Tag Archives: Google

CyanogenMod removes tracking opt-out, reverses decision, but still uses Google Analytics

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The most successful and best managed version of Android CyanogenMod is gathering data from users for statistical purposes. The statistics are public and users have the chance to opt-out of being counted. On March 31st this changed. The founder of the CyanogenMod initiative Steve Kondik removed the opt-out feature from the source code (commit). He explained his reasons in the commit message: Not having an accurate count of how many people are using CM is painful. I am making an executive decision to remove the opt-out and always turn stats on. The data is anonymized and there is nothing evil … Continue reading →

Google and Open Video Standards

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As some of you might have heard, Google released an experimental player for Youtube that works without Adobe Flash, last Wednesday. While they are “very excited about HTML5 as an open standard” (from the announcement), they surprisingly chose not to offer the content as such and instead serve videos in a patent-encumbered format. As Google has not yet stated whether it will add videos in an unencumbered format, this clearly strengthens the stand of proprietary solutions in the ongoing debate about the future of video in HTML and disappoints those of us who expected Google to live up to their … Continue reading →