Mozilla Mr. Robot promo backfires after installing extension without permission
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
This is bad. Very bad.
How can they claim they care about privacy, now? Privacy and control was how they sold the product, now they've proven user have absolutely no control, and Mozilla doesn't respect its users.
This could be the final nail in the coffin.
And they did this shit for some promotion for a TV show. What a clusterfuck Mozilla, hope you learned your lesson.
A tone-deaf response that doesn't acknowledge the issue with their approach, after two days of official silence.
Mozilla, it's time for some serious introspection.
Looks like they didn't have a look at what happened to Patreon lately.
I happen to like Mr. Robot but what happens when a show I dislike is pushed on me. Later on, it's 5 shows with a forced opt-out. After that, it's a bunch of other stuff with a convoluted way of opting out (similar to "installing" a 3rd-party search engine).
Mozilla says it's a show it's users like... This is the scariest statement from Mozilla so far. It's the kind of thing the Facebooks, the Googles and all the others are doing via their surveillance mechanisms.
After a while, the browser will be littered with Kardashian stuff because the majority will dictate the lowest common denominator.
The fact that this functionality exists is bad enough, even if they didn't use it.
Right, and that's the problem: trust. I trust them to be responsible with the unfettered access I've given them. I trust them to only use that access for the things we've agreed upon: updates to the core browser and some specific data-collection to help them understand and improve how the product is being used.
Now they are using that channel to push advertisements onto my system without asking. They are overstepping the intended use of the update channel we had agreed upon in a very non-transparent manner. Makes me wonder if I can trust them.
I only gave them the ability to push automatic updates because I trusted them. If I can't trust them not to abuse the privilege I need to think about revoking the privilege and uninstalling Firefox.