Innovation and privacy go hand in hand here at Mozilla…
Is this the time to drop firefox?
Drop it for what?
Librefox? Or something else? Don’t know, but since Firefox is often recommended for privacy, I was wondering if this changes things?
Is anonymous data collection really that bad? They’ve also been open and explained their whole process. Like surely data collection needs to happen at some level to inform new features and design?
No it’s not that bad. They indeed are open about it. But it feels like baby steps in the wrong way. I don’t really have an opinion but I was just a bit disappointed about the path they’re going on. Because I don’t see the added value of knowing what users search for. So i was curious about opinions from more educated people.
mozilla is on a bad path, but they are still the most privacy respecting (with configuration) option of the big browsers today.
This is disabled if you turn off telemetry in the settings, which users should already be doing anyway. I don’t see this as any worse than what they already do.
Why would I disable telemetry when it can give valuable information for development purposes?
Are we ignoring the part where you can disable it the same way you always could?
They even when out of their way to assure you if you already had telemetry disabled, absolutely nothing is changing for you and no data is being collected now.
I don’t really understand what search topics have to do with improving the browser. The blog post doesn’t make that clear at all.
Agreed. If it was for a search engine, it would make some sense, but the browser, WTF for?
Because the lived experience of many users is the browser integrates with the search engine to give you predictive suggestions as you type, identify images, translate, etc.
That’s cool, the thing is that Mozilla does not have a search engine. What’s the use for them? Benchmarking other engines? Knowing engine rankings?
What you mention in your comment, they already do now.
I’m not a fan of automated data collection, regardless of the reason. I see the merit, though, but I won’t allow it. The post is very clear about the preserved anonymity of the collected data, which is good, and on how to easily opt out, which is great.
This statement, however, was a bit strange. Almost like they are being flippant on local laws. Since I know this isn’t the case here, they should have phrased it different. (Emphasis mine)
Your search activities are handled with the same level of confidentiality as all other data regardless of any local laws surrounding certain health services.
They definitely could have phrased this better. I think what they mean is that their level of confidentiality meets or exceeds local laws.
