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An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#181

Post by mmooss »

wtallis wrote: post #166
mmooss wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK they do the opposite: They've pioneered ways to target advertising without your data leaving your computer. See for example, https://www.adexchanger.com/privacy/mozilla-acquires-anonym-... "That shared mission is predicated on the notion that advertising and privacy are not – or at least don’t have to be – mutually exclusive." And it goes into detail on the investment and technology in that area.

If they've pioneered such technologies, they aren't using them. Their Privacy Notice enumerates many types of data that Mozilla collects and passes along to "partners"/advertisers. For example: > Mozilla collects technical and interaction data, such as the position, size, views and clicks on New Tab content or ads, to understand how people are interacting with our content and to personalize future content, including…

> There's a lot of tracking data

It's meaningless data to you: It doesn't say what you click on, just where and how big the ads are, and how many times you click. It doesn't identify you or reveal anything about you, except that you clicked on some unknown ads.

> It's also silly to suggest that targeting advertising without tracking users needs to be "pioneered". It's obvious that Mozilla could have the browser download this month's list of sponsored search keywords and have the browser check search strings against that list, without going off-device.

These are the words of someone who hasn't done it. Look at the article; what advertisers want and what the privacy-destroying competition does is much more sophisticated than what you describe. For example,

Anonym also has technology that allows ad platforms and advertisers to securely share encrypted impression and conversion data within a trusted execution environment for attribution, causal lift measurement and lookalike modeling. (A trusted execution environment is the secure area of a main processor where code can be run safely and in isolation.)

To be fair, the major ad platforms have long offered attribution and measurement solutions, Mudd said. “But they required the data to come into their system,” he added. “In this world, that doesn’t have to happen.”

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#182

Post by mmooss »

thisislife2 wrote: post #173
mmooss wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to CA and other states Mozilla is collecting and selling your data. The definition requires Mozilla to do it "in exchange for “monetary” or “other valuable consideration.”". What consideration is Mozilla receiving and from who?

Personally, any application that even collects personal data is problematic for me. Personal data of a user has a value, and a large repository of personal data, of millions of users, makes the company valuable too. Any data collected can be monetised, if not immediately (as part of the company's business model) or in the future (when the company is sold). With Mozilla, for example, displaying sponsored links using F…

I'm not sure you and they agree on the meaning of collect: If you input personal data into Firefox - e.g., an email you type in a Gmail - then they 'collect' it. Unless you use Firefox only for anonymous purposes, some data must pass through Firefox.

> With Mozilla, for example, displaying sponsored links using Firefox Suggest ( https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-news/fi... ) means collecting and sharing personal data (like search keywords, browsing history or bookmarks).

That article says it's only opt-in, so you are safe:

As always, we believe people should be in control of their web experience, so Firefox Suggest will be a customizable feature.

We’ll begin offering smarter contextual suggestions to a percentage of people in the U.S. as an opt-in experience.

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#183

Post by wtallis »

mmooss wrote: post #176
wtallis wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From TFA: > Here’s what the new language will say: > You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content. They're still broadly refe…

Thanks. > They're still broadly referring to "Firefox" with alarming language. "alarming" is a low standard - people get alarmed because they see everyone else throwing a fit. They say it's only for "doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox" - how is that alarming?

> They say it's only for "doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox" - how is that alarming?

Nothing that I intend to do with Firefox requires any such statement. The mere existence of the statement is evidence that Mozilla's intentions are drastically out of line with what a web browser should be doing.

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#184

Post by wtallis »

mmooss wrote: post #177
wtallis wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Anonym also has technology that allows ad platforms and advertisers to securely share encrypted impression and conversion data within a trusted execution environment for attribution, causal lift measurement and lookalike modeling. Wow, "secure", "encrypted", and "trusted" all in one sentence. They're trying to make it sound as reassuring as possible, but they're still doing tracking.

They're not, in fact. That's the whole point of their business. Where does it say they are tracking anyone - which means recording personal information?

"impression and conversion data", "attribution, causal lift measurement and lookalike modeling". These are all terms of art in the field of tracking user behavior: collecting information, and using it to infer what you can't collect directly.

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#186

Post by mmooss »

wtallis wrote: post #183
mmooss wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. > They're still broadly referring to "Firefox" with alarming language. "alarming" is a low standard - people get alarmed because they see everyone else throwing a fit. They say it's only for "doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox" - how is that alarming?

> They say it's only for "doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox" - how is that alarming? Nothing that I intend to do with Firefox requires any such statement. The mere existence of the statement is evidence that Mozilla's intentions are drastically out of line with what a web browser should be doing.

> Nothing that I intend to do with Firefox requires any such statement.

So what? Millions of people use Firefox. Lots of things in Firefox and their ToS don't apply to me, of course. None of my personal info will be collected at all, based on what I've read.

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#187

Post by mmooss »

wtallis wrote: post #184
mmooss wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not, in fact. That's the whole point of their business. Where does it say they are tracking anyone - which means recording personal information?

"impression and conversion data", "attribution, causal lift measurement and lookalike modeling". These are all terms of art in the field of tracking user behavior : collecting information, and using it to infer what you can't collect directly.

That data only exists in encrypted form and in a trusted execution environment, based on the evidence. I mean, everything you do on the computer is also in RAM - is that tracking too?

There is no evidence of risk. A general freakout is not evidence of anything besides maybe some bad acid.

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#188

Post by the_other »

mmooss wrote: post #174
rdtsc wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a funny case where Mozilla thought they are clarifying their position by pointing out how ridiculously CA defines "sales" only for it to blow up in their face. This is not the first time it happens to companies where in an act of desperation they issue some "apology" or explanation only to make the whole thing worse. Now people will read even more carefully their privacy policy https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/p…

Based on the parent, all the collected data preserves privacy: > Firefox also shows its own search suggestions based on information stored on your local device That data stays on your computer ... > Mozilla processes [...] how many searches you perform, how many sponsored suggestions you see and whether you interact with them. That description contains no user content: number of searches, number of ads, whether you i…

How do they decide which sponsored ad to show you?

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#189

Post by wtallis »

mmooss wrote: post #181
wtallis wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they've pioneered such technologies, they aren't using them. Their Privacy Notice enumerates many types of data that Mozilla collects and passes along to "partners"/advertisers. For example: > Mozilla collects technical and interaction data, such as the position, size, views and clicks on New Tab content or ads, to understand how people are interacting with our content and to personalize future content, including…

> There's a lot of tracking data It's meaningless data to you: It doesn't say what you click on, just where and how big the ads are, and how many times you click. It doesn't identify you or reveal anything about you, except that you clicked on some unknown ads. > It's also silly to suggest that targeting advertising without tracking users needs to be "pioneered". It's obvious that Mozilla could have the browser downl…

> It's meaningless data to you: It doesn't say what you click on, just where and how big the ads are, and how many times you click. It doesn't identify you or reveal anything about you, except that you clicked on some unknown ads.

I'm not sure what you mean by "meaningless data to you". Obviously, the data Mozilla is collecting, aggregating, and selling is meaningful to the buyers. And you're straight up lying about the extent of the data, directly contradicting Mozilla's Privacy Notice.

> Look at the article; what advertisers want and what the privacy-destroying competition does is much more sophisticated than what you describe.

Obviously? What I was describing was how it's possible to target an advertisement without doing any user tracking. What the advertisers want to do and are doing is tracking users as much as they can get away with. And that includes the ad tracking company Mozilla bought.

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#190

Post by wtallis »

mmooss wrote: post #187
wtallis wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"impression and conversion data", "attribution, causal lift measurement and lookalike modeling". These are all terms of art in the field of tracking user behavior : collecting information, and using it to infer what you can't collect directly.

That data only exists in encrypted form and in a trusted execution environment, based on the evidence. I mean, everything you do on the computer is also in RAM - is that tracking too? There is no evidence of risk. A general freakout is not evidence of anything besides maybe some bad acid.

> That data only exists in encrypted form and in a trusted execution environment, based on the evidence.

First of all, please don't try to pretend that claims that the data remains encrypted and secure and only in trusted environments are claims that should carry any weight. The data cannot only exist in encrypted form. The entire goal of these systems is to mangle and aggregate the data "enough", then share that result as plaintext with the highest bidder.

> I mean, everything you do on the computer is also in RAM - is that tracking too?

No, not everything I do on my computer is tracking. Most software doesn't keep a long-term record of detailed interaction data. I don't expect my window manager to log how much time each app spends in the foreground. But even for the stuff that is logged, you should be able to understand that the real concern comes from when that information is exfiltrated from my computer, processed by a third-party, and sold.

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