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Firefox add-on with 7m downloads secretly tracks your browsing history

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Re: Firefox add-on with 7m downloads secretly tracks your browsing history

#51

Post by redthrowaway »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #49
9999 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And why does Google's invasion of privacy make this okay? This is why the governments of the world need to implement do not track laws.

The very last thing we need is for the government to put more regulation on the Internet. The only thing that's kept their heavy hands from destroying things so far, is that they're also incompetent with technical issues.

I'm fine with reasonable regulation. When you have an oligopoly controlling the infrastructure, having regulations that say they can't sell preferential access to that infrastructure to other oligopolies is a good thing. The key metric of what's good for the consumer is competition, not regulation. Regulation that stifles competition is bad. Regulation that protects it is good. Regulation itself is simply a tool, and it's moral worth lies in how it's used.

Re: Firefox add-on with 7m downloads secretly tracks your browsing history

#52

Post by CWuestefeld »

redthrowaway wrote: post #51
CWuestefeld wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very last thing we need is for the government to put more regulation on the Internet. The only thing that's kept their heavy hands from destroying things so far, is that they're also incompetent with technical issues.

I'm fine with reasonable regulation. When you have an oligopoly controlling the infrastructure, having regulations that say they can't sell preferential access to that infrastructure to other oligopolies is a good thing. The key metric of what's good for the consumer is competition , not regulation. Regulation that stifles competition is bad. Regulation that protects it is good. Regulation itself is simply a tool, an…

Regulation that protects [competition] is good.

Not necessarily. There's no point in using regulation to preserve competition between buggy whip manufacturers. Creative destruction puts an end to many industries. And in some cases, its death throes can easily look like a market failure rather than market success.

In the end, who decides if it's a buggy whip industry? And who decides if a corporation is an oligopoly? Remember, it's likely that in any mature, regulated industry, the regulators are probably industry insiders themselves (see "Regulatory Capture", https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Regulatory_ca... ).

Re: Firefox add-on with 7m downloads secretly tracks your browsing history

#53

Post by fligtar »

jimrandomh wrote: post #50
fligtar wrote: post #39

I'm from the add-ons team at Mozilla. We've looked into the Ant Video Player and found that it does send information about websites users visit in order to power its ranking feature displayed for each website, and also includes a unique identifier in this communication. While this does not violate our policies, we do require it to be disclosed in the privacy policy and the add-on's description. We have contacted the…

You should also require that AntRank be disabled while in private browsing mode.

Private Browsing Mode is for browsing without storing information on your computer. It has nothing to do with websites tracking you; that's what the Do Not Track feature is. We do require that add-ons respect Private Browsing Mode, and our privacy team is working on a recommendation (not a requirement) that add-ons also honor the user's Do Not Track preferences.

As the person who implemented Private Browsing describes: Private Browsing aims to help you make sure that your web browsing activities don't leave any trace on your own computer. It is very important to note that Private Browsing is not a tool to keep you anonymous from websites or your ISP, or for example protect you from all kinds of spyware applications which use sophisticated techniques to intercept your online traffic. Private Browsing is only about making sure that Firefox doesn't store any data which can be used to trace your online activities, no more, no less.

http://ehsanakhgari.org/blog/2008-11-04/dont-leave-trace-pri...

Re: Firefox add-on with 7m downloads secretly tracks your browsing history

#54

Post by redthrowaway »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #52
redthrowaway wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm fine with reasonable regulation. When you have an oligopoly controlling the infrastructure, having regulations that say they can't sell preferential access to that infrastructure to other oligopolies is a good thing. The key metric of what's good for the consumer is competition , not regulation. Regulation that stifles competition is bad. Regulation that protects it is good. Regulation itself is simply a tool, an…

Regulation that protects [competition] is good. Not necessarily. There's no point in using regulation to preserve competition between buggy whip manufacturers. Creative destruction puts an end to many industries. And in some cases, its death throes can easily look like a market failure rather than market success. In the end, who decides if it's a buggy whip industry? And who decides if a corporation is an oligopoly?…

Your original post struck a very anti-net neutrality tone. My point was that government regulation in that area, as well as others, can protect both consumers and innovation. If we let any company merge with any other, we would soon have monopolies that stifle competition and gouge consumers.

Not all regulation is bad, just like not all effects of slavish adherence to free market ideals are good. The free market is good in aggregate, but there are many cases where government intervention is beneficial.

Re: Firefox add-on with 7m downloads secretly tracks your browsing history

#57

Post by code_duck »

sp332 wrote: post #41
MattBearman wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to see some proof of that. Or in the words of Wikipedia, 'Citation Needed'

Chrome sends every keypress in the URL bar back too Google. http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/privacy.html When you type URLs or queries in the address bar, the letters you type are sent to your default search engine so the Suggest feature can automatically recommend terms or URLs you may be looking for.

The autocompletion can easily be turned off.

Anyhow, what is typed on the URL bar is only a small subset of sites visited.

Re: Firefox add-on with 7m downloads secretly tracks your browsing history

#58

Post by Pistos2 »

masklinn wrote: post #45
gyardley wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have Little Snitch on my machine too, but I've set up a rule that allows my browser to make calls to port 80. Are you saying you don't have a generic rule in place, and are instead using Little Snitch to approve calls to port 80 for every new domain you visit? If so, that'd certainly work, but it seems more than a little impractical.

> Are you saying you don't have a generic rule in place, and are instead using Little Snitch to approve calls to port 80 for every new domain you visit? Yes. And I do the same with cookies. I do allow connections (and cookies) permanently to "trusted sites", but that's the exception rather than the rule.

Wow, and here I thought I was the only one that did that! I do the same, though with Opera's built-in cookie control features.
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