I see (what I imagine to be) both perspectives. If you're a programmer, you think of course suggest is talking to google -- that's pretty much the only way it can work. That doesn't really fall under whatever mysterious third-party bodies collecting your browser history that the OP was trying to FUD up the place with.
On the other hand, most people don't stop to think that search suggest is sending each character to get new suggestions, which is "user information" that is collected (though admittedly the privacy policy does say the logs are anonymized within 24 hours). So it really should be in the list of information that Chrome collects, even if it feels self evident to some.
> As I said on Twitter, I'm not really bothered by these things
Well I hope not, considering if you replaced parts of your comment:
"if you don't opt in to anything and you simply type some things into your [Firefox search bar] which get sent to Google for suggestions, or if you don't opt in to anything and you simply [type a malformed] URL [into the AwesomeBar} and that sends data to Google for [a search page], or if you don't opt in to anything and [Firefox queries of] Google's phishing and malware service collects sites you're visiting"
it still applies. and Mozilla essentially sells that information by selecting a third party default based on some non-transparent bid process :P
Personally, I'm just sick of the FUD, especially in comments on an article asking to stop the insinuations and actually list problems so they can be fixed. There are and probably always will be defaults some people disagree with (and feel are doing users a disservice since users rarely change defaults), but there is a world of difference between that and "I don't need to give evidence, I can just feel it. We all know Chrome is etc etc"
There is no bid process. Mozilla sets the default search engine to whatever search engine provides the best search results for its users, as far as that can be determined.
This is why the search engine is different in different locales; for example Yandex has way better Russian search results than Google, and hence is the default search engine in the Russian localization of Firefox.
On the other hand, most people don't stop to think that search suggest is sending each character to get new suggestions, which is "user information" that is collected (though admittedly the privacy policy does say the logs are anonymized within 24 hours). So it really should be in the list of information that Chrome collects, even if it feels self evident to some.
> As I said on Twitter, I'm not really bothered by these things
Well I hope not, considering if you replaced parts of your comment:
"if you don't opt in to anything and you simply type some things into your [Firefox search bar] which get sent to Google for suggestions, or if you don't opt in to anything and you simply [type a malformed] URL [into the AwesomeBar} and that sends data to Google for [a search page], or if you don't opt in to anything and [Firefox queries of] Google's phishing and malware service collects sites you're visiting"
it still applies. and Mozilla essentially sells that information by selecting a third party default based on some non-transparent bid process :P
Personally, I'm just sick of the FUD, especially in comments on an article asking to stop the insinuations and actually list problems so they can be fixed. There are and probably always will be defaults some people disagree with (and feel are doing users a disservice since users rarely change defaults), but there is a world of difference between that and "I don't need to give evidence, I can just feel it. We all know Chrome is etc etc"