> You don't have to take my word for it. Starting and stopping the hotword module is controlled by some open source code in Chromium itself [3], so while you cannot see the code inside the module, you can trust that it is not actually going to run unless you opt in.
Also:
> I hope this explanation is satisfactory. I am closing this as WontFix because it is already an opt-in feature, and Debian has already removed the component in their distribution of Chromium [2].
I've read the comments on that bug thread and I really struggle to see anything sinister that doesn't require several visits to the tinfoil haberdashery. There are problems around governance, communication and lack of respect for the priorities of the OSS community - but to see this as a failed attempt to listen to the conversations of Chromium users without their consent strikes me as verging on conspiracy thinking.
This part is inaccurate. See: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=500922...
> You don't have to take my word for it. Starting and stopping the hotword module is controlled by some open source code in Chromium itself [3], so while you cannot see the code inside the module, you can trust that it is not actually going to run unless you opt in.
Also:
> I hope this explanation is satisfactory. I am closing this as WontFix because it is already an opt-in feature, and Debian has already removed the component in their distribution of Chromium [2].
I've read the comments on that bug thread and I really struggle to see anything sinister that doesn't require several visits to the tinfoil haberdashery. There are problems around governance, communication and lack of respect for the priorities of the OSS community - but to see this as a failed attempt to listen to the conversations of Chromium users without their consent strikes me as verging on conspiracy thinking.