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> it’s unclear why Mozilla is fine with Google’s data practices but not Facebook’s as the company did not immediately respond to a request for clarification. I

> it’s unclear why Mozilla is fine with Google’s data practices but not Facebook’s as the company did not immediately respond to a request for clarification. I often wonder the same. And also: Why there is an official Facebook container[1] but not an official Google container?[2] Why a fresh install of Firefox sends multiple calls to Google, including services that track users such as Analytics?[3] [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/06/04/firefox-now-available-with-enhanced-tracking-protection-by-default/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/06/04/firefox-now-availab... [2] there is a third party Google container at least https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-container/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai... [3] https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480 https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...

zecg 7y ago
That's a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
- luckylion 7y ago
  No. The point isn't that Mozilla shouldn't worry about privacy issues regarding Facebook, it's that they should AND should worry about them regarding Google in a similar fashion.
- mastazi 7y ago
  Caesar represents Mozilla’s users being stabbed in the back by Brutus Mozilla, and the Google Analytics cookie that is downloaded upon installing Firefox is the dagger.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- colanderman 7y ago
  No, tu quoque is when someone defends entity A's bad actions by saying that entity B also does bad things. The GP is not trying to defend Facebook here. Their argument is that Mozilla is not acting fully ethically, by seemingly treating Google specially. Therefore tu quoque does not apply. (Moreover, the argument is logically sound.)
carlallison 7y ago
Google is probably Mozilla biggest "customer" so I'm not surprised if Mozilla is ok with whatever Google is doing. https://www.cnet.com/news/google-firefox-search-deal-gives-mozilla-more-money-to-push-privacy/ https://www.cnet.com/news/google-firefox-search-deal-gives-m...
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Yes they pretend to be the champions of Privacy and Open Web...
  - Jonnax 7y ago
    Okay then use the web browser developed by Google. Or use a Blink based web browser whose development is steered by Google.
    - bovermyer 7y ago
      If you want a browser that's free of all of that, there's always lynx. Of course, you have to give up a few things to use it...
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - gman83 7y ago
      Doesn't the Midori browser use Webkit?
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        It does.
      - ekianjo 7y ago
        So what? Webkit does not have GOogle tracking.
    - 7y ago
A2017U1 7y ago
Can anyone elaborate on [3] or at least copypaste it? Twitter links seem to rarely work without having the app on mobile, it's disgustingly blatant dark pattern stuff.
- ilikepi 7y ago
  Try this unrolled version: https://threader.app/thread/1165858896176660480 https://threader.app/thread/1165858896176660480
  - djsumdog 7y ago
    OMG that is so much better than the original. Why don't people just write actual blog posts! It makes so much more sense than stringing together 20 tweets!
- mastazi 7y ago
  The most “amusing” part of that thread in my opinion is this one: > The http://mozilla.org http://mozilla.org tab discussing the importance of Privacy loads in the background, bringing along with it the Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics. Hello, Google.
  - panpanna 7y ago
    I suspect that says more about the state of frontend development today than about Mozillas privacy policy. Anyway, I think Mozilla should address all these concerns ASAP.
- phjesusthatguy3 7y ago
  On desktop, if you have JS turned off, it throws up a page saying "We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter?" If you click yes, it tries to set a cookie. If it can't set a cookie, it throws up a page saying "We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter?" etc.
wodenokoto 7y ago
Mozilla revenue is still something like 90% from Google. The Yahoo deal did help, but they are still very dependent on Google for finance. Historically Google has been a really close Mozilla partner, not only sponsoring search, but also developers. Today, Mozillas relationship with Google is extremely complicated. ZDNET had an article back in April [1], that somewhat sums up how the relationship soured, but doesn't really touch on why and how they are still intermingled. > Google, including services that track users such as Analytics? Mozilla has a special deal with Google, that does not allow Google to use that information as part of their greater analytics or sell it to 3rd parties, as per [2]. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has... [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14
- lucideer 7y ago
  > Mozilla has a special deal with Google, that does not allow Google... Sorry for being pedantic, as I'm sure this is what you intended anyway, but I do think its worthwhile pointing out explicitly: it does not contractually allow Google. There are no technical restrictions in place; e.g. Google haven't provided Mozilla with an alternative analytics mechanism that consumes less data. All data is still sent by Mozilla to Google. They've just then promosed to do nothing with it. A small but, I believe, notable distinction.
  - skybrian 7y ago
    From a technical standpoint, there are data sharing settings in Google Analytics [1] letting you control how much analytics data is shared with Google. Maybe they wanted it as part of the contract and not just a setting? [1] https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397 https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397
    - lucideer 7y ago
      I'm not sure if you're misunderstanding me or if I'm misunderstanding you... > data sharing settings in Google Analytics [1] letting you control how much analytics data is shared with Google. It's in Google Analytics. It's all shared with Google. Or—more accurately—none of it is "shared" with Google, Google is just sharing some of it with you. There may be settings allowing you to indicate your preference for what they will use for whatever internal purposes, but... Google have collected the data. There's no question of whether they receive it or not.
ohduran 7y ago
Their relationship goes as deep as Firefox bringing Google as the default search engine. I presume Google pays some non-negligible amount of money for that, so Mozilla execs are tied to Google. Having one big source of income implies pivoting your whole strategy on virtually anything at their command because without them, you can kiss goodbye the "between $20 million and $100 million" marketing budget.
trustissues 7y ago
Maybe because Google has been mostly trustworthy and Facebook as not? AFAIK Google has never shared any user data. They've taken privacy seriously since day one. They do gather lots of data but they don't share it. Facebook on the other hand has been caught multiple times sharing anything and everything.
- dawg- 7y ago
  Google also has relatively good tools for controlling your data with myactivity. I think they have always been ahead of facebook with stuff like this.
justapassenger 7y ago
Because, as a business it’s very very hard to have values, if you don’t want to go bankrupt. Never trust businesses talking about values, or believe they are out there to protect you. Some of them are better than other for sure, but at the core companies don’t have values they stand for - they have hobbies, that they like to use to get more publicity.
- fallous 7y ago
  Actually it's very easy for a business to have values, those values just have to be those of the customer. Note that "customer" doesn't mean "user," the customer is the person that pays you money. Sometimes user and customer is one in the same, but with regards to free (as in no purchase by the end user) software and services the customer potentially has a very different set of values than the user.
downandout 7y ago
It’s pretty simple. Mozilla’s employees are fiercely liberal. For example, a small group of vocal employees managed to oust former CEO Brendan Eich over a tiny donation to a conservative political cause he had made many years before he became CEO. If you have a conservative bone in your body, you are not welcome on the Mozilla campus. So they don’t object to Facebook’s data privacy practices. They object to Facebook’s media-perceived role in Trump’s election. The reality is that if they applied the standard they are using to exclude Facebook from their advertising plan in a non-hypocritical way, they would quickly run out of places to advertise online. Most major online media outlets, including Google, have data practices that actual privacy activists consider to be abhorrent. Their policy isn’t about privacy - it’s about politics.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  > a small group of vocal employees managed to oust former CEO Brendan Eich over a tiny donation to a conservative political cause Eich was kinda a moron and I don't think they realized that after he was onboard. IIRC, he saw no reason to move forward with the Firefox Quantum support and generally had some other bad software decisions. I suspect the anti-gay stuff was more to justify a way to get rid of him and score some points in the process.
  - roca 7y ago
    As a former Mozilla distinguished engineer --- your comment is insulting, totally wrong and betrays your ignorance. Not even Brendan's worst enemies have ever accused him of being a moron. Brendan was a leading figure at Mozilla since the very beginning of the project. Everyone very well knew who he was. I didn't agree with all of Brendan's decisions. For example I think we should have prioritized process separation higher than we did, and Brendan was partly responsible for deprioritizing that, which I viewed as a serious mistake. But Brendan made a lot more good decisions than bad ones and from that point of view, everyone I know was confident in him as CEO. Engineers certainly weren't looking for an "excuse to get rid of him". I assume executives and the board weren't either, or they wouldn't have made him CEO just before the controversy exploded.
  - 7y ago
roca 7y ago
Google hasn't had a Cambridge Analytica.

zecg 7y ago

That's a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque

luckylion 7y ago
No. The point isn't that Mozilla shouldn't worry about privacy issues regarding Facebook, it's that they should AND should worry about them regarding Google in a similar fashion.
mastazi 7y ago
Caesar represents Mozilla’s users being stabbed in the back by Brutus Mozilla, and the Google Analytics cookie that is downloaded upon installing Firefox is the dagger.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
colanderman 7y ago
No, tu quoque is when someone defends entity A's bad actions by saying that entity B also does bad things. The GP is not trying to defend Facebook here. Their argument is that Mozilla is not acting fully ethically, by seemingly treating Google specially. Therefore tu quoque does not apply. (Moreover, the argument is logically sound.)

carlallison 7y ago

Google is probably Mozilla biggest "customer" so I'm not surprised if Mozilla is ok with whatever Google is doing. https://www.cnet.com/news/google-firefox-search-deal-gives-mozilla-more-money-to-push-privacy/ https://www.cnet.com/news/google-firefox-search-deal-gives-m...

ekianjo 7y ago
Yes they pretend to be the champions of Privacy and Open Web...
- Jonnax 7y ago
  Okay then use the web browser developed by Google. Or use a Blink based web browser whose development is steered by Google.
  - bovermyer 7y ago
    If you want a browser that's free of all of that, there's always lynx. Of course, you have to give up a few things to use it...
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
  - gman83 7y ago
    Doesn't the Midori browser use Webkit?
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      It does.
    - ekianjo 7y ago
      So what? Webkit does not have GOogle tracking.
  - 7y ago

A2017U1 7y ago

Can anyone elaborate on [3] or at least copypaste it? Twitter links seem to rarely work without having the app on mobile, it's disgustingly blatant dark pattern stuff.

ilikepi 7y ago
Try this unrolled version: https://threader.app/thread/1165858896176660480 https://threader.app/thread/1165858896176660480
- djsumdog 7y ago
  OMG that is so much better than the original. Why don't people just write actual blog posts! It makes so much more sense than stringing together 20 tweets!
mastazi 7y ago
The most “amusing” part of that thread in my opinion is this one: > The http://mozilla.org http://mozilla.org tab discussing the importance of Privacy loads in the background, bringing along with it the Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics. Hello, Google.
- panpanna 7y ago
  I suspect that says more about the state of frontend development today than about Mozillas privacy policy. Anyway, I think Mozilla should address all these concerns ASAP.
phjesusthatguy3 7y ago
On desktop, if you have JS turned off, it throws up a page saying "We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter?" If you click yes, it tries to set a cookie. If it can't set a cookie, it throws up a page saying "We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter?" etc.

wodenokoto 7y ago

Mozilla revenue is still something like 90% from Google. The Yahoo deal did help, but they are still very dependent on Google for finance. Historically Google has been a really close Mozilla partner, not only sponsoring search, but also developers. Today, Mozillas relationship with Google is extremely complicated. ZDNET had an article back in April [1], that somewhat sums up how the relationship soured, but doesn't really touch on why and how they are still intermingled. > Google, including services that track users such as Analytics? Mozilla has a special deal with Google, that does not allow Google to use that information as part of their greater analytics or sell it to 3rd parties, as per [2]. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has... [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14

lucideer 7y ago
> Mozilla has a special deal with Google, that does not allow Google... Sorry for being pedantic, as I'm sure this is what you intended anyway, but I do think its worthwhile pointing out explicitly: it does not contractually allow Google. There are no technical restrictions in place; e.g. Google haven't provided Mozilla with an alternative analytics mechanism that consumes less data. All data is still sent by Mozilla to Google. They've just then promosed to do nothing with it. A small but, I believe, notable distinction.
- skybrian 7y ago
  From a technical standpoint, there are data sharing settings in Google Analytics [1] letting you control how much analytics data is shared with Google. Maybe they wanted it as part of the contract and not just a setting? [1] https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397 https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397
  - lucideer 7y ago
    I'm not sure if you're misunderstanding me or if I'm misunderstanding you... > data sharing settings in Google Analytics [1] letting you control how much analytics data is shared with Google. It's in Google Analytics. It's all shared with Google. Or—more accurately—none of it is "shared" with Google, Google is just sharing some of it with you. There may be settings allowing you to indicate your preference for what they will use for whatever internal purposes, but... Google have collected the data. There's no question of whether they receive it or not.

ohduran 7y ago

Their relationship goes as deep as Firefox bringing Google as the default search engine. I presume Google pays some non-negligible amount of money for that, so Mozilla execs are tied to Google. Having one big source of income implies pivoting your whole strategy on virtually anything at their command because without them, you can kiss goodbye the "between $20 million and $100 million" marketing budget.

trustissues 7y ago

Maybe because Google has been mostly trustworthy and Facebook as not? AFAIK Google has never shared any user data. They've taken privacy seriously since day one. They do gather lots of data but they don't share it. Facebook on the other hand has been caught multiple times sharing anything and everything.

dawg- 7y ago
Google also has relatively good tools for controlling your data with myactivity. I think they have always been ahead of facebook with stuff like this.

justapassenger 7y ago

Because, as a business it’s very very hard to have values, if you don’t want to go bankrupt. Never trust businesses talking about values, or believe they are out there to protect you. Some of them are better than other for sure, but at the core companies don’t have values they stand for - they have hobbies, that they like to use to get more publicity.

fallous 7y ago
Actually it's very easy for a business to have values, those values just have to be those of the customer. Note that "customer" doesn't mean "user," the customer is the person that pays you money. Sometimes user and customer is one in the same, but with regards to free (as in no purchase by the end user) software and services the customer potentially has a very different set of values than the user.

downandout 7y ago

It’s pretty simple. Mozilla’s employees are fiercely liberal. For example, a small group of vocal employees managed to oust former CEO Brendan Eich over a tiny donation to a conservative political cause he had made many years before he became CEO. If you have a conservative bone in your body, you are not welcome on the Mozilla campus. So they don’t object to Facebook’s data privacy practices. They object to Facebook’s media-perceived role in Trump’s election. The reality is that if they applied the standard they are using to exclude Facebook from their advertising plan in a non-hypocritical way, they would quickly run out of places to advertise online. Most major online media outlets, including Google, have data practices that actual privacy activists consider to be abhorrent. Their policy isn’t about privacy - it’s about politics.

djsumdog 7y ago
> a small group of vocal employees managed to oust former CEO Brendan Eich over a tiny donation to a conservative political cause Eich was kinda a moron and I don't think they realized that after he was onboard. IIRC, he saw no reason to move forward with the Firefox Quantum support and generally had some other bad software decisions. I suspect the anti-gay stuff was more to justify a way to get rid of him and score some points in the process.
- roca 7y ago
  As a former Mozilla distinguished engineer --- your comment is insulting, totally wrong and betrays your ignorance. Not even Brendan's worst enemies have ever accused him of being a moron. Brendan was a leading figure at Mozilla since the very beginning of the project. Everyone very well knew who he was. I didn't agree with all of Brendan's decisions. For example I think we should have prioritized process separation higher than we did, and Brendan was partly responsible for deprioritizing that, which I viewed as a serious mistake. But Brendan made a lot more good decisions than bad ones and from that point of view, everyone I know was confident in him as CEO. Engineers certainly weren't looking for an "excuse to get rid of him". I assume executives and the board weren't either, or they wouldn't have made him CEO just before the controversy exploded.
- 7y ago

roca 7y ago

Google hasn't had a Cambridge Analytica.