- cross-posted to:
- firefox@lemmy.ml
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.
You must log in or register to comment.
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
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.
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.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.
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
Librewolf
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.
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.
is this something I need to do every single update?
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…
Oh the Firefox fanboys be downvoting. What’s that now, guys? Do you think you’re still better than Chrome/Google? Didn’t think so!
Would’ve been a different story if Mozilla backpedaled and apologized by not allowing this to happen. But they’re defending it, which means they INTENDED it. You’ve got nothing, fanboys.
Fuck Firefox.
Show 'em, that’ll teach these nasty fanboys! Reads like writing that got you a big dopamine rush.
I agree, commenting “Use Firefox!!!1!11” on every post remotely related to (other) browsers doesn’t help anybody, just like commenting “Use Linux!!!1!11” on every post about a vulnerability in Windows doesn’t contribute anything meaningful at all.
Look, I also disagree with what Mozilla is doing here and yes, they 100% deserve the flak they are getting for it. But - like most things in life - it’s not black and white. Firefox could still be less intrusive to your privacy than Chrome (I’m not saying it necessarily is, but it could be that way). A different example: your mail provider could track every time you login to your account, or it could analyze and track the content of every email you receive. One is clearly worse than the other, right?
Which browser(s) do you recommend/use?
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!
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 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.
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?
Firefox.
Just because the execs decide to stop serving the software, doesn’t mean the copies (and source code!) already out in the wild will automagickally stop functioning. You’ll still be able to visit websites the day after, the month after, the year after… And there’s still the devs, since they’re not the execs.
By the time there’s issues, there’ll still be the forks. Someone will have already step up to fork and keep the work on their own, too; the name just weighs enough that someone will want to be “the next Firefox” (not “the next Mozilla”). Or even better, the devs (obvs not the execs) will have jumped ship into any one of the various alternative projects such as ladybird, or might even have started a new project from scratch, hopefully intending for it to be a leaner and better browsr.
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?
“B… but Mozilla fights for privacy and the free internet!!!11!!11!!”
Well deserved
doesn’t sound good
I’m using the Zen browser, hoping Mozilla comes back to us :( unfortunately, dialectical materialism is a hell of a drug lol
Stop it, Mozilla.