2 ms·

It's a bit sad to me that I've lost so much trust in Mozilla that I'm immediately suspicious of this campaign. This could be exactly as innocuous as they want t

It's a bit sad to me that I've lost so much trust in Mozilla that I'm immediately suspicious of this campaign. This could be exactly as innocuous as they want this to sound: > Your report will help us identify the attributes and traits of third-party websites that offer Firefox download outside our official source, so we can work with them towards better distribution practices – eventually, leading to better security, privacy, and user experience for Firefox users. It's also possible that what they really mean is that they're going to go after these providers for trademark violations [0] like what happened with Debian [1]. I'd love to be in a world where I can trust Mozilla to generally do the right and honest thing, but I'm having a hard time imagining what other form this "work[ing] with them" could take, and it makes me very uncomfortable that they're not forthright about the details of their plan when asking users to help them identify targets. [0] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/policy/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/trademarks/policy/ [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Debian%E2%80%93Mozilla_trademark_dispute&diffonly=true https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Debian%E2%80%93...

jakub_g 2y ago
Mozilla top management did some stupid things in recent years, so your opinion is valid, but OTOH it's a bit sad to me that whatever Mozilla tries to do going forward (or really any software vendor), the top comments are always backlash, bashing of any initiatives, conspiracy theories, and people who want bug-free millions LOC software without any built-in telemetry.
- JohnFen 2y ago
  It is very sad, but also a rational response. Mozilla still has a better reputation than most, but the industry overall has been punching people in the face for a long time now. That people's instinctive response to pretty much anything coming from the big players is mistrust and backlash is entirely understandable. It's the result of learning from experience. On the whole, the industry has burned a significant amount of trust and benefit of the doubt.
  - shrimp_emoji 2y ago
    Mozilla is now an ad company, like Google. https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/18/mozilla_buys_anonym_betting_privacy/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/18/mozilla_buys_anonym_b... So, yep, my trust has gone to zero. It doesn't seem difficult to not become an ad company, but money corrupts.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
- nindalf 2y ago
  That's the part that boggles my mind. Who are these people who rail against telemetry on HN threads? Are they 1. Gods who simply ship bug free code and can't understand why mortals like us need telemetry to do the same. 2. Non-software people who've never shipped software to devices they don't control, just posting on HN for fun. Valuing privacy, I can understand, I'm on board with that. It's when they take it to extreme, weird lengths, where they say that telemetry could allow the VSCode team at Microsoft to deanonymise them and then ... what exactly? It's gotten to a point where software like VSCode can't even be discussed on HN without the entire thread just being about telemetry.
  - badsectoracula 2y ago
    Or, simply, people who do not want their behavior to be monitored regardless of developer rationalization.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
    > Are they > 1. Gods who simply ship bug free code and can't understand why mortals like us need telemetry to do the same. > 2. Non-software people who've never shipped software to devices they don't control, just posting on HN for fun. I'm a user who thinks internal testing and user bug reports is good enough and doesn't like my computer telling other people how I use it. Doubly so when its software that explicitly bills itself as caring about privacy.
  - ndriscoll 2y ago
    Most people would probably be okay with it if it were opt-in and clearly explained what it would be collecting (including letting you see exactly the contents if you'd like), perhaps letting you decide at a granular level what to upload. Upon encountering an error, you could also trigger a dialog to ask if the user would like to upload information (with "yes", "no", "always", and "never" as options). What people don't like is that lots of modern tech employees apparently don't understand consent, and just assume it's okay to spy on you and take whatever personal data they want.
  - nmeagent 2y ago
    3. People who want you to respect their boundaries and are trying like hell to drag the Overton window back to an era when surveillance capitalism hadn't savaged privacy norms yet and developers didn't think they were entitled to such data.

jakub_g 2y ago

Mozilla top management did some stupid things in recent years, so your opinion is valid, but OTOH it's a bit sad to me that whatever Mozilla tries to do going forward (or really any software vendor), the top comments are always backlash, bashing of any initiatives, conspiracy theories, and people who want bug-free millions LOC software without any built-in telemetry.

JohnFen 2y ago
It is very sad, but also a rational response. Mozilla still has a better reputation than most, but the industry overall has been punching people in the face for a long time now. That people's instinctive response to pretty much anything coming from the big players is mistrust and backlash is entirely understandable. It's the result of learning from experience. On the whole, the industry has burned a significant amount of trust and benefit of the doubt.
- shrimp_emoji 2y ago
  Mozilla is now an ad company, like Google. https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/18/mozilla_buys_anonym_betting_privacy/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/06/18/mozilla_buys_anonym_b... So, yep, my trust has gone to zero. It doesn't seem difficult to not become an ad company, but money corrupts.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
nindalf 2y ago
That's the part that boggles my mind. Who are these people who rail against telemetry on HN threads? Are they 1. Gods who simply ship bug free code and can't understand why mortals like us need telemetry to do the same. 2. Non-software people who've never shipped software to devices they don't control, just posting on HN for fun. Valuing privacy, I can understand, I'm on board with that. It's when they take it to extreme, weird lengths, where they say that telemetry could allow the VSCode team at Microsoft to deanonymise them and then ... what exactly? It's gotten to a point where software like VSCode can't even be discussed on HN without the entire thread just being about telemetry.
- badsectoracula 2y ago
  Or, simply, people who do not want their behavior to be monitored regardless of developer rationalization.
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y ago
  > Are they > 1. Gods who simply ship bug free code and can't understand why mortals like us need telemetry to do the same. > 2. Non-software people who've never shipped software to devices they don't control, just posting on HN for fun. I'm a user who thinks internal testing and user bug reports is good enough and doesn't like my computer telling other people how I use it. Doubly so when its software that explicitly bills itself as caring about privacy.
- ndriscoll 2y ago
  Most people would probably be okay with it if it were opt-in and clearly explained what it would be collecting (including letting you see exactly the contents if you'd like), perhaps letting you decide at a granular level what to upload. Upon encountering an error, you could also trigger a dialog to ask if the user would like to upload information (with "yes", "no", "always", and "never" as options). What people don't like is that lots of modern tech employees apparently don't understand consent, and just assume it's okay to spy on you and take whatever personal data they want.
- nmeagent 2y ago
  3. People who want you to respect their boundaries and are trying like hell to drag the Overton window back to an era when surveillance capitalism hadn't savaged privacy norms yet and developers didn't think they were entitled to such data.