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Comment by avian | Hacker News Reader

My first thought upon seeing this is that I was not aware that Firefox sends this kind of data to Mozilla.

Under "how is the report created" [1] it says that "Firefox automatically collects information [...] unless users disable this collection". This seems to be in conflict with Mozilla Telemetry FAQ [2] that says that data collection is disabled by default for release builds.

In fact, on Firefox 50.1.0 on Debian I no longer see the "Share additional data" setting mentioned in [3] - see screenshot in [4]. Does this mean that Telemetry is now enabled by default and can't be disabled?

[1] https://metrics.mozilla.com/firefox-hardware-report/

[2] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Telemetry/FAQ#Is_Telemetry_enabled_...

[3] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/share-telemetry-data-mo...

[4] https://www.tablix.org/~avian/stuff/firefox_data_choices.png

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The first time you start Firefox, it gives you a notification (bottom bar, I think) among the lines of "we're collecting stats for improvement" and two buttons "Ok" and "Disable". IIRC, it defaulted to enabled, but didn't appear sneaky to me at all.

Exactly. It's easy to opt out, as long as you're paying a bit of attention when you first start up Firefox. It's easy to opt-out later if you are comfortable navigating the preferences dialogs.

If anything, I am interested in the bias this data will have since I suspect many advanced users instinctively opt out of data collection policies. I opt out of anything that I can, and I would opt out of more if the options were readily available. Since advanced users are more likely—in my estimation—to have higher-specification hardware, I suspect the data is slightly biased toward the low-end.

I consider myself an advanced user and I enable sending Telemetry and crash reports on Firefox explicitly. I dont do that on Chrome but I prefer doing that on Firefox. The point I am trying to make is, although I agree that some users may opt-out, many trust Mozilla and so would usually let it collect data like this.

A good point. If there were one major organization that I feel comfortable sending telemetry data to, it may be Mozilla—the only organization that makes respect for their user's privacy a paramount concern.

(I more or less instinctively opt out of data collection and have never enabled it in Firefox.)

Still, the self selection bias is a curiosity.

Even if you don't trust Mozilla, the list of things Firefox collects as telemetry on release is extremely limited. (You will have to trust that the binary you downloaded is built from source though, but you can build yourself and/or turn the pref off of you care that much).

Mozilla collects a limited set of aggregate data by default, but it can be opted out. Users can also opt in to send a more extensive data set (also aggregate AFAIK), but that's not the default.

The screen shot from your preferences section is odd - all the boxes are there on Windows and macOS for me. Perhaps you can file a bug on bugzilla.mozilla.org

Just tried with a new profile, and this comment is accurate.

This is the default collection that is on but can be opted out of: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/#health-report

This is what users can opt into: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/#telemetry

> In fact, on Firefox 50.1.0 on Debian

Are you using a FF build from mozilla or from debian? Debian modifies theirs.

This. Various distros ship with different defaults.

And AFAIK distro builds of Firefox do not send telemetry to Mozilla. Thus Mozilla has limited insight into the Firefox Linux population, such as how many are running 32- vs 64-bit builds.

If I remember correctly, the first time you run Firefox with a new profile you get a message about data gathering with an option to opt out.

> with an option to opt out.

Ouch. I'm pretty sure that here in Germany they could be sued for that. Regarding privacy law there we have a general consensus that out-out is too weak in almost all cases. You need opt-in, or in some cases double opt-in.

Also, I wonder why Mozilla is playing the game that way. Aren't they afraid that actions like this may damage their reputation?

On the other hand, this may simply be the continuation of their "pragmatic" policy that led them into feeding Google Analytics with their sites and making Google the default search engine (instead of privacy-friendly alternatives).

All telemetry probes have to go through a Data Review which includes Mozilla's Legal team vetting it. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Data_Collection

There's also a Medium post that went out with the Hardware Report that details more about the process behind it. https://medium.com/mozilla-tech/https-medium-com-mozilla-tec...

Most of Firefox's telemetry is opt-in for the Firefox Release channel. You can see the few opt-out metrics by searching for "releaseChannelCollection": "opt-out" in https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/file/tip/toolkit/comp....

What you say is only true for personal information, for which you do need to opt-in in Firefox. Broad stats about the users' system wouldn't fall under that. You already leak most of this information to every web site fwiw.

AFAIK you only need opt-in for personally identifiable data.

Firefox would also definitely not be the first piece of software to run in Germany that has opt-out instead of opt-in. Most software does it that way and usually much sneakier than Firefox.

They're not sending any identifiable information, which is what makes the huge difference. Just hardware stats and alike.

See the Firefox Privacy Notice [1].

This kind of data is part of the "Firefox Health Report," which is opt-out.

[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/

You can see the actual data if you go to Menu > Help > Firefox Health Report, click Raw Data and select a date.

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