With the latest version of Firefox for U.S. desktop users, we’re introducing a new way to measure search activity broken down into high level categories. This measure is not linked with specific individuals and is further anonymized using a technology called OHTTP to ensure it can’t be connected with user IP addresses.
Let’s say you’re using Firefox to plan a trip to Spain and search for “Barcelona hotels.” Firefox infers that the search results fall under the category of “travel,” and it increments a counter to calculate the total number of searches happening at the country level.
Here’s the current list of categories we’re using: animals, arts, autos, business, career, education, fashion, finance, food, government, health, hobbies, home, inconclusive, news, real estate, society, sports, tech and travel.
Having an understanding of what types of searches happen most frequently will give us a better understanding of what’s important to our users, without giving us additional insight into individual browsing preferences. This helps us take a step forward in providing a browsing experience that is more tailored to your needs, without us stepping away from the principles that make us who we are.
We understand that any new data collection might spark some questions. Simply put, this new method only categorizes the websites that show up in your searches — not the specifics of what you’re personally looking up.
Sensitive topics, like searching for particular health care services, are categorized only under broad terms like health or society. Your search activities are handled with the same level of confidentiality as all other data regardless of any local laws surrounding certain health services.
Remember, you can always opt out of sending any technical or usage data to Firefox. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to adjust your settings. We also don’t collect category data when you use Private Browsing mode on Firefox.
The Copy Without Site Tracking option can now remove parameters from nested URLs. It also includes expanded support for blocking over 300 tracking parameters from copied links, including those from major shopping websites. Keep those trackers away when sharing links!
What’s the point of making it opt in when only the most paranoid users are going to be concerned enough about this to opt out
“We came out with this new feature to help us improve our product, but we’re deliberately kneecapping it on day one by making it opt-in” lol
If you are that paranoid about your data just go use Tor through a vpn already
Oh yeah, the classic “most people will not care se we are not even going to ask them, an entry in our blog no one reads will do”.
You explicitly gave them permission to do so when you agreed to the EULA at the time you downloaded it. If you have a problem with that, feel free to delete Mozilla and move on with your life. Mozilla doesn’t owe you anything.
Maybe we can discuss when a company does something completely inmoral that goes against what they say they stand for?
“You most likely would have agreed, so why bother asking for your consent?”
Ah right, makes sense. I take it you read the EULA in its entirety before you ever downloaded Mozilla in the first place? Because if you didn’t, you missed the part where you gave them permission to do exactly that.
Lawyers love that trick.
There’s no trick to it. If you don’t agree with the terms of service, feel free to not use the product. There’s dozens of other free web browsers out there if you think you can find a better one.
Any other contract in everyday life would be invalid under these terms; consent must be affirmative and informed. “I have read and accept the terms” is a crude lie that should be illegal but is tolerated for convenience, and which allows to justify all kinds of abuses.
The mozilla case is even worse, because they’ve even bragged about how they respect affirmative consent by asking their users if they allow telemetry (they’ve never really fully complied), and about being respectful of privacy in general. They deserve to be criticized for it, and that’s what people are doing here, but your responses of “if you don’t like it go away, the competition is worse” only legitimizes bad behavior.