New obtrusive Titanium Backup permissions?

Edit: this was adequately explained in the changelog, but you need to install it to read the changelog. The permission is to write this stuff as XML. Now, previously the data could be backed up as files from the data directories on the phone, but the permissions are required to use the Android API to get the data in a more friendly form. (I see how this would be necessary to write it to XML.)

Titanium backup now wants to Edit or Read SMS/MMS, to read and write browser history/bookmarks, and to read/write contact data. The changelog says nothing about this. What's up?

I know it's a root application and it can do pretty much anything, but I'm uncomfortable with the developers sneaking this permission change on us. Does anybody have more information about this?