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Comment by davb | Hacker News Reader

They could support both use cases by popping up a dialog on sign-in to a Google web property:

"You're signing into Gmail. Would you like to link Chrome to joebloggs@gmail.com? This will enable automatic notifications in Gmail, sync passwords and web history, and also automatically log into other Google websites when you visit them".

"Yes / No / No, and don't ask again"

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Excuse my cynism but the options would be:

"Yes / Ask again later"

You're on the right track but it'd probably be a modal popup with "Google is making things better by inventing foo and elevating bar to the height of technology, as part of this change we'll be cloudifying some technical data. [Accept and Continue?]" with a teensy tiny little x in the corner... possibly burying all these in a EULA update.

I’m thinking just a banner along the top of the viewport with “Dismiss” and “Learn more…” buttons. The latter pops up a window with a small gray “More options…” link at the bottom, which invokes a modal with the options “Continue signed in as Alice” and “Manage Profiles…”, the latter of which allows you to disable syncing while simultaneously deleting all your local bookmarks and browser history.

These last couple of comments were probably some exaggerating pun... But after this story I was running privacy checkup, surprisingly found that my location history was on (after turning it off several times long before, which is a separate question why it turns on), turned it off again and then got 404 when trying to delete it. All this in a labyrinth of often circular links without much clue where the actual switch is.

(A year later) 'Over 90% of our users don't choose to turn these settings off. So we made on the default and removed the option.'

... We passed the point where dark UX patterns deserved the benefit of doubt a few years ago.

If it benefits the company, it's intentional.

This thread got progressively more accurate and more depressing at additional comment

Judging by all those post-GDPR popups I frequently receive the text would also contain some text like “by clicking ‘accept’ or ‘X’ you consent to XYZ.”

Theres almost never a true choice.

You don't have to click on 'accept' or 'X'...

I see where you’re going but that’s just not practicable, isn’t it?

Generally if the notification is getting in the way, I delete it from the DOM.

Email harvesting on ecommerce sites have moved on from that to "Yes / I am an evil puppy hater and eat children for breakfast" sort of copy.

Given that the popup sitting in my Gmail window currently says

"Update now / Update in 1 week"

I think you're being a little optimistic.

Yeah, except:

> This will enable automatic notifications in Gmail

> sync passwords and web history

Chrome 69 does not enable either of these things just by signing into Gmail. (Sync being a separate opt-in has been well discussed. I just tested notifications on a new profile: they're not automatically enabled, and if I try to enable them in Gmail settings, I still get the usual browser permissions dialog.)

> and also automatically log into other Google websites when you visit them.

...and this one would happen regardless of any browser involvement.

I’m still not clear about how exactly this new feature is decoupled from sync. Where is the source of truth for the sync setting — is it in cloud or locally in every browser profile?

If I have chrome sync enabled in browser on desktop a, then login to gmail in chrome on desktop b — is the browser history on desktop b now synced ...?

Also curious whether sync implies that old browser history in desktop b is synced to my account or is it guaranteed to be the case that “only browser data collected while logged in” is eligible for being synced between devices ...?

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