5 ms·

Cliqz is like a search engine in your address bar: https://cliqz.com/en/ https://cliqz.com/en/ I think it's a nice tool, but auto-opting in users' data to be f

Cliqz is like a search engine in your address bar: https://cliqz.com/en/ https://cliqz.com/en/ I think it's a nice tool, but auto-opting in users' data to be forwarded to Cliqz servers is kinda shitty. I get that there are no user profiles being built, but it's still concerning for me.

IgorPartola 9y ago
Oh yeah. It’s going to be super difficult to guess who I am when I log into example.com and it redirects me to example.com/profile/igorpartola. Nothing to see here. Nothing at all.
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  It's described here, how they deal with that sort of stuff: https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885e5 https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885...
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    To summarise: they're not going to send which URLs you visit. However, they can set up specific experiments, and will send the results. Thus, they could set up an experiment "did users first visit example.com and later example.com/profile/igorpartola, and then have only you report that to be the case. That example is of course not that likely and thus troublesome. What worries me, though, is the described experiment "what search terms have led to users switching search engine", and then reporting the search engine. They acknowledge this problem, but the response is "at least that's better than gathering that data server-side". True, but it's still too much data, I think.
- floatingatoll 9y ago
  We don’t want to know who you are. We obsess over not knowing who you are. None of us want to know who you are. I know this is of little assurance, but all the same.
  - kuschku 9y ago
    Have fun dealing with ALL the 16 Landesdatenschutzbeauftragten taking a very close look at you. Considering that all this tracking has to be opt-in under German law (I talked with the Landesdatenschutzbeauftragte of my state about your "experiment" here already, and they confirmed it), I’d say you can expect quite some trouble with the way you’re running this shit.
    - embik 9y ago
      Please follow up with this, if Mozilla does not understand anything short of the law this might be the only way to make them believe they are actually doing privacy a disservice.
      - kuschku 9y ago
        I will, I’ll continue discussing this on monday with them. And, in contrast to Mozilla, the Landesdatenschutzbeauftragte actually uses PGP email.
    - Feniks 9y ago
      True. Americans tend to forget the EU has very different privacy and consumer protection laws. Either out of ignorance or arrogance.
    - 482794793792894 9y ago
      Collecting personally identifying information has to be opt-in. They don't collect personally identifying information.
      - kuschku 9y ago
        That is for the Datenschutzbeauftragte and the courts to decide, if your IP and your entire browsing history combined is personally identifying or not. But even if it is not, hopefully the resulting media presence is enough to either kill Mozilla, or to ensure everyone at Mozilla that considers this a good idea is fired.
shevy 9y ago
It's not "kinda shitty" - it is an act of betrayal by mozilla. The company once known to care about user privacy, now u-turned and works against you. The sooner mozilla dies, the better. It has become evil - not as evil as google yet, but on its way towards more and more evilness.
- girvo 9y ago
  So what should we use instead? Let’s assume you’re 100% correct and Mozilla needs to die. What’s our replacement? Which of the other browser vendors listen to the community whatsoever? Mozilla is a large ship, and hard to steer, but it’s not impossible to change. I think killing it, however it is achieved, isn’t the right move. Baby, bath water, etc.
  - justinclift 9y ago
    Personally, kind of wishing projects like QupZilla had more devs/maintainers/releases: • https://www.qupzilla.com https://www.qupzilla.com • https://github.com/QupZilla/ https://github.com/QupZilla/ The concept seems good, but the software gets so few releases it's unlikely be safe for use as a daily browser. :(
    - girvo 9y ago
      But then we're headed even more into a WebKit monoculture... which is dangerous in it's own way, I think. I don't know, there's no easy answer here, because a brand-new modern web engine is basically an impossible task for a standard FOSS community.

IgorPartola 9y ago

Oh yeah. It’s going to be super difficult to guess who I am when I log into example.com and it redirects me to example.com/profile/igorpartola. Nothing to see here. Nothing at all.

482794793792894 9y ago
It's described here, how they deal with that sort of stuff: https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885e5 https://gist.github.com/solso/423a1104a9e3c1e3b8d7c9ca14e885...
- Vinnl 9y ago
  To summarise: they're not going to send which URLs you visit. However, they can set up specific experiments, and will send the results. Thus, they could set up an experiment "did users first visit example.com and later example.com/profile/igorpartola, and then have only you report that to be the case. That example is of course not that likely and thus troublesome. What worries me, though, is the described experiment "what search terms have led to users switching search engine", and then reporting the search engine. They acknowledge this problem, but the response is "at least that's better than gathering that data server-side". True, but it's still too much data, I think.
floatingatoll 9y ago
We don’t want to know who you are. We obsess over not knowing who you are. None of us want to know who you are. I know this is of little assurance, but all the same.
- kuschku 9y ago
  Have fun dealing with ALL the 16 Landesdatenschutzbeauftragten taking a very close look at you. Considering that all this tracking has to be opt-in under German law (I talked with the Landesdatenschutzbeauftragte of my state about your "experiment" here already, and they confirmed it), I’d say you can expect quite some trouble with the way you’re running this shit.
  - embik 9y ago
    Please follow up with this, if Mozilla does not understand anything short of the law this might be the only way to make them believe they are actually doing privacy a disservice.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      I will, I’ll continue discussing this on monday with them. And, in contrast to Mozilla, the Landesdatenschutzbeauftragte actually uses PGP email.
  - Feniks 9y ago
    True. Americans tend to forget the EU has very different privacy and consumer protection laws. Either out of ignorance or arrogance.
  - 482794793792894 9y ago
    Collecting personally identifying information has to be opt-in. They don't collect personally identifying information.
    - kuschku 9y ago
      That is for the Datenschutzbeauftragte and the courts to decide, if your IP and your entire browsing history combined is personally identifying or not. But even if it is not, hopefully the resulting media presence is enough to either kill Mozilla, or to ensure everyone at Mozilla that considers this a good idea is fired.

shevy 9y ago

It's not "kinda shitty" - it is an act of betrayal by mozilla. The company once known to care about user privacy, now u-turned and works against you. The sooner mozilla dies, the better. It has become evil - not as evil as google yet, but on its way towards more and more evilness.

girvo 9y ago
So what should we use instead? Let’s assume you’re 100% correct and Mozilla needs to die. What’s our replacement? Which of the other browser vendors listen to the community whatsoever? Mozilla is a large ship, and hard to steer, but it’s not impossible to change. I think killing it, however it is achieved, isn’t the right move. Baby, bath water, etc.
- justinclift 9y ago
  Personally, kind of wishing projects like QupZilla had more devs/maintainers/releases: • https://www.qupzilla.com https://www.qupzilla.com • https://github.com/QupZilla/ https://github.com/QupZilla/ The concept seems good, but the software gets so few releases it's unlikely be safe for use as a daily browser. :(
  - girvo 9y ago
    But then we're headed even more into a WebKit monoculture... which is dangerous in it's own way, I think. I don't know, there's no easy answer here, because a brand-new modern web engine is basically an impossible task for a standard FOSS community.