4 ms·

If they would simply tell us what part of Firefox is affected by the CCPA's definition of "selling user data", there would be no room for misinterpretation and

by tomxor 2y ago

If they would simply tell us what part of Firefox is affected by the CCPA's definition of "selling user data", there would be no room for misinterpretation and this would be over. If it's as innocent as "Firefox has to send HTTP packets to arbitrary web servers to achieve the fundamental function of loading a page" and that web server is considered 3rd party by CCPA, then everyone would understand... this is either poor communication or they are hiding something else (which everyone should rightly assume in this day and age). Just tell us already Mozilla!

chrismorgan 2y ago
From the article: > In order to make Firefox commercially viable, there are a number of places where we collect and share some data with our partners, including our optional ads on New Tab and providing sponsored suggestions in the search bar. And remember, they’re citing CCPA’s definition as meaning “… in exchange for ‘monetary’ or ‘other valuable considerations’”. This is exactly what people mean by “selling”. It’s not the innocent thing you’re contemplating, about a browser doing its job. It’s specifically about things like serving ads, making that browser “commercially viable”. Mozilla is stopping claiming they’re never selling your data because they’ve been selling your data for the last few years.
- wtallis 2y ago
  Selling ads isn't even the problem. They could do that and still truthfully, legally claim they never sell your data. Mozilla is helping perpetuate the illusion that online advertising necessarily includes collecting and selling data about the users who are shown the ads.
  - mmooss 2y ago
    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-a-privacy-tech-startup-founded-by-two-top-former-meta-execs/ 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.
    - wtallis 2y ago
      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 sponsored content. This data may be shared with our advertising partners on a de-identified or aggregated basis. There's a lot of tracking data that does leave the user's computer, and Mozilla is trying to justify it by assuring us it's sufficiently anonymized and aggregated—assurances they would not need to make if the data wasn't changing hands. 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. There's no innovation required to implement that. All the attempted innovation is focused on how to exfiltrate data in a form that they can get away with selling.
      - mmooss 2y ago
        > 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.”
  - rtpg 2y ago
    Is that "obviously" true? Like if they had ad targetting and also let buyers of ads see aggregate results of impressions or something, that might already fall into user data being sold, right? At what point does user data stop being user data? I don't think aggregation is enough in some of these discussions, but maybe I'm wrong.
- inetknght 2y ago
  > Mozilla is stopping claiming they’re never selling your data because they’ve been selling your data for the last few years. If that's true then it sounds to me like there's some liability to sue for in California courts against Mozilla. I wonder if EFF would be interested
  - scottbez1 2y ago
    CCPA/CPRA has no private right of action for this kind of thing. Only the CA AG can bring forth claims, and penalties would be paid to the state, not individuals, in that case.
abdullahkhalids 2y ago
Most of what is collected is recorded in about:studies and about:telemetry. You can disable studies in Settings, and I think most of telemetry. What is collected by telemetry is documented here for desktop [1]. [1] https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/telemetry/index.html https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/t...
xvf33 2y ago
[flagged]

by tomxor 2y ago

chrismorgan 2y ago

From the article: > In order to make Firefox commercially viable, there are a number of places where we collect and share some data with our partners, including our optional ads on New Tab and providing sponsored suggestions in the search bar. And remember, they’re citing CCPA’s definition as meaning “… in exchange for ‘monetary’ or ‘other valuable considerations’”. This is exactly what people mean by “selling”. It’s not the innocent thing you’re contemplating, about a browser doing its job. It’s specifically about things like serving ads, making that browser “commercially viable”. Mozilla is stopping claiming they’re never selling your data because they’ve been selling your data for the last few years.

wtallis 2y ago
Selling ads isn't even the problem. They could do that and still truthfully, legally claim they never sell your data. Mozilla is helping perpetuate the illusion that online advertising necessarily includes collecting and selling data about the users who are shown the ads.
- mmooss 2y ago
  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-a-privacy-tech-startup-founded-by-two-top-former-meta-execs/ 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.
  - wtallis 2y ago
    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 sponsored content. This data may be shared with our advertising partners on a de-identified or aggregated basis. There's a lot of tracking data that does leave the user's computer, and Mozilla is trying to justify it by assuring us it's sufficiently anonymized and aggregated—assurances they would not need to make if the data wasn't changing hands. 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. There's no innovation required to implement that. All the attempted innovation is focused on how to exfiltrate data in a form that they can get away with selling.
    - mmooss 2y ago
      > 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.”
- rtpg 2y ago
  Is that "obviously" true? Like if they had ad targetting and also let buyers of ads see aggregate results of impressions or something, that might already fall into user data being sold, right? At what point does user data stop being user data? I don't think aggregation is enough in some of these discussions, but maybe I'm wrong.
inetknght 2y ago
> Mozilla is stopping claiming they’re never selling your data because they’ve been selling your data for the last few years. If that's true then it sounds to me like there's some liability to sue for in California courts against Mozilla. I wonder if EFF would be interested
- scottbez1 2y ago
  CCPA/CPRA has no private right of action for this kind of thing. Only the CA AG can bring forth claims, and penalties would be paid to the state, not individuals, in that case.

abdullahkhalids 2y ago

Most of what is collected is recorded in about:studies and about:telemetry. You can disable studies in Settings, and I think most of telemetry. What is collected by telemetry is documented here for desktop [1]. [1] https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/telemetry/index.html https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/t...

xvf33 2y ago

[flagged]