Battery Status readout as a privacy risk

The Battery Status API in general sounds like a great addition to our web platform. Initially built by Mozilla to complete the API-set on the web, we can use it on websites to reduce the amount of interactivity and animation or serve videos in low resolutions when the battery is nearly empty, for example. Lukasz Olejnik, however, found out that this API is actually already used as a user tracking identifier by ad networks and others. And last but not least, it can also be used to charge more for a service when a user’s battery is low—as reportedly done by Uber.