I think using the system they used to provide a hotfix for a browser-breaking issue does not clash with the spirit of their prior pledge.
I feel a complaint like this verges unhelpfully in to the pedantic.
I feel a complaint like this verges unhelpfully in to the pedantic.
> [...] we need a mechanism to be able to quickly push updates to our users even when — especially when — everything else is down. It was great that we are able to use the Studies system, but it was also an imperfect tool that we pressed into service, and that had some undesirable side effects. In particular, we know that many users have auto-updates enabled but would prefer not to participate in Studies and that’s a reasonable preference [...] but at the same time we need to be able to push updates to our users
Its a difficult situation to be in: Some users do not want any changes being applied automatically, but when something breaks, changes need to be applied. It sounds like the Firefox team is doing everything they can with respect to both ends of the spectrum.
This seems like a very good compromise and is honestly more than they needed to do imo
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/05/09/what-we-do-when-thi...
It’s bad optics at the very least. Users who opted in for the update were in fact entered into studies they explicitly wouldn’t have wanted to be in without the lure of an earlier update.
We are also completely deleting all Telemetry and Studies data received in the week following the incident to ensure we respect people who had concerns like yours, but enabled Studies in order to receive the hotfix.
Specific details and timestamps are in the post at https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/05/09/what-we-do-when-thi...
That said, nuking this data is the first good thing Mozilla has done in this whole fiasco. It's a small but real act of contrition, so kudos for that.
GP used the word "felt" and was expressing that he felt a certain way about enabling Studies. You're nit-picking a conversation and it has gone like this:
A: I felt that $x.
B: I'm sorry that you felt that $x.
C: "I'm sorry that you felt ..." is an insincere apology.
Yes, some people use this trick to get out of admitting guilt or responsibility but this is not an example of that.
And that's the minimum. Anything less than that is shifting the blame.
> "In order to respect our users’ potential intentions as much as possible, based on our current set up, we will be deleting all of our source Telemetry and Studies data for our entire user population collected between 2019-05-04T11:00:00Z and 2019-05-11T11:00:00Z."
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/05/09/what-we-do-when-thi...