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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

#91

Post by embik »

binarymax wrote: post #59
embik wrote: post #14

This is ridiculous. I use and recommend Firefox for pure ideological reasons, because frankly, Chrome/Chromium is miles ahead of them. If they start opt-out tracking using the same approach as Google I do not see any reason to use it nor install it for my friends and family. That's some data for you, Mozilla.

Your stance is paradoxical, because Chrome has been improved based on data mined from users, and not in as nearly a considerate way as Mozilla is proposing. You want Firefox to succeed as a browser, but to be able to better compete it needs better usage data. Wouldn't you prefer for Firefox to be the best browser available, AND also be considerate towards your privacy rights?

If Google does not respect my privacy, why is the proposed way to gather information based on Google's approach?

And if the way Mozilla gathers data is much more considerate, what results can I expect from it? Better parallel requests and data fetching, hardware acceleration, etc are all features that are missing for me as a Linux user. They don't need my dataset for that, it's probably all in their bug tracker.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#92

Post by Operyl »

Fuxy wrote: post #63
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 claim is biased but is it really biased? How do they know? I think this is just making up excuses so they can collect more data. They get good enough data from the people that have volunteered it. I don't know what makes them think it's biased but I seriously doubt that is true.

Because, usually the kind of people that’d opt in are techies/power users or work (volunteer, or paid) for Mozilla themselves. Let’s say only 1% of your userbase opts in to this, how is that not biased? (As it currently stands, I believe this is a further optin in a tucked away menu).

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#93

Post by have_faith »

Can someone more knowledgable than me explain the benefits to this data collection exactly? The link mentioned finding urls with jank and the like, is it not easy to find such sites?

The real problem seems to just be marketing though. Regular people either don't see any reason to consider looking for an alternative browser or don't understand the differences. Years ago Firefox had a larger market share because the internet as a whole had a larger share of tech-savvy people and they had IE as a competitor.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#94

Post by clarkevans »

chimeracoder wrote: post #26
clarkevans wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the burden here is backwards? URLs may contain Protected Health and other Identifying Information. If this data leaks SSL and could be sent to a 3rd party, then it makes Firefox an unsuitable client for a great many applications. EDIT: OK. It's boolean flags (like use of flash) plus an eTLD+1 (example.org; not myname.example.org?). Even so, I believe this tracking should be opt-in with a disclosure screen tha…

> URLs may contain Protected Health and other Identifying Information A URL must not contain PHI. If it does, a breach has already occurred. And Firefox is only collecting the domain names, it looks like.

As a practical matter, there are lots of applications that use GET for user submitted search data. Since GET requests encode user entered information into the URL and since the URL is typically found in web server logs and other tracking/history mechanisms, it is unwise to use GET for user-submitted data in applications that are concerned with privacy. However, it was not always considered unwise: REST advocates recommend GET when the underlying information representation doesn't change as a side effect of the request. Therefore, one might just as well say that logging of URL query parameters is the technical problem.

That said, when a "breach" has occurred is a legal distinction involving the control of information -- when protected data moves beyond those who have a duty to protect it. Saying that a particular technical approach creates breach is inaccurate.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#95

Post by syshum »

kannanvijayan wrote: post #71

I can do a quick summary of what's being proposed and why. I work in the JS team at Mozilla and deal directly with the problems caused by insufficient data. Please note that I'm speaking for myself here, and not on behalf of Mozilla as a whole. Tracking down regressions, crashes, and perf issues without good telemetry about how often it's happening and in what context. Issues that might have otherwise taken a few day…

>>This is a difficult compromise to make,

Sorry I do not accept this compromise. Mozilla seems to have lost its way of late. Sad to see a company that was at the fore front of Privacy, and Security abandon that in name of market share and performance.

I would rather sacrifice performance for privacy, not the other way around.

From EME, to the adoption of Browser Extensions as the only customization option, now this.... Mozilla and FF is changing in ways that are harmful to the open, secure, and private web. Following the trends and policies of MS and Google is not the correct path.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#96

Post by darrmit »

I still use Firefox specifically because of Chrome's privacy concerns and was under the impression after dropping FirefoxOS Mozilla was headed in the right direction.

It seems they've convinced themselves that the only way to improve the product is to collect data on their users, rather than continuing to push the idea of privacy - which, in my opinion, if marketed correctly, could win over a lot of users. The browser is still fundamentally awesome.

This seems like the kind of thing they could push through their TestPilot program and just market it, rather than pushing it to everyone by default. But I imagine they want to push it to everyone specifically so they can take advantage of those who are ignorant to the ability to opt-out.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#97

Post by dagenleg »

binarymax wrote: post #59
embik wrote: post #14

This is ridiculous. I use and recommend Firefox for pure ideological reasons, because frankly, Chrome/Chromium is miles ahead of them. If they start opt-out tracking using the same approach as Google I do not see any reason to use it nor install it for my friends and family. That's some data for you, Mozilla.

Your stance is paradoxical, because Chrome has been improved based on data mined from users, and not in as nearly a considerate way as Mozilla is proposing. You want Firefox to succeed as a browser, but to be able to better compete it needs better usage data. Wouldn't you prefer for Firefox to be the best browser available, AND also be considerate towards your privacy rights?

Company A does bad thing which benefits them massively, allowing them to have a better product. Some people dislike that approach and flock to company B which promises not to do the bad thing. Now company B start doing the same thing 'for better good' but promises to 'keep it moderate'.

At this point why would anyone stay with the company B which broke its promise once, just in the hope that it won't break the promise again? It has already lost the trustworthiness and it also has the worse product. Might as well use products from company A.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#98

Post by veeti »

embik wrote: post #77
Yoric wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you may have read in the feedback request, Mozilla is proposing to use differential privacy – differential is very different from tracking. For more information, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy for instance.

My point is not the way you label gathering information from your users but rather that it is about implementing something Google proposed. If the mechanism works, fine, but why should I use Firefox over Chromium then? Opt-out data collection is in violation to my core beliefs and what I believed to be Mozilla's principles. Collecting data without asking the user about it is - to me - in violation to the very definit…

Existing telemetry in Firefox already works on an opt-out basis. This changes nothing.

Re: Studying how Firefox can collect additional data in a privacy-preserving way

#99

Post by codefined »

kuschku wrote: post #84
claudius wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any submission of data requires the transmission of an IP address, which is personal data and necessitates appropriate protection. I very much hope that the Debian maintainers (and hopefully also the guys preparing Fennec in F-Droid) will disable such data collection mechanisms, either completely or hidden behind an explicit opt-in instead of the opt-out suggested in the e-mail.

> Any submission of data requires the transmission of an IP address, which is personal data and necessitates appropriate protection. And requires an opt-in under EU law, which makes this entire thing even more ridiculous.

Then don't send the correct source IP address, with simple statistics gathering like this I hardly expect they require a response. It would mean there would be no personal data whatsoever.
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