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google’s catch phrase was something about not being evil, pretty sure that saying is bogus now and has been bogus for a long time. it really seems like they’ve been siding with some highly questionable practices and no official is gonna step in and check them, especially if a government can benefit by passing laws that force google to hand over the keys/info. it’s kinda sick how much we are engulfed with this stuff lately

If the feature only tracks idleness when the user has been appropriately asked, then why care? It sounds like you're just worried instead by a potential future version that works with a completely different permission model and use-case. I don't think that's any more useful to worry about than "what if Google decides to just send someone a virus with their auto updates?" (well ok, maybe that's kind of interesting to worry about but it's not especially related to this API).

>I don't think it's paranoid to assume nefarious intent because web devs weren't asking for this functionality

I use chat webapps occasionally like Discord and it would be very useful there. Right now I usually use the desktop application which is basically a wrapper around the web app with a few more abilities like idleness tracking. It would be nice if the web app could have that functionality so I don't have to run an unsandboxed executable on my computer with access to all my files just for it.

>nor was it impossible before. You add a mouse listener to the page, you check document.hidden, etc.

That only tracks idleness within the current tab, not the whole device. For chat applications that difference is important.

I think you missed my main point which is that for a browser to offer a permission-gated flow to website developers, the browser executable itself needs to have the idle detection system in place. There's no permission to turn _that_ off in the browser itself. It can track your lock screen, and activity outside the browser without prompting you. It's installed automatically by the auto update mechanism.

You could argue that Chrome was already doing this and sending that data back to Google over telemetry. (I don't know if they were.) That's where my second point comes in. Before, they had no justification for this. If they do it, it would look like creepy tracking. Now if you call attention to it they can say oh that's just there to power idleness API, nothing to worry about.

Nefarious intent? This is Google. People should avoid Google like the plague.

Meh, there is so much telemetry pouring out of Chrome, if this wasn't already a capability of the people interpreting that data, I would be surprised.

Feel free to block updates and enjoy security vulnerabilities. Or better yet just build your own version if chromium

Or switch browsers.