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.
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.
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 )
