RobotReplay - Someone may be watching

I personally don't have a problem with it considering your every move is monitored in brick and mortar stores by way of video cameras. However, I'd wait and see if there is a Firefox extension or greasemonkey script that would tell me when a site I visit is using this program so I can avoid the site, or simply know when someone is watching my every move.

Ari- But when they watch you in a store it's anonymous. Here they would know it's you, and be able to link that data to your account and/or computer. They can correlate it with other visits to the site and maybe with visits to other sites.

Don't give in that easily. You presume that because they may already be watching you, even more surveillance is OK.

It's not OK. This is an evil technology that has no real legitimate use. They claim it would be used to "optimize" the site, but that's just guessing unless you know what the user was really trying to do. You need an in-person focus group to get good data on that, not some after the fact click trail.

Peter, I understand your point of view, except for calling it evil. I think that term is thrown around way too much. The reason why it doesn't bother me so much is that I don't see a real good or valid reason why a site would use this technology, it serves no real person beyond voyeurism, which doesn't increase profitability, and therefore not a very good use of money or resources.

And the other reason is that I am sure that there will be an extension or script that will combat this, so again, in the end, it doesn't really worry me.

As a web developer I think it is a great idea and as a user I don't have a problem with it. The site is the owners property and they have the right to monitor it just like stores have cameras, rental cars are tracked, etc. No user should really have a problem with this unless they are doing things they shouldn't on a site, in which this could be handy. Thats just my 2 cents.

my biggest problem with this is it appears be recording interaction with text fields, ie taking snapshots of what's being typed in. i am absolutely against that and i see no reason for a site owner to know how i filled out their form.

when you enter a store or rent a car, you are explicitly informed that you are being monitored. here it could be hidden somewhere deep in the source code.
I'd like to see a support for universal opt-out cookie so that any site that uses their service would not monitor me.

Since web designers ignore the user completely now I suspect with this they'll look at how the user is using the website then ignore it and design the way they want - just the way they do now.

mxxcon: You don't think that it's reasonable for a site owner to monitor your interaction with the forms on their site? That's a ridiculous statement. I have a hard time understanding any argument against a site owner being able to see how you use their own site. When you visit a site, you are voluntarily sending mouse and keyboard events to the page, why on earth would it be wrong for the site to track these events?

It's also absurd for anyone to label this kind of activity as "evil". The only use that I can foresee is enhancing user experience, and for that purpose I think it is an incredibly useful tool. If you are wondering why half of your users are getting to the last stage of a signup form, but then not completing it, you can watch what they are doing, and maybe see that the submit button is hard to find, or there are too many fields and they tend to get half way through and give up.

I almost see this as a less invasive monitoring than things like checking the REFERRER, which is already done by pretty much every site. I think you have to really stretch to see this as an invasion of your privacy, and the scenarios in which this can be seen as abusive are totally unrealistic.

First off, thanks for the lively debate. We knew this would happen with RobotReplay. We built the service with one goal in mind, improving the usability of websites and web applications. And in fact many of our users have already told us they have made changes that have improved the usability of their sites. RobotReplay is a cheap and easy way for any site owner to do usability testing.

I'm confused by comments like: "i see no reason for a site owner to know how i filled out their form" especially because once you click "submit" in that form it's going straight to the site owner anyway.

Do you think usability testing is Evil? I certainly don't, but neglecting your users is!

Furthermore we recommend site owners modify their "Terms of Use" or "Privacy Policy" and even provide them sample text. Furthermore we're adding features to make certain fields secret from RobotReplay. We're also going to release a FireFox extension so people can block RobotReplay completely.

It's also important to realize as Jordan states: "When you visit a site, you are voluntarily sending mouse and keyboard events to the page, why on earth would it be wrong for the site to track these events?" So in fact this could already be happening.

In regards to the security camera comments...are you sure you're aware of all the cameras around? Is it easy to look up a policy statement somewhere that explains where the cameras are and what they're looking for?

You know any technology can really be used for good or evil, we're doing our best sway it all for the good! Feedback is always appreciated.

[Disclaimer: My company, Nitobi, built RobotReplay]

I'm for openness: Both for the observer, AND the observee. Setting aside password and personal/financial data security for a moment, why can't this little widget identify itself as a standard part of its operation? I'd like to know, you know? And, further, why can't this be a collaborative effort with the user, (who is, after all, 50% of the interaction here), giving both sides the opportunity to turn the widget on and off at their discretion? As with this morning when my use of a website was stopped by a hang communicating with robotreplay.com, it sure would have been nice to be able to complete my transaction. I think the website would have appreciated my business too, don't you?

@soccerman. that's a great idea. I think we'll add something like this. maybe a feature on the http://RobotReplay.com homw page where users can turn off the service on all sites for a given IP or through a cookie....hmmm...I like opt-in and opt-out.

So, what hostnames are they using for this script? :P So I can block it in my hosts file? :) Just like I blocked the snap.com crap...oh and don't forget about intellitxt...

I gave it a whirl, and can say that being able to see how shoppers browse our eCommerce site is very valuable. With some work, I'm sure dramatic improvements to site content could be made. You can just see users skip or bounce out of awkward text content, what they pause on long enough to re-read, where their eyes (well, mouses) track, if they are having trouble navigating, etc.

But I turned it off.

Why?

Worries that visitors might see 'robotreplay.com/...' in the browser status bar at the bottom of the window. Enough to give anyone the willies, as the tone of detractors belies, even though much more 'prying' tracking is generally going on anyway, such as with google analytics.

Can anyone confirm that normal site visitors can or can not see that their browser is accessing robotreplay.com?