Google reportedly letting Chrome scan users' website engagement

PanARMENIAN.Net - Google is considering adding a score to Chrome that measures your engagement on every website you visit. The browser would then use that score to allocate resources, including battery usage and space, among all sites being accessed, VentureBeat reports.

Developer and Google open-source Chromium evangelist François Beaufort spotted the addition as a ticket on Chromium Code Reviews. The feature is hidden behind an experimental flag that you first have to enable in the latest Chrome build.

At this point, it’s too early to make a call for Site Engagement Service. Because the feature is hidden behind a flag, it may never see the light of day. And even if it does, it won’t be for a while, given that it still has to make it into the Dev and Beta channels before it is released in stable.

Still, this is a very interesting proposition, especially if you remember that Chrome now automatically pauses “less important” Flash content, like ads. Tweaking the score will be key: Chrome needs to be able to allocate resources in a way that doesn’t result in a poor experience even on sites you spend less time on.