Divertable from its primary purpose, the Gamepad API can allow users to be tracked on the web. After Firefox, Google therefore takes the decision to restrict it to Chrome… pending a fix.
Used for years by many browsers, APIs to support gamepads can be diverted from their original purpose to allow user tracking on the web. How ? Using the method of fingerprinting “. On Google Chrome, the Gamepad API indeed generates an identifier specific to the connected gamepad, as well as a list of supported buttons. This information can be compared with other data collected, in order to establish a specific profile which will be sufficient to follow the user from site to site.
Aware of the problem, Google decided this week to restrict the Gamepad API used by Chrome since 2012, while waiting for a patch to thwart the tracking method that took advantage of it. As a reminder, Firefox did the same… for the same reasons.
Google is working on two improvements to the Gamepad API
As reported by XDA Developers, Google is working on two complementary solutions that should help prevent the fingerprintingwith the Gamepad API.
We learn that in the future, the API will only work on sites supporting the HTTPS standard. Google will however add a permanent parameter #restrict-gamepad-access in chrome://flags. The idea will be to allow developers to come back to this change, in particular to test their games on a page or a local server without setting up an SSL certificate, we read. At the same time, and without saying too much for the moment, Google also wants the API to behave differently from an HTML point of view.
Note, however, that monitoring using the Gamepad API is probably little used. To be effective, it requires that a controller be connected, which reduces the amount of users that can be tracked, the amount of data collected… and therefore the relevance of this method of tracking.tracking.
Google nevertheless aims to make Chrome ever more secure. Locking down the Gamepad API a little more is part of this approach. It is not known, however, when the changes in the making at Google will be deployed on a large scale on its browser.
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