@Danny, @Sven_Glock , thank you for sharing your concerns. We are open to get the feedback, and this is a good example of how the direct contact with the community is valuable.
Short answer: we will modify the extension so that it won't access Google without explicit permission
Long answer:
Many web applications and sites use Google Analytics to gather usage information. It's a very easy way to gain insights to what regions your users are coming from, what features they use and how. It doesn't share personal information or the actual values that were inputted.
The SmartConsole extensions are external to the application and can even be developed by 3rd parties. Therefore, they can access external sites / APIs without the limitations imposed on SmartConsole.
That said, we understand that if an extension is provided by Check Point, there is an expectation that we will check if sharing usage information was approved.
As a first step, we will remove the reporting to Google Analytics. We will double-check the code in R81 to make sure it's not there and also update (in 1-2 weeks) the extension that we host publicly. If you use it from our URL, it will be updated automatically.
As a second step, we will develop a REST API that can be used to check if the Management has approved sharing usage information. Then our extensions (and even 3rd party extensions) can use this API to make the decision according to the user's choice. It's important to emphasize that with 3rd party extensions, the responsibility for doing this is on the developer of the extension.
