, tools like Salesforce/etc. make this absolutely trivial.

I once realized this was happening when the customer service rep was replying to me almost immediately after I hit send. Initially I was like how the hell did you reply/type this fast, but it dawned on me after a few more messages.

Not sure I get the outrage to this one. Do you anticipate typing private info, backspacing, then replacing it with some bland query about switching internet plans? The only time I might have minded true real-time chat was in grade school talking to girls I fancied, but other than that, it makes a lot of sense. Saves time for the support agent and if they get a computer illiterate customer typing at 1 WPM who doesn't know to use enter to send, they can at least try to help.

Now, if it were a normal web form, I'd feel differently, but if I've opened a support chat session, it's because I want to send the things I type to support.

> Do you anticipate typing private info, backspacing, then replacing it with some bland query about switching internet plans?

I anticipate people accidentally pasting something from their clipboard that could be private/sensitive.

Or typing an irate and cursing message that they don't intend to send, deleting it, and then sending a polite message based on the first.

This might work in the customer's favor though as the rep might offer concessions to try and get back on good terms

Or they get irate at how dare they secretly be irate at me, I'm sick of all the irate people!

Or they may decide to put in minimum effort or just close the conversation saying "I'm glad we were able to help you."

I used Verizon's recently, and it was actually forthcoming about this. I think it was part of the text content shown when the connection began (after the annoying pre-chat Q&A during which they try to convince you they can solve your problem without involving a human).

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