4 ms·

I must be the only one who thought this was a non-issue. A molehill turned into a mountain.

by BoysenberryPi 8y ago

tehduder9 8y ago
I bet you'd be screaming hell if chrome would have done it.
- bigiain 8y ago
  Sure - it was a dumb move on Mozilla's part. But keep in mind that while it was pushed out into people's browsers in a stupidly-lacking-in-foresight fashion, it still required use activation before it'd do anything... I'm at least four nines sure Google have got worse privacy-eroding code in Chrome that does way worse things that flip some text upside down after you specifically activate an add-on...
  - Karunamon 8y ago
    As I tell everyone that tries to defend this, it's not about what the plugin did or didn't do. It could have literally been a copy of about:blank, it changes nothing. The entirely justified outrage was its purpose for being put there (which boils down to advertising) and the lack of consent for its being put there. That's it.
    - bigiain 8y ago
      Agreed. (At the same time, how much of the automated Chrome updates end up being audited for their "boils down to advertising"ness?)
    - Dylan16807 8y ago
      Doing nothing is not advertising. The only way for this to be used in advertisement was from Mr. Robot fans to Firefox. > lack of consent Pretend it was a copy of about:blank when you answer this question: What makes this different from the giant pile of patches merged into each release of firefox that you don't read?
      - Karunamon 8y ago
        How many of those Firefox patches are advertising references to then-popular media as opposed to new features, security fixes, and so forth? Again. Purpose.
        Dylan16807 8y ago
        That's not answering why it would be wrong even if it was about:blank.
        Dylan16807 8y ago
        (I'm making this a separate post because I don't want any distractions in the other one.) If they had done it correctly, it would have been invisible and it would not have advertised anything to firefox users. That is the purpose. It showing up the way it did was an oversight.
  - addicted 8y ago
    Like logging you into Chrome when you log into GMail. This one hit me hard. And that was after I knew about it. I logged into Gmail on Chrome on my personal computer, without realizing I had been logged into Chrome itself, which then ended up mixing my personal browsing history with my work account, something I’ve tried very hard to avoid.
- eridius 8y ago
  On the contrary, we already expect Google to try and monetize its users any way it can.
- bonsai80 8y ago
  Right. It's the difference in having someone's trust or not.
- ionised 8y ago
  Not really. We expect shitty things from Google at this point.
svrtknst 8y ago
No, I agree at least. I mean, it was a bad move and thoroughly short-sighted, but then again - what's the score? One slight privacy infraction from Mozilla, vs. the countless others from Google, or Facebook, or whatever. It wasn't a good move, it also wasn't as bad as people make it out to be, and it's defeinitely better than any competition.
- kiriakasis 8y ago
  > One slight privacy infraction from Mozilla It was a breach of trust, but there was no privacy infraction.
sjellis 8y ago
The incident was trivial, but it exposed serious concerns in the process. Mozilla itself strongly promotes privacy and digital rights, but their marketing people did not understand that this was a breach of trust, and all of the technical people involved in the release of the add-on either did not realise this either, or were overruled.

I must be the only one who thought this was a non-issue. A molehill turned into a mountain.

tehduder9 8y ago

I bet you'd be screaming hell if chrome would have done it.

bigiain 8y ago
Sure - it was a dumb move on Mozilla's part. But keep in mind that while it was pushed out into people's browsers in a stupidly-lacking-in-foresight fashion, it still required use activation before it'd do anything... I'm at least four nines sure Google have got worse privacy-eroding code in Chrome that does way worse things that flip some text upside down after you specifically activate an add-on...
- Karunamon 8y ago
  As I tell everyone that tries to defend this, it's not about what the plugin did or didn't do. It could have literally been a copy of about:blank, it changes nothing. The entirely justified outrage was its purpose for being put there (which boils down to advertising) and the lack of consent for its being put there. That's it.
  - bigiain 8y ago
    Agreed. (At the same time, how much of the automated Chrome updates end up being audited for their "boils down to advertising"ness?)
  - Dylan16807 8y ago
    Doing nothing is not advertising. The only way for this to be used in advertisement was from Mr. Robot fans to Firefox. > lack of consent Pretend it was a copy of about:blank when you answer this question: What makes this different from the giant pile of patches merged into each release of firefox that you don't read?
    - Karunamon 8y ago
      How many of those Firefox patches are advertising references to then-popular media as opposed to new features, security fixes, and so forth? Again. Purpose.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        That's not answering why it would be wrong even if it was about:blank.
      - Dylan16807 8y ago
        (I'm making this a separate post because I don't want any distractions in the other one.) If they had done it correctly, it would have been invisible and it would not have advertised anything to firefox users. That is the purpose. It showing up the way it did was an oversight.
- addicted 8y ago
  Like logging you into Chrome when you log into GMail. This one hit me hard. And that was after I knew about it. I logged into Gmail on Chrome on my personal computer, without realizing I had been logged into Chrome itself, which then ended up mixing my personal browsing history with my work account, something I’ve tried very hard to avoid.
eridius 8y ago
On the contrary, we already expect Google to try and monetize its users any way it can.
bonsai80 8y ago
Right. It's the difference in having someone's trust or not.
ionised 8y ago
Not really. We expect shitty things from Google at this point.

svrtknst 8y ago

No, I agree at least. I mean, it was a bad move and thoroughly short-sighted, but then again - what's the score? One slight privacy infraction from Mozilla, vs. the countless others from Google, or Facebook, or whatever. It wasn't a good move, it also wasn't as bad as people make it out to be, and it's defeinitely better than any competition.

kiriakasis 8y ago
> One slight privacy infraction from Mozilla It was a breach of trust, but there was no privacy infraction.

sjellis 8y ago

The incident was trivial, but it exposed serious concerns in the process. Mozilla itself strongly promotes privacy and digital rights, but their marketing people did not understand that this was a breach of trust, and all of the technical people involved in the release of the add-on either did not realise this either, or were overruled.