Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way
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Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way
#2> What we plan to do now is run an opt-out SHIELD study [6] to validate our implementation of RAPPOR.
IMHO, this is a bad idea. Many people I know already use Firefox because they're weary to give Google (Chrome) all their data.
Firefox should make this feature opt-in only.
Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way
#3This might not be so bad as I expected from the title, but implementation details will really matter. If, for instance, they collect exact homepage URLs, they cannot make it anonymous (some site include username as URL components).
Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way
#4While I do understand the allure of collecting this kind of data I find it highly disturbing to see this from Mozilla.
I think not having perfect information about the users is a trade off that should be made in order stay an alternative to most other browsers. There are still ways to get more data by other means, though. When it comes to most visited websites, for instance, the alexa ranking should give a good, if not perfect, idea.
Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way
#5> What we plan to do now is run an opt-out SHIELD study [6] to validate our implementation of RAPPOR. IMHO, this is a bad idea. Many people I know already use Firefox because they're weary to give Google (Chrome) all their data. Firefox should make this feature opt-in only.
> Firefox should make this feature opt-in only.
I agree, but note that they are explicitly trying to get more info than they can from the small, biased sample that is users opting in.
Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way
#6> What we plan to do now is run an opt-out SHIELD study [6] to validate our implementation of RAPPOR. IMHO, this is a bad idea. Many people I know already use Firefox because they're weary to give Google (Chrome) all their data. Firefox should make this feature opt-in only.
> Firefox should make this feature opt-in only. I agree, but note that they are explicitly trying to get more info than they can from the small, biased sample that is users opting in.
Then they should fix that by asking in the GUI politely if you are willing to share and also explain how-to disable it easily.
Just starting to collect your browsing data is a bad idea (tm) especially if your main claim is "more privacy".
Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way
#7[deleted]
Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way
#8> What we plan to do now is run an opt-out SHIELD study [6] to validate our implementation of RAPPOR. IMHO, this is a bad idea. Many people I know already use Firefox because they're weary to give Google (Chrome) all their data. Firefox should make this feature opt-in only.
> Firefox should make this feature opt-in only. I agree, but note that they are explicitly trying to get more info than they can from the small, biased sample that is users opting in.
> they are explicitly trying to get more info than they can from the small, biased sample that is users opting in.
Maybe because most people using Firefox use it precisely because they don't want the browser vendor to track their behaviour?
I wonder how the Torbrowser folks will deal with this.
Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way
#9I say it over and over. You can not completely anonymize data with any reliability. Please note the qualifier, many systems work for many vectors, but any sufficiently large dataset can be used to graph habits and correlate them. Maybe there is a safe way, but I put the onus of proving it on the person implementing it.
Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way
#10[deleted]