Data we are collecting

No direct information about search queries or the user's history is collected. The idea behind federated learning is that sensitive data does not leave the user's computer. Instead, clients send back abstract model improvements. These updates are derived from local data but are much harder to interpret.

Additionally to the updates, we are also collecting meta information about search queries, e.g. how many suggestions were displayed and which rank the selected one had. This information is used to evaluate the quality of the model.

frecency-update ping (schema)

This ping is sent every time an enrolled user performs a history / bookmark search in the awesome bar. The following data is sent with this ping:

name	type	description
model_version	integer	the version of the model that all the other data is based on
study_variation	string	in what variation is the user enrolled in (e.g. treatment, control)
update	array of floats	the model improvement that the user is proposing
loss	float	a number quantifying how well the model worked
num_suggestions_displayed	integer	how many history / bookmark suggestions were displayed?
rank_selected	integer	what was the position of the selected suggestion? (should be minimized by the optimization process)
num_chars_typed	integer	how many characters did the user type? (should be minimized by the optimization process)
frecency_scores	array of integers	what scores did the model assign to the suggestions?

Example ping

{
    "frecency_scores": [
      38223,
      3933.4,
      304933.3,
      21
    ],
    "loss": 291989.21,
    "model_version": 3,
    "num_chars_typed": 5,
    "num_suggestions_displayed": 5,
    "rank_selected": 2,
    "study_variation": "treatment",
    "update": [
      1.2,
      3.2,
      -3.1,
      4.4,
      0.5,
      0.234,
      -0.98,
      0.33,
      0.34,
      0.28,
      0.302,
      0.4,
      -0.8,
      0.25,
      0.9,
      -0.8,
      0.29,
      0.42,
      0.89,
      0.39,
      0.54,
      0.78
    ]
}

References

• Bugzilla bug detailing the data review request
• ping schema