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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

#381

Post by pessimizer »

eridius wrote: post #348
suby wrote: post #17

I've been using Firefox as my only browser for at least 12 years. If they go through with this, I'll switch to something else. I don't know how they could think that this is acceptable.

"If Mozilla starts reading a tiny bit of user data using well-researched techniques for preserving user privacy and anonymity, I'm going to ditch my browser of 12 years and switch to the competition, which is perfectly happy to grab as much personal information as they possibly can from me in order to monetize me." (well, unless you're going to switch to Safari, since Apple also cares about privacy, though, spoiler a…

Why use the quotes? My guess is if the personb you're replying to thought of what Mozilla is proposing in the same way you think of it, they would have said so.

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

#382

Post by eridius »

pessimizer wrote: post #381
eridius wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"If Mozilla starts reading a tiny bit of user data using well-researched techniques for preserving user privacy and anonymity, I'm going to ditch my browser of 12 years and switch to the competition, which is perfectly happy to grab as much personal information as they possibly can from me in order to monetize me." (well, unless you're going to switch to Safari, since Apple also cares about privacy, though, spoiler a…

Why use the quotes? My guess is if the personb you're replying to thought of what Mozilla is proposing in the same way you think of it, they would have said so.

The quotes are because that's basically what suby said. I'm guessing that suby's not actually serious about switching browsers though, because doing so would be cutting off their nose to spite their face.

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

#383

Post by Paul-ish »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #334
thanksgiving wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm not directly involved in this proposal, but I personally think it's necessary, and strikes a reasonable balance between the privacy-for-users and actionable-information-for-developers requirements. I use Firefox and always opt into any telemetry that sends data back to Mozilla. You could say I am a fanboy. I think it is a HORRIBLE idea and Mozilla should scrap it yesterday and never bring it up again. If people…

The problem here is that, for certain types of data, statistics obtained exclusively from users who opt-in to data collection aren't very useful because they're heavily biased in favor of the type of user likely to opt-in (which often isn't very well representative of the average user).

Bias can be corrected statistically.

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

#384

Post by joel_ms »

kannanvijayan wrote: post #168
thanksgiving wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lastly, crash reports are sort of a boolean filter - you only get the people that crash. The things I'd like to know to help in my development are things like "what is the histogram of max GC pause times on docs.google.com". Getting that info requires a good random sampling of the population, not just those who exhibit problems. PLEASE do not go down this road. Look where "optimizing" video card drivers has led the…

This is getting off-topic, but it's interesting. I think I have the exact opposite take on things from you :) A program written by a developer and used by a user is a relationship between that developer and the user. I just work on the platform that allows that relationship to exist. I feel it's overstepping our boundaries as platform providers to say "we're not going to make this platform faster for you because we t…

>A program written by a developer and used by a user is a relationship between that developer and the user.

What about the relationship between you/Mozilla and the firefox users? This thread is evidence that at least some of the users are not happy that you are (in their eyes) sacrificing their privacy for future performance gains.

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

#386

Post by z3t4 »

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…

Take a list of sites, for example Alexa top 10,000 and make an automatic script that browse these sites and collect whatever information you need. Have a bunch of devices, phones, laptops, PC's from different brands doing this. This will not cost much and you don't have to spy on your users.

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

#387

Post by floatingatoll »

Paul-ish wrote: post #383
Ajedi32 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem here is that, for certain types of data, statistics obtained exclusively from users who opt-in to data collection aren't very useful because they're heavily biased in favor of the type of user likely to opt-in (which often isn't very well representative of the average user).

Bias can be corrected statistically.

Statistics are not a substitute for the long-tail effect.

Lack of reporting from non-technical people who aren't aware they can opt-in cannot be corrected statistically, as the two categories of people (technical, non-technical) use the browser very differently.

For made up example, if you type "Yahoo" into the search bar and then type "Search" into the field and then type your search into the third page, you'll be acting as many normal world users do, and you may uncover crashes on page #2 at Yahoo that a technical user would never encounter, simply because they wouldn't type the word "Search" into the search field at Yahoo and trigger a JS bug where "Search" or "Yahoo" gets used one too many places and ends up crashing the CSS parser because it race conditions with repaint.

If that problem affects 0.01% of the Firefox population, that's a lot of people who don't think technically, and do feel regret when we crash and can't help them because we can't see where it crashed.

(Yes, employed. No, I didn't talk to anyone else before I posted here. My own thoughts, I am not a number^Wcorporation, etc.)

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

#389

Post by pishpash »

Operyl wrote: post #92
Fuxy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

The Mozilla user base is already biased. Plus they can run experimental test fixtures to canvas sites. This sounds like a solution looking for a problem.

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

#390

Post by occamrazor »

Why opt-out? I understand that if the users have to make an effort to submit telemetry data, most won't. But it could be a dialog at update/installation time, wich requires the user to choose between yes amd no. If a users says no, they clearly value their privacy more than additional features or stability of their browser, and Mozilla's values include respect of the users' choices about their own data.
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