What sort of information gets sent to google?

[Umbrae]

Does information like:

* What applications I have on my computer
* Document names
* iChat buddies
* Other personal information

get sent to google? I assume not for most of this, but I'd want a very
clear explanation of what gets sent to google before I'd seriously use
this app (even though it does look great!)

[Dave MacLachlan]

Umbrae:

First off, we do not send any personal data across the wire. None of
the information you have listed above is sent.

Secondly, information is sent to us ONLY if you choose to enable usage
statistics. You can use QSB without enabling usage statistics. The
first thing we do at startup is display a dialog asking you to choose
to enable or disable usage statistics, and you can turn them off at
any time in the preferences. Our terms of service and usage statistics
are here:

http://code.google.com/p/qsb-mac/wiki/Terms_of_Service_and_Usage_Statistics

Geeky details below:

When we send statistics we send them as an HTTP PUSH that you should
be easily able to monitor (if you should choose to do so) using
utilities such as "Little Snitch". They flow out in plain text, and it
should be pretty obvious what we are looking at. Here's a list of
stuff that we are currently tracking:

UI
How QSB is activated (via menu, dock, or hotkey)
What QSB menu items users like to use
How often do users "choose show all"
How often is qsb launched
Where do people launch QSB from

Actions
What types users do actions on
What the item index of the item is
Are users doing actions on the more items page
What actions are users using
How many times to users do queries without selecting an action

Pivots
What type users are pivoting on
What the index of the item is
Are users pivoting on itesm on the more page

Searches:
Are users doing quoted searches
Are users doing multiword searches
What is the length of the search terms

Hopefully you can see how we would use the data collected to attempt
to improve QSB. A lot of the stats we are collecting are for
attempting to improve relevancy and to determine how people search.
The UI stuff gives us an idea how people use our UI and what use cases
we should attempt to streamline.

Other network traffic we may generate (aside from the traffic required
to generate search results) could be from autoupdating and crash
reporting.

We use the opensource update engine (http://code.google.com/p/update-engine/
) and breakpad (http://code.google.com/p/google-breakpad/) to do
updating and crash reporting respectively.

Please let me know if you have any questions about any of the above.

Cheers,
Dave

[Alcor]

Also, it should be noted that certain search sources will send queries
over the wire:

Using "show website suggestions" or "show search suggestions" will
result in anonymized search requests being made to Google in the same
way (and to the same servers) that Toolbar and Chrome do.

If you don't want queries being sent over the wire, disable both of
these two options.

[Umbrae]

Great responses, all! Thanks very much.

[Dave MacLachlan]

To dredge up an old thread, I wanted to add some new information about
the data sent to google from QSB.

This applies to the current beta (2010-03-29) and future versions of
QSB (Cobalt build 3236 and newer).

We no longer have usage statistics, so the only data that is sent to
Google are crashlogs, and pings from Sparkle checking for updates.

Also, it should be noted that certain search sources will send queries
over the wire:

Using "show website suggestions" or "show search suggestions" will
result in anonymized search requests being made to Google in the same
way (and to the same servers) that Toolbar and Chrome do.

If you don't want queries being sent over the wire, disable both of
these two options.

Cheers,
Dave