Intent to Deprecate: speechSynthesis.speak without user activation

[Charles Harrison‏]

Contact emails

cshar...@chromium.org, dmaz...@chromium.org

Explainer

N/A

Spec

Unofficial draft: https://w3c.github.io/speech-api/webspeechapi.html#tts-section

TAG review skipped, as this is a simple change to an existing API. I couldn’t find documentation for what changes require TAG review.

Summary

The SpeechSynthesis API is actively being abused on the web. We don’t have hard data on abuse, but since other autoplay avenues are starting to be closed, abuse is anecdotally moving to the Web Speech API, which doesn't follow autoplay rules.

After deprecation, the plan is to cause speechSynthesis.speak to immediately fire an error if specific autoplay rules are not satisfied. This will align it with other audio APIs in Chrome.

Demo link:

https://cr.kungfoo.net/speech/immediately-speak.html

Is this feature supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS, Android, and Android WebView)?

Yes (except Android WebView, which does not support Web Speech API)

Risks

Interoperability and Compatibility

Compat risk is medium, but we only recently added UseCounters which are in M69 dev right now, so take data with a grain of salt. Data is broken out by Android / ChromeOS / Other.

New UseCounters:

Android: .04% page visits impacted (.06% of page visits use speak())

ChromeOS: .0008% page visits impacted (.005% page visits use speak())

Other Desktop: .001% page visits impacted (.003% page visits use speak())

Use counts are most concerning on Android, but we also think that might be where a lot of the abuse is.

Existing UMA:

All data from the histogram TextToSpeech.Utterance.FromExtensionAPI which logs global utterances from the Web Speech API as well. Data is from all channels.

Android: 1.18% of unqiue users / day

ChromeOs: .24% of unique users / day

Other Desktop: .12% of unique users / day

HTTPArchive:

I ran a few HTTPArchive queries. The results show that the API is most used by a small-ish number of libraries (ads, youtube, googleapis, etc).

HTTPArchive Total Pages

SELECT page FROM [httparchive:har.2018_02_01_chrome_requests_bodies] WHERE body CONTAINS 'speechSynthesis.speak' GROUP BY page

This returned 38467 pages.

HTTPArchive Total Subresources

SELECT url FROM [httparchive:har.2018_02_01_chrome_requests_bodies] WHERE body CONTAINS 'speechSynthesis.speak' GROUP BY url

This returned 2210 subresource URLs

HTTPArchive Total Subresource Domains

SELECT DOMAIN(url) as domain FROM [httparchive:har.2018_02_01_chrome_requests_bodies] WHERE body CONTAINS 'speechSynthesis.speak' GROUP BY domain

This returned 192 subresource domains.

Edge: No signals

Firefox: No signals

Safari: No signals, but this change will match Safari on iOS

Web developers: No signals

Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests? Link to test suite results from wpt.fyi.

The speech synthesis API could be tested better on WPT, but here is the dashboard.

https://wpt.fyi/results/speech-api

https://crbug.com/855701 is the Chromium bug to upstream the remaining layout tests (and unbreak existing tests).

Entry on the feature dashboard

https://www.chromestatus.com/features/5687444770914304

Requesting approval to ship?

No. Plan is to deprecate with a warning in M69/M70, to drive down usage and also collect more data. Ideally we could fully remove in M70/M71 once we have a clearer idea of usage, but I will leave that for another intent.

[PhistucK‏]

If I remember correctly, when <video> and <audio> got the autoplay prevention treatment, their play() was made to return a promise.

Maybe this is a good change for this one, too?

☆PhistucK

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[Charles Harrison‏]

Hey PhistucK,

I'm not sure changing the API to return a promise improves ergonomics here. Developers must already handle Web Speech errors anyway, so I don't see a strong need to add another error mechanism.

[Mounir Lamouri‏]

I do not know the specifics of the Web Speech API but when we added the promise to `play()`, there was already solutions to discover if playback was blocked or failed but the promise made this much simpler for developers.

-- Mounir

On Fri, 22 Jun 2018, at 22:01, Charles Harrison wrote:
> Hey PhistucK,
> I'm not sure changing the API to return a promise improves ergonomics here.
> Developers must already handle Web Speech errors

> <https://w3c.github.io/speech-api/webspeechapi.html#dfn-utteranceonerror>

> anyway, so I don't see a strong need to add another error mechanism.
>
> On Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 4:51 PM PhistucK <phis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > If I remember correctly, when <video> and <audio> got the autoplay
> > prevention treatment, their play() was made to return a promise.
> > Maybe this is a good change for this one, too?
> >

> > ☆*PhistucK*

> >
> >
> > On Fri, Jun 22, 2018 at 10:33 PM Charles Harrison <cshar...@chromium.org>
> > wrote:
> >
> >>
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> >> *Contact emailscs...@chromium.org <cshar...@chromium.org>,
> >> dmaz...@chromium.org <dmaz...@chromium.org>ExplainerN/ASpecUnofficial
> >> draft: https://w3c.github.io/speech-api/webspeechapi.html#tts-section

> >> <https://w3c.github.io/speech-api/webspeechapi.html#tts-section>TAG review
> >> skipped, as this is a simple change to an existing API. I couldn’t find
> >> documentation for what changes require TAG review.SummaryThe
> >> SpeechSynthesis API is actively being abused on the web. We don’t have hard
> >> data on abuse, but since other autoplay avenues are starting to be closed,
> >> abuse is anecdotally moving to the Web Speech API, which doesn't follow

> >> autoplay rules.After deprecation, the plan is to cause

> >> speechSynthesis.speak to immediately fire an error if specific autoplay
> >> rules

> >> <https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/third_party/blink/renderer/core/html/media/autoplay_policy.h?rcl=969df46dbbeb3b74548f964ac67f13533afb1297&l=21>

> >> are not satisfied. This will align it with other audio APIs in Chrome. Demo
> >> link:https://cr.kungfoo.net/speech/immediately-speak.html
> >> <https://cr.kungfoo.net/speech/immediately-speak.html>Is this feature
> >> supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS,

> >> Android, and Android WebView)?Yes (except Android WebView, which does not
> >> support Web Speech API)RisksInteroperability and CompatibilityCompat risk

> >> is medium, but we only recently added UseCounters which are in M69 dev
> >> right now, so take data with a grain of salt. Data is broken out by Android

> >> / ChromeOS / Other.New UseCounters:Android: .04% page visits impacted (.06%
> >> of page visits use speak())ChromeOS: .0008% page visits impacted (.005%
> >> page visits use speak())Other Desktop: .001% page visits impacted (.003%
> >> page visits use speak())Use counts are most concerning on Android, but we
> >> also think that might be where a lot of the abuse is.Existing UMA:All data

> >> from the histogram TextToSpeech.Utterance.FromExtensionAPI which logs
> >> global utterances from the Web Speech API as well. Data is from all

> >> channels.Android: 1.18% of unqiue users / dayChromeOs: .24% of unique users
> >> / dayOther Desktop: .12% of unique users / dayHTTPArchive:I ran a few

> >> HTTPArchive queries. The results show that the API is most used by a
> >> small-ish number of libraries (ads, youtube, googleapis, etc).HTTPArchive

> >> Total PagesSELECT page FROM

> >> [httparchive:har.2018_02_01_chrome_requests_bodies] WHERE body CONTAINS
> >> 'speechSynthesis.speak' GROUP BY pageThis returned 38467 pages.HTTPArchive

> >> Total SubresourcesSELECT url FROM

> >> [httparchive:har.2018_02_01_chrome_requests_bodies] WHERE body CONTAINS
> >> 'speechSynthesis.speak' GROUP BY urlThis returned 2210 subresource

> >> URLsHTTPArchive Total Subresource DomainsSELECT DOMAIN(url) as domain FROM

> >> [httparchive:har.2018_02_01_chrome_requests_bodies] WHERE body CONTAINS
> >> 'speechSynthesis.speak' GROUP BY domainThis returned 192 subresource

> >> domains.Edge: No signals Firefox: No signalsSafari: No signals, but this
> >> change will match Safari on iOSWeb developers: No signalsIs this feature
> >> fully tested by web-platform-tests
> >> <https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/master/docs/testing/web_platform_tests.md>?

> >> Link to test suite results from wpt.fyi

> >> <https://wpt.fyi/results/?label=experimental>.The speech synthesis API

> >> could be tested better on WPT, but here is the dashboard.
> >> https://wpt.fyi/results/speech-api

> >> <https://wpt.fyi/results/speech-api>https://crbug.com/855701

> >> <https://crbug.com/855701> is the Chromium bug to upstream the remaining
> >> layout tests (and unbreak existing tests).Entry on the feature dashboard

> >> <http://www.chromestatus.com/>https://www.chromestatus.com/features/5687444770914304
> >> <https://www.chromestatus.com/features/5687444770914304>Requesting approval
> >> to ship?No. Plan is to deprecate with a warning in M69/M70, to drive down

> >> usage and also collect more data. Ideally we could fully remove in M70/M71
> >> once we have a clearer idea of usage, but I will leave that for another

> >> intent.*

> >>
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> >> <https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/CADjAqN5tNm3_5O410Om%2BTet6vz_1UCo3VKNJvOQyswwqsy8wDw%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
> >> .

> >>
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[Charles Harrison‏]

Thanks Mounir for the background. I'm definitely open to making this change if API owners (and owners of speech API) prefer it.

[Reilly Grant‏]

Assuming the use counter statistics can be compared this way it looks like 66% of all speechSynthesis.speak() calls on Android, 16% on Chrome OS and 33% on other desktop platforms will be effected by this change. Can we do an analysis whether there are sites that will be completely broken by this change rather than degraded? I'm mostly concerned about those that are using it for accessibility purposes.

Reilly Grant | Software Engineer | rei...@chromium.org | Google Chrome

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[Charles Harrison‏]

Hi Reilly,

I think the way to do this will be to log UKM metrics for these counters. I will go ahead and do that now so we can get per-URL metrics about breakage in M69.

[Yoav Weiss‏]

Switching the API to return a promise (instead of the current void) SGTM.

Are there any other learnings from the `autoplay` issues we ran into when trying to block it on user activation?

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[Dominic Mazzoni‏]

I'm not sure I understand the purpose of returning a Promise.

Do you want the Promise to be fulfilled if the user does interact with the page later?

If not, why couldn't it just return a boolean true or false? We know synchronously whether the user has interacted with the page or not.

Also, SpeechSynthesis already has an error callback, it seems confusing to add another mechanism.

[Yoav Weiss‏]

Mounir - can you expand on why the promise returning mechanism had a positive user-ergonomics effect on the video autoplay case?

[Charles Harrison‏]

Hey folks,

We’ve added UKM metrics since version 69.0.3474.0. While data is still very new, the trends are definitely suggestive (see internal go/speech-autoplay-deprecation-data for query). For all the cases where speak would have been disallowed via autoplay policy (across all platforms):

- About half of the origins were not known by Google’s web crawlers and thus were not included in the analysis.

- Among the remaining origins, I haven’t yet encountered any that would be affected by this deprecation that serve anything other than ad content. Most origins do not have landing pages, and searching for these origins only yields what appear to be spam posts on Twitter, posting direct links to ads hosted there.

Given the above, I believe we should proceed with the deprecation notice in M69 if we can make branch cut.

[Charles Harrison‏]

To add a bit of detail, I've manually gone through the top ~10 of these origins that would be affected. None of them have landing pages but for most of them I was able to find a reference to an ad hosted on the origin using Google search. For the rest, many of the origins reference lotteries or winning prizes but I haven't manually checked all of them. I'll probably be able to do a more detailed analysis when we have more data though.

[Malte Ubl‏]

One thing that would be good to clarify:

Do future .speak() calls always succeed if a previous one succeeded (has a user action) for the window?

For video/audio elements that ever were allowed to play can play again (including different sources) in the future. The SpeechSynthesis API doesn't really have an equivalent element to which the autoplay privilege could be attached.

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[Charles Harrison‏]

Hi Malte, for a frame that calls speak(), its autoplay privileges are determined by whether the frame or any of its parent frames have ever received activation.

So if your frame has has activation and speak() succeeds, it should always succeed for that load. The autoplay is governed by the frame and not any specific element in this case.

[Philip Jägenstedt‏]

Hi Charles,

Can you go ahead and file an issue on https://github.com/w3c/speech-api/issues/ to make this change in the spec as well, or a PR directly?

Especially if speak() is made to return a promise, this is easily web observable and testable, so I think we should treat the spec+test situation similar to an Intent to Ship.

Like Reilly I also wonder about the potential breakage here, and I would not be surprised if we find that a large majority of usage would be broken entirely. If that is the case, then this change will require some care to get done.

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[Charles Harrison‏]

Thanks Philip, I filed https://github.com/w3c/speech-api/issues/27 to track this.

Do you mean we should track the removal as an intent to ship, or the deprecation (this intent)? I was hoping we could migrate the LayoutTests to WPT after landing the warning but before actually shipping.

[Philip Jägenstedt‏]

I didn't mean that this should be an Intent to Ship, just the "Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests? Link to test suite results from wpt.fyi." bit of shipping makes sense in this case too.

Whether the tests are written/modified directly in LayoutTests/external/wpt/speech-api/ or if some of LayoutTests/fast/speechsynthesis/ is modified and upstream, and when, whatever makes sense to you is fine :)

The most pressing question now I think is how this will affect web developers, as we ought not deprecate until we're fairly confident that our plan/timeline for removal will work out. The preliminary data you have from https://www.chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/2473 vs. https://www.chromestatus.com/metrics/feature/timeline/popularity/2471 suggests that something up to 2/3 of usage will be broken, even if the usage in absolute terms isn't huge.

From the httparchive search, were you able to extract out any typical example usages, to see how it will be broken? Or must we wait for UKM metrics?

[Charles Harrison‏]

Thanks, that makes sense. I dug deeper into HTTP Archive to try to see typical usage patterns.

Because most of the usage is in ads script or more general "base" libraries, I grouped by resource domain first to get more diversity.

I manually went through the first ~20 entries that weren't obviously generic libraries, and collected the results in this sheet. The majority of cases used a play button to start speaking, which means the site would be fine with the autoplay restrictions. For many of the sites I couldn't find how they used the API, or I couldn't get the UI to actually issue a speak command. I couldn't get any site to speak() in way which would break from this change.

Query:

SELECT

  ANY_VALUE(page),

  ANY_VALUE(url),

  FORMAT("%T", NET.REG_DOMAIN(url)) as domain

FROM

  httparchive.har.2018_02_01_chrome_requests_bodies

WHERE

  STRPOS(body, 'speechSynthesis.speak') > 0

GROUP BY

  domain

[Philip Jägenstedt‏]

Hmm, failure to find cases that would be broken in httparchive coupled with the preliminary use counter findings suggest that either there's some large (in page visits) site using the API without a user gesture, which is good news in a way if we can figure out which it is...

(Or possibly there's some bug in the condition to trigger the use counter?)

Does Google search use the API by any chance? You mentioned YouTube also, how do they use it?

[Dominic Mazzoni‏]

Are ads always constrained to iframes? Is there any chance that some ad network is speaking, but the use counter is blaming the hosting site rather than the ad's origin?

What about a Chrome extension could be injecting code to speak using a content script? Note that there's already a separate extension API for TTS from an extension's background page, but it's certainly plausible that an extension could be adding code to a page that makes it speak.

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[Charles Harrison‏]

Philip: My hypothesis (and the UKM backs this up), is that the majority of the uses of the API are abuse. Perhaps none of these sites show up on HTTP Archive because they have no landing pages (e.g. they 403 if you don't know the exact path to the ad).

I thought Google Search uses the API if you use your microphone to search, but it looks like it's using some other mechanism. I haven't figured out how youtube embeds can access the API, I don't think there is public documentation. By far the most prevalent resource URL using the API (according to HTTP Archive) is https://www.youtube.com/yts/jsbin/player-vflG9lb96/en_US/base.js .

Dominic: Ads are not always constrained to frames (the UKM data shows most of the top counts are top-level ads). UKM will also always report the top level, so yes ads on foo.com will report foo.com by design, even if the ads are constrained to an iframe.

A Chrome extension could be injecting code to speak using a content script. We have no practical way of telling the difference between a content script and a normal script at runtime though. 

[Daniel Bratell‏]

I tried to see what YouTube is up to but all I found was some speech code in the TV version of YouTube that I couldn't figure out how to trigger. 

There is something called env_isTransliterationSpeakable (see https://www.youtube.com/s/tv/html5/22c930bb/app-

prod.js ) and in the js code in https://www.youtube.com/yts/jsbin/tv-player-en_US-vflH0nhhn/tv-player.js there is a

function(a){return Qp(a.speechSynthesis.speak)},

I guess that is the same that you found?

/Daniel

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[Charles Harrison‏]

Hi Daniel,

Yeah the tv-player was the only thing I saw (besides the uses in base.js). I believe Youtube TV uses speech synthesis for accessibility / screen reading. However, the client on the actual TV isn't a Blink platform (it uses Cobalt iiuc).

[sligh...@chromium.org‏]

Hey all,

Discussed at today's API Owners meeting; I think I understand the situation but for the avoidance of doubt, can someone confirm that the new policy will adhere to the exact same behavior as media element autoplay?

That is to say, we grant autoplay by default with sound to installed PWAs. Will this API respect that? Other cases where autoplay with sound has been granted? The hope is that "things that can make noise without interaction" are all goverend in exactly the same way (and that use of speech playback feeds into Media Engagement score, etc. etc.). Are they symmetric?

Similarly, the concern about feature detection and modeling as a permission came up again. The resolution of the previous discussion wasn't particularly satisfying:

    https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/203

We continue to lack an effective feature-detection mechanism for both; the only way to be notified of the autoplay situation changing in-page seems to be the `play` event:

    https://html.spec.whatwg.org/dev/media.html

Can we get this capability reflected to developers in a way that doesn't require con's-ing up an expensive to create element + weird side effects?

Regards

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[Mounir Lamouri‏]

On Thu, 19 Jul 2018 at 09:38 <sligh...@chromium.org> wrote:

Hey all,

Discussed at today's API Owners meeting; I think I understand the situation but for the avoidance of doubt, can someone confirm that the new policy will adhere to the exact same behavior as media element autoplay?

That is to say, we grant autoplay by default with sound to installed PWAs. Will this API respect that? Other cases where autoplay with sound has been granted? The hope is that "things that can make noise without interaction" are all goverend in exactly the same way (and that use of speech playback feeds into Media Engagement score, etc. etc.). Are they symmetric?

The code that I reviewed is hooking into the autoplay policy so the Speech API will use the policy applying to any media element. If autoplay is granted or disabled one way or another (MEI, x-origin iframe, PWA), it will apply to this API.

 

Similarly, the concern about feature detection and modeling as a permission came up again. The resolution of the previous discussion wasn't particularly satisfying:

    https://github.com/w3ctag/design-reviews/issues/203

We continue to lack an effective feature-detection mechanism for both; the only way to be notified of the autoplay situation changing in-page seems to be the `play` event:

    https://html.spec.whatwg.org/dev/media.html

Can we get this capability reflected to developers in a way that doesn't require con's-ing up an expensive to create element + weird side effects?

The play event is no longer the state of the art to detect autoplay. Instead, websites are expected to use the play promise. It doesn't require to set up a full element. There are some discussions to expose an API but at the moment, it's specific to the media element.

-- Mounir

[Philip Jägenstedt‏]

Given that the relevant specs don't require the same policy to be used for all media-producing APIs, should we consider adding the equivalent of the proposed allowedToPlay to Web Speech (and Web Audio?), or should we collapse them into a single concept spec side and have a single way of detecting that making noise will or won't succeed?

[Daniel Bratell‏]

LGTM1

/Daniel

[Chris Harrelson‏]

LGTM2

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[Philip Jägenstedt‏]

LGTM3

We just discussed me in the API owners meeting (me, Daniel, Chris) and there just a few things to attend to:

Please pick a milestone for removal up front and make sure the deprecation message references that, so that web developers know what to expect.

Also, please send a spec PR for https://github.com/w3c/speech-api/issues/27 and a PR for web-platform-tests matching it, and track those so that they are merged before the change finally ships in Chrome.

[Eric Arnol-Martin‏]

What about when "SpeechRecognition" results are used to trigger a "speechSynthesis.speak" event?  Will that continue to work, or is that going to be broken by these changes?

This is going to affect voice only web applications that recognize speech and read text back to users. 

There are so many use-cases where sounds should play without direct user interaction, and SpeechRecognition result events firing speechSynthesis.speak events should continue to work without the user clicking on something directly since voice events are calling it.

It would be nice if Google quit inventing standards that should NOT exist.  There are perfectly valid instances when sounds should play without direct user interaction, and cases when they should NOT.  Deciding to take the blacklist approach and blocking sounds from playing without direct user interaction is just ridiculous and is not a very well thought out approach to handling this problem (if there even is one - since what you consider annoying may NOT be annoying to me).  Why change something that wasn't broken and was the web standard up until now just because someone is annoyed?  This is the internet.  If you don't like something, quit visiting the page.  Content creators should be able to decide when sounds play (with or without direct user interaction).  If you don't like it, get your panties out of a bunch and cry elsewhere.  

[Dominic Mazzoni‏]

Constructive feedback is welcome, but please avoid inappropriate language.

There's plenty of precedent for web browsers intervening when what the content creator asks for may not be in the best interest of the user - not only avoiding playing audio without interaction, but also preventing pages from opening too many alerts, for example.

To answer your specific case, note that a page only needs the user to interact with the domain once, and then all audio is allowed. The user doesn't have to keep interacting any time they want something to play. Under some circumstances if they visit a site again they won't even have to interact with it. More details here:

https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-policy-changes

Does that address your concerns?

[Eric Arnol-Martin‏]

Assuming that the dialog that the user must click on for the browser to record audio (via SpeechRecognition) is enough interaction on the domain as to allow the speechSynthesis to work from voice initiated events, then yes, that would address my immediate concern.

However, I really do NOT think that Google should be deciding what is in the best interest of the user.  It should be the user deciding... perhaps a configuration option in the browser itself rather than a mandated policy change that is going to break a lot of existing web pages.  Firefox handled this with an indicator icon on each tab that is playing audio or video that you could click on to instantly mute that page.  Evidently, Chrome has this too by right-clicking the tab and choosing "Mute site".  That is how you handle it.  Why did we need more?  Was that not enough?  I have no idea why Chrome believes it should be the authority on whether or not media auto-starts.  YouTube better not be exempt from your changes either.  No more autoplays to YouTube videos on initial page load?  Terrible.  Not in the best interest of anyone except for those that are complaining for which their user settings should provide the functionality we are all now being forced to accept.

[Daniel Bratell‏]

This was not an unprovoked change. Ads (presumably) had started talking as other ways of getting unsolicited attention was made harder. We all want to make the web platform powerful and able to do awesome stuff, but the whole idea of the web builds on the fact that browsers will protect us from harm. That protection is not static and has to change all the time as web sites find ways to abuse the user. I think this change will be a good balance between power to the web site and protection for the user but it's always possible to tweak further if needed.

/Daniel

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[Eric Arnol-Martin‏]

Auto-start media is NOT harmful.  What is harmful is Chrome / Google trying to decide what is and what is not harmful for the masses.  Again, this should be a user option, not a global policy change from a browser because:

1.  I don't want your protection.  I'll do my own due diligence and decide what content I want to view or not.  If I run into an annoying page, I simply won't visit it ever again.

2.  It's called uBlock Origin, and ads are history.

3.  The only protection I want from a browser is unauthorized access to my file system (protection against the injection of viruses and other scripts that attempt to access my filesystem)

Preventing media from auto-starting is a form of censorship...

[PhistucK‏]

You are certainly entitled to your own opinion, wishes and practice.

Most of those interventions come from mass user complaints, as far as I know, so it is pretty likely that you are a vocal minority here.

☆PhistucK

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[Eric Arnol-Martin‏]

I'm guessing you haven't read the comments posted on your own article explaining these changes.

https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-policy-changes

Looks like a lot of people hate these changes.

Most users aren't going to like this especially if they understand the implications (they most likely don't even realize) it has for the apps they actually like.  This is an improper way of fixing a problem that doesn't even exist.  Let me be the vocal minority.  At least I haven't lost my common sense or reasoning abilities.  Google is wrong here.

[PhistucK‏]

Not my article, I am a user just like you, not a Googler. :)

I would certainly expect comments on a developer post that restricts features to be negative. ;)

Still a vocal minority (and I am certainly not denying your right), I reckon.

I think that stating that this is "a problem that doesn't even exist" is a stretch, though. I am entirely sure the Chrome team does not like implementing interventions. They are not driven by the sense of power or the ability to make your development job or your user experience harder in those decisions, quite the contrary (for the user). While it might not be right for everyone (you can never please everyone), they are doing their best to make the experience better for most users (even if it makes the development harder). It is always a compromise.

However, I do agree that there should be a preference for this. If content settings currently cannot affect this, I actually do find it a bit strange. I would expect three options (allow, automatic/smart/when appropriate, deny/mute).

☆PhistucK

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[pbar...@gmail.com‏]

What is the considerations regarding the event that will trigger a user activation event, seems only click is handled but not touchevents and some our interfaces require to use some touchend and touchstart rather than a plain click. could you advise on this regard?

[Charles Harrison‏]

Hey pbarreraa, as far as I know touchend events should trigger activation, but touchstart won't. See this intent for more detail about motivation. Let me know if touchend isn't working though.

Note that I have made minimal repros for touchstart and touchend for this API. I hope that helps.

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