Accessibility (no pun intended)
I got a warning this morning from my privacy software that 7 Cups has given an Israeli company, accessiBe, access to everything we do on 7 Cups, including 1-to-1 chats.
Having access does not mean accessiBe is actually reading our chats. It only means it could if it wanted to. Or if anyone who happens to hack into accessiBe in future wanted to.
At 7 Cups we like to think our real identities are protected, but 7 Cups makes the e-mail address you sign in with and your age in years available to accessiBe. Again, available does not mean accessiBe is actually using this personal data. It only means it or its hackers could if they wanted to.
The intention is to make 7 Cups more accessible to people who have certain sensory impairments—which, of course, is a very fine intention. I approve of the intention without reservation. However, a review published last year questioned whether accessiBe really delivers what it promises: Accessibility Using AI I suppose it's very possible it might have improved since last year.
You can hide accessiBe, but hiding it does not make it go away. It still has access, invisibly.
Personally, I get no benefit from accessiBe, so I changed my privacy settings to block the connection to acsbap.com.
I think 7 Cups should have made this an option that those of us who need better accessibility could have opted for in our settings, and should have announced it in advance with details of the privacy implications, instead of forcing it on all of us unannounced.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie Thanks for sharing this information!
I was a bit suprised that there wasn't a site update post when this was implemented.
I was happy to see some options to make the site easier to navigate for some, but it's disappointing privacy is reduced by doing so.
@AffyAvo
Evil things come in attractive packages, I welcomed the initiative too for a brief moment then I thought with my own head and things were suddenly different...
Update: The accessiBe software has now been removed from 7 Cups, as far as I can tell.
Hat tip to @Shirley7Cups for prompting me to check. I blocked it, so I would never have known.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie youre welcome
I spent some time on the website, and on its security page (which can be found at: https://accessibe.com/product/security), it states that:
"State-of-the-art infrastructure based in the US
We use only highly secure servers that are based in San Francisco and New-York, with above industry-level encryption and military-grade security to safeguard your details."
and
"accessiBe is GDPR & CCPA compliant and doesn't collect personal data
You need to ensure that your vendors and partners dont undermine compliance with data protection legislation like GDPR and CCPA. We do not collect any personal data from your website or users and don't affect your data-privacy compliance."
but one thing that I found odd-maybe I misunderstood it, is that,
in the Terms of Service (https://accessibe.com/terms-of-service#privacy), they state that:
"Cookies are used in all of the accessiBe Systems in order to allow the smooth and functional operation of all of the accessiBe Systems and/or in order to collect various data (such as statistical data regarding the use of the accessiBe Systems), to verify the information and for data security purposes."
but on the aforementioned Security page (https://accessibe.com/product/security), it states that:
"Cookies? Not with accessiBe
accessiBe uses localStorage without utilizing cookies as no data needs to be read on the server-side"
I would attach the image, but I do not have an IMGUR account...
If someone does understand this, can they please explain it?
@RarelyCharlie @Shirley7Cups @AffyAvo
@bouncySalamander26 Yes, if you start looking into this it gets very complicated, too complicated for me 
Companies that have been in the news recently because of privacy concerns have had privacy policies that turned out not to be completely trustworthy. Think about it. If you were running a company that planned to sell people's personal information secretly, would you tell everyone about it? As I said above, this thread is not an accusation against accessiBe or 7 Cups, it only highlights a potential technical vulnerability.
We don't know why 7 Cups removed accessiBe, and we don't know whether it will reappear one day.
Cookies are not a risk because most, if not all, modern web browsers automatically block third-party cookies, which are the potentially risky kind. Long ago, before web browsers had this capability, cookies were a potential vulnerability. Some of the legal and other information you can find about cookies dates from long ago and has never been updated.
By the way, Imgur should be used anonymously for any images that you plan on posting to 7 Cups. Anyone who does have an account there should log out, ideally. This is to prevent anyone from tracing an image back to your account.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie I guess it's better that 7cups can make a post to explain this problem.
@Heather225 @ASilentObserver @Hope @GlenM
@RarelyCharlie
I do understand. I think it would have been much better if admin had acknowledged it's introduction and removal.
I put out the information about cookies only to highlight that the company was denying and acknowledging their existence at the same time!
Also, I did not know that regarding Imgur. I thought creating an account was necessary to share links! Thank you for informing!
Thanks. It was nice to see the efforts of making this site more accessible. I still understand the problems and I'm grateful it was catched by the community.
Ah no wonder the moment I noticed it it was there and then went away! I thought I was losing my mind haha
We have AudioEye on our toolbar today-the privacy policy can be found here: https://www.audioeye.com/web/privacy-policy/
@bouncySalamander26 Oh yes! AudioEye has exactly the same problems as accessiBe. I blocked it too 
By the way there's a correct way to do this. On a modern web server the page design and the content are stored separately. Just before the server delivers a webpage it merges the content into the design. Accessibility tools should modify the design before the content gets merged. That way, the accessibility tool has no access to the content.
I don't understand why 7 Cups is testing accessibility tools that don't go about it the correct way, or why it's testing accessibility tools on the production server.
Charlie
@RarelyCharlie
Ah, considering that AudioEye's monthly pricing was greater than AccesiBe's yearly retail price, I was hoping it would be free of that particular issue...
Thank you for checking that the vulnerability still exists.
The way you've stated, does sound like the appropriate method.
I feel like7Cups is doing a trial of various accessibility tools, and maybe that's why they're holding out on a site update post. Only time will tell, of course!
And when they do, I hope they specifically address this issue.
@RarelyCharlie
I saw that...and through it...not all of us are muppets, but I have nothing to lose myself but I care for the inocent who get taken advantage of...
@RarelyCharlie
(How many billionaires have multiplied their accounts in simple stock speculation in this corona charade?...masses shall forever be duled and taken advantage of...until someday...one day...)