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- Aug 17, 2014
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Source: Report: This Chrome feature may leak frequently visited sites - gHacks Tech NewsGoogle Chrome and all other Chromium-based web browsers collect site engagement statistics. It measures how "engaged" a user is with a particular site. The score ranges from 0 to 100, with 100 being "super engaged" and 0 not at all.
The browser uses signals to compute the score. Signals may include clicking and scrolling, keypresses, media playback, or direct navigations.
All users of Chromium-based browsers can open the information for their browser profile. Just load chrome://site-engagement/ in the browser's address bar to look at the list.
Google notes that the data is not synced, which means that it is device and profile specific. Site engagement may be used by the browser, e.g., to prioritize tab discarding or allowing/blocking certain invasive features.
The information is copied whenever an Incognito session is opened in the browser, but no information is written back. This information is deleted when the browser is shut down according to the official documentation.
Site engagement information may leak to visited websites, according to a report on the Fingerprint website, at least in Google Chrome. A demo page is available for Google Chrome.