HTML5 Battery Status API

[gameb0y]

The API does not require user permission to read the battery information, any website or third-party scripts included on them, can use the API. The API also does not require browsers to notify users when the battery information is accessed. That allows website and third-party scripts to access the battery information transparently – without users’ awareness.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/04/battery-attributes-can-be-used-to-track-web-users/

[diracdeltas]

lukasz and i had talked in 2015 about addressing this at the W3C spec level; it appears that this is now addressed in https://w3c.github.io/battery/#security-and-privacy-considerations but we should fix without waiting for upstream changes.

options are:

1. completely disable this API, as tor browser does
2. disable it only in private browsing mode
3. ask for user permission always

i'm inclined to go with (3)

[Dr-Infinity]

My understanding of Brave's philosophy is to put the user in control.
Thus, I agree with diracdeltas choice of 3.
"Ask for user permission always" should be Brave's motto.
"Licentiam petere a user semper" from Google translate.
A little clunky..
"Always ask permission" yields "Semper licentia." from Google translate.
Pithy and appropriate.
c2

[luixxiul]

The API is said to being used to track users already.
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2016/08/web-development-reading-list-148/#privacy

[luixxiul]

Setting a milestone for now.

[diracdeltas]

FF and webkit have removed this feature already. Chromium has an open issue for it, but I don't think we should wait for them. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=661792

[bsclifton]

Awesome! Should be in our next version; Enjoy, @gameb0y 😄