However, Mozilla has a special agreement with Google Analytics that ensures all data is anonymized.
Some discussion which mentions that here: https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785
Some discussion which mentions that here: https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785
That is terrifying.
a) I can block it from websites easily. Not so from Firefox about:... pages.
b) Firefox has a marketing angle that they are privacy protecting. But injecting external tracking code into the browser itself is the opposite.
Homebrew also has it included with a pretty good description why I think: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew/blob/master/docs/Analytics....
Actually it is. It suggests the organization behind the browser actively takes steps to embed tracking right in the browser.
Only in the "Get Add-ons" section, mind you. Everything else is local.
That should be a whole lot more terrifying.
That is not the issue. The issue is when they send Firefox user's data to google of all places.
I really hope this kind of non-sense starts changing in Mozilla soon. This post is promising, but—as the gp points out—still not without glaring irony/hypocrisy.
Plenty of huge sites out there could quite easily demand the same thing without affecting ABC's bottom line while making the lives of others better in incremental steps.
"Mozilla went through a year long legal discussion with GA before we would ever implement it on our websites. GA had to provide how and what they stored and we would only sign a contract with them if they allowed Mozilla to opt-out of Google using the data for mining and 3rd parties.
We now have two check boxes in our GA premium account that allows us to opt-out of additional usage of our data. Because Mozilla pushed Google so hard, those two check boxes are available to every other GA user in the world regardless if they have a premium account like we do. GA also doesn't track IPs or store PII within the tool."
--
Seriously, those bastards.
Only having internal controls and debate, sustained legal engagement, and ultimately DNT-obedience.
I expected more. /sarcasm
"GA had to provide how and what they stored and we would only sign a contract with them if they allowed Mozilla to opt-out of Google using the data for mining and 3rd parties."
(emphasis mine) am I the only one who finds the usage of the word provide odd? Literally it means GA had to list what and how (insinuating they blindly trust GA to do only what it says it does). Not-literally but the flow of the phrase makes it seem like they want to convey "GA had to prove how and what ..." but without actually making that claim. In the case Mozilla does have proof why don't they share the anonymization framework with proofs? In case they don't we are supposed to be OK with their feigned naivety?
Google is a company that have a track-record of breaking the law to contravene user-privacy. They are also Mozilla's primary competitor (albeit also a large revenue source). Please tell me how, as a company selling oneself on user-privacy, approaching such a company to negotiate a contract that ensures you can continue sending them your users' data is not naïve? Calling it naïve is kind, as the alternative is malice.
No matter what way you cut it, Mozilla is sending your data to Google's servers, and they're deciding what to do with that data. An opt-out contract doesn't change any of that.
> I really hope this kind of sensible demand becomes wider spread, with more people going to Google saying "we only want to use your tools if...
To turn that around, you're going to Google saying "your market dominance makes your tools are so indispensable to our business, that we would rather go through an expensive year long legal discussion with you to negotiate better terms that consider alternative competing solutions"
Like when, and did they get punished for that and change their ways?
> did they get punished for that
Not really, unless a fine 0.002% of their revenue counts.
> and change their ways?
On that specific issue, after being investigated for it, it seems so. On any other handling of personal data, one can only make assumptions based on their ethical record.
And incredibly, Mozilla talked Google down from their normally "and we get everything your users do" conditions to only "and you make us a trivially changed default search engine, and we are under contractual obligation to anonymise the data we get through our GA channel. And offer everyone in the world the option to have that same anonymisation turned on. For free". That alone is worth one-time changing a search engine after installation. After all, you get this product for free, and you're even given every possible way for you to customize it should you not like any of the default settings, from default search engine to default skin to default webgl hardware binding settings.
So if you still think none of that was worth doing, and just seeing google.com find you search results, but clicking three times to change that is too much work, then... I don't know man. I don't think browsers are for you.
Apparently there's some people who are not fans of Piwik, that's a shame.
Now they probably don't NEED it, but with every user they lose to chrome, they get less and less money until the only market for them would potentially be the privacy focused ones (although I here chromes got really good privacy features nowadays) which are such a small population that they wouldn't even have enough customers to justify the revenue to even match competing browser features. Thus, you would end up with a lackluster browser that cannot match competing browsers and its only niche are privacy people.