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Comment by bjhoops1 | Hacker News Reader

I hope to god this does not become widespread. I type all sorts of crazy shit in text boxes. Everyone's basic assumption is that no information is sent until you hit 'enter'. Deploying this in the wild would seem like a huge invasion of privacy. Akin to turning on a user's webcam and a screen capture to turn your users into unwitting usability testers. In other words, please use this responsibly.

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Brett, we looked at this more like instant search results (similar to what most search engines do already) where the server updates the results as the user types into the query box. The human operator does increase the privacy questions, though.

I robbed Fort Knox- I look at it more like I'm simply relocating the gold bars from place to place. The fact that it's all in my basement does increase the grand larceny questions, though.

Woah, Deja Vu!

No deja vu: just repeating myself so folks don't have to scroll through the entire page looking for responses that may apply to their comments (they may still do so if they choose, but they don't have to).

Ah, yes - Instant Search... I thought about that as I typed this. I typically find myself naively hoping that Google treats Instant Search differently than (Actual? Real? Not sure what non-instant would be called) Regular Search, and does not store my fingers' wanderings.

A visual cue such as Instant Search makes it much clearer that the server is reacting to your input, I suppose. Absent that, it is rather worrisome.

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