Mozilla hit with privacy complaint over Firefox user tracking
Mozilla hit with privacy complaint over Firefox user tracking
STOCKHOLM, Sept 25 (Reuters) - Vienna-based advocacy group NOYB on Wednesday said it has filed a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority against Mozilla accusing the Firefox browser maker of tracking user behaviour on websites without consent.
NOYB (None Of Your Business), the digital rights group founded by privacy activist Max Schrems, said Mozilla has enabled a so-called “privacy preserving attribution” feature that turned the browser into a tracking tool for websites without directly telling its users.
Mozilla had defended the feature, saying it wanted to help websites understand how their ads perform without collecting data about individual people. By offering what it called a non-invasive alternative to cross-site tracking, it hoped to significantly reduce collecting individual information.
All the naysayers in these comments read like shills and if they aren't, they really should read how the tracking in question works. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution?as=u&utm_source=inproduct
While it was kinda lame for Mozilla to add it with it already opted-in the way they did, they were still completely open about how it works from the start with a link right next to the feature in settings (the same link pasted above) and it's far less invasive than the other mainstream browsers.
It can be turned off too, easily. It requires unchecking a checkbox. No jumping through 10 different menus trying to figure out how to turn it off, like a certain other browser does with its monstrous tracking and data collection machine.
With ublock origin it's also moot, since ublock origin blocks all the ads anyways.
Call me a fanboy if you want, I wont care. Firefox is still the superior browser in my opinion.
I think a big part of the problem is that they didn't show anyone a notification or an onboarding dialog or whatever about this feature, when it got introduced.
Firefox is still the superior browser in my opinion.
or the least bad, as I have been thinking about it lately
I think a big part of the problem is that they didn't show anyone a notification or an onboarding dialog or whatever about this feature, when it got introduced.
Right. Not only didn't they notify anybody, but they took to Reddit to defend the decision not to notify anybody:
we consider modal consent dialogs to be a user-hostile distraction from better defaults, and do not believe such an experience would have been an improvement here.
Which is strange, because Mozilla has no problem with popups in general.
Librewolf
That's probably the better way of putting it. As far as mainstream browsers go.
Call me a fanboy if you want,
I will.
It can be turned off too, easily.
Same for Chrome.
With ublock origin it’s also moot, since ublock origin blocks all the ads anyways.
This is a non-argument; uBO ins't even developed by Mozilla, so they don't deserve credit for it.
Nah. Turning that feature on by default already set in stone for me their willingness to test the waters. If you don't think auto-enabling anti-privacy features is a problem I don't know what to tell you. It may be "small" right now, but just wait and see what else they will try to sneak in.
Use Librewolf and Mull instead.
Use Librewolf and Mull instead.
And keep an eye on the Ladybird browser, eventually FF forks will die should FF go full-tilt enshittification, but hopefully not till Ladybird is fully ready
While it was kinda lame for Mozilla to add it with it already opted-in the way they did
That's really the rub here. Reading the technical explainer on the project, it's a pretty good idea. The problem is that they came down on the side of "more data" versus respecting their users:
Having this enabled for more people ensures that there are more people contributing to aggregates, which in turn improves utility. Having this on by default both demands stronger privacy protections — primarily smaller epsilon values and more noise — but it also enables those stronger protections, because there are more people participating. In effect, people are hiding in a larger crowd.
In short, they pulled a "trust us, bro" and turned an experimental tracking system on by default. They fully deserve to be taken to task over this.
is this something I need to do every single update?
Not if you switch browsers.
It's been a wild ride, but it's time to get off.
This is just the beginnings of the enshittification of FF. There are others out there, Ladybird for example, deserves our attention being built completely from scratch engine and all. Though it's not slated to become fully usable until 2026 because, they're building the engine from scratch lol
All the naysayers in these comments read like shills
Amusing people of what you are guilty of. Sounds familiar...
Yes, how amusing indeed. Unless you meant to type 'assuming'? Either way, I'm more of a fanboy, not a shill. Shill's get paid. Fanboys just like their product.
Pest vs Cholera situation here...
Firefox should do an opt-in and they usually open new page with major updates with a pretty whats new changelog.
Just make it a headline topic ffs.Regarding it's just clicking this one textbox:
Remember: Businesses also use Firefox. If you want to protect even a shred of your co-workers or clients you need to set up a fuck-load of tools to mass-disable this one little checkbox.If it's added as already opted in, I assume they pop something up to make it clear what's been added and enabled, and how it affects the user's privacy, with a link to the settings to change it if desired?
If so, that's not too bad, no.
If they added it and didn't make it clear, or worse yet didn't call attention to it at all, that would piss me off.
They didn't, just like every other mainstream browser does. It was pretty lame. It was in the change notes but I don't know too many people that read those anymore. Their explanation of the system and the ease to turn it off placated me. I have the feature on and have had it on since the day it was released.
I find it kind of funny that your shared link url contain tracking parameters.
Hope this results in Firefox changing it to be opt in and not result in Firefox going the way of the dodo - We can't have Chromium be the only option, and without somebody developing base Firefox, the forks are going to die off
I could see tor browser continuing to be developed. There are enough users who are technical enough to take on a browser project.
Yeah but Firefox and signal are both stalling and taking weird routes otherwise. It feels like people in charge either don't understand the usebase or just botching it on purposes while getting paid out.
It is OS so if it gets that bad, adults will need to pitch and pay a team to get the job done to cater to our needs. Devs can't slave for us for free at some point enjoyers will have to pay for all Foss goodness.
Shit ain't free and you don't win wars without funding. While most of US is poor AF or don't give a fuck, I am pretty sure avg fediverse enjoyer is in a bit stronger economic position.
Either way, we know big tech is coming for all of us...
There's always the Ladybird browser and an independent open source browser engine called Servo that's under The Linux Foundation
It isn't about indvidual privacy. It's about not further empowering the wealthy and the entities that serve them. I'm disappointed with Mozilla, but this seems to have become par for the course
Please stop taking the dark path, firefox...
There are no ethical companies, only ones that are currently more profitable to operate as if they were.
And they rely on our good will...
Use the forks folks
As a user, 'privacy preserving attribution' is unappealing for a few reasons.
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It seems it would overwhelmingly benefit a type of website that I think is toxic for the internet as a whole - AI generated pages SEO'd to the gills that are designed exclusively as advertisement delivery instruments.
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It's a tool that quantitatively aids in the refinement of clickbait, which I believe is an unethical abuse of human psychology.
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Those issues notwithstanding, it's unrealistic to assume that PPA will make the kind of difference that Mozilla thinks it might. I believe it's naive to imagine that any advertiser would prefer PPA to the more invasive industry standard methods of tracking. It would be nice if that wasn't the case, but, I don't see how PPA would be preferable for advertisers, who want more data, not less.
As a user, having more of my online activity available and distributed doesn't help or benefit me in any way.
Kudos for putting together good reasons that you don't like PPA, while also acknowledging that Mozilla is trying to solve a problem.
Yours is one of the very few reasonable objections I've read IMO - when the PPA outrage first erupted, I read through how it worked. Unique ID + website unaware of interaction, but browser recognizing, then feeding it to an intermediate aggregator that anonymizes data by aggregating from multiple users without sharing their IDs, with the aim of trying to find a middle ground seems fair to me. Especially with the opt-out being so easy.
However, your points about classes clickbait encouragement, SEO feeding, and the uncertainty that this will solve the web spamminess as it is are valid concerns.
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Turning the feature on by default is bad, but I don't think that legal complaints are the way to go as well as the aggressive tone of NOYB. Firefox is the only browser developed and maintained professionally which has the potential of offering some privacy on the web. Given the importance of web browsers volunteer work just won't cut it with the amount of features and security concerns that a browser needs.
NOYB would've done much better by talking to Mozilla directly and advocating for them to do the right thing going for a legal complaint as the final nuclear option. If the was the case, then good that there's a complaint, but the article does not indicate the any of this happened.
NOYB has the right to send a complaint if it think a company infringe upon right to privacy. Mozilla isn't entitled to special treatment or special notice before filling a complaint.
Mozilla should have expected this. They claim to defend users privacy so they should understand why consent for data collection is important. Also there was public outcry and criticism of opt-out, and yet they haven't backed down.
If Mozilla resolve these issues, NOYB could ask for the complaint to be dropped. I hope they do resolve this, and do drop the complaint.
there is this approach where if the neighbor is loud, you first try to speak with them, and if they don't care then you go to the police. have you heard of it?
NOYB would’ve done much better by talking to Mozilla directly and advocating for them to do the right thing going for a legal complaint as the final nuclear option. I
It has been already vastly demonstrated by Mozilla, that going to them and talking to them about how they shouldn't do shitty things doesn't work.
If it takes legal action to even try and save the browser, I'm all for it.
Okay, but what if after all this legal action Mozilla decides that it's no longer worth serving the privacy conscious crowd? Which browser will you use then?
Things only happen in a desirable direction if there is dialogue. Linus made the decision about making Linux GPL but he is against aggressive enforcement. He thinks it's much smarter to go and slowly convince the offending parties that it's in their benefit.
Turning the feature on by default is bad, but
Nope, no further. Downvoted and blocked.
Don't you fucking try and justify this.
Now now. If Mozilla is breaking the law here, of course someone would report them for it. There's no need to shoot the messenger when everything was predictable.
Hopefully this makes some of the Firefox shills finally realize it's time to change our recommendations.
I've heard so much shit lately about Firefox, it has become a sinking ship and I'm eager to see who picks up the shards and runs with it.
And what else should be recommended?
The choice is basically between Firefox or skinned Chromium.
Do you really want to experience first-hand just why Internet Explorer was this hated?
Here's a hint: de facto monopoly on browser market that allowed them to control the web standards back then and their ideas were not good.it has become a sinking ship and I’m eager to see who picks up the shards and runs with it.
I don't think you have any idea how much work it takes to create a new browser.
Labybird is a completely new upcoming open source browser, complete with its own from scratch engine
Theres also Servo an open source engine led by the Linux Foundation
You're talking about the wrong thing. The Mozilla Foundation is and has been acting a fool in recent years. Firefox, the open source program, is doing mostly OK. Obviously the two are closely connected, but they're definitely not the same thing, and this matters when discussing policy.
"B... but Mozilla fights for privacy and the free internet!!!11!!11!!"
Well deserved
Hmm, interesting. I would expect NOYB to not just file complaints for no reason, but my understanding of PPA is that things get aggregated, which would make it irrelevant for the GDPR. Either I'm missunderstanding something, or NOYB or Mozilla is...
User-unique gets collected, and then the user-unique data sent to a remote server.
Only on the remote server will this data be aggregated, or so Mozilla says.
I see these comments are nothing but good discussion!
Arkenfox user.js, or derivative broswers like Librewolf on the desktop and Mull on android are there for a reason. Firefox default settings are not the safer, although it has all the knobs to make it a much better experience.
doesn't sound good
people refuse to boycott anything, for any amount of time. thats what leads to getting to be so expensive.
in reality, it would be ideal if everyone was willling to boycott anything (maybe everything ) for any amount of time ( possibly up to a max of infinity )so, beyond cookies is it?