TFW you blew your entire CGI budget on a car commercial
96 karma · joined January 22, 2015
In any case, the claim that "no user data was collected or shared" is suspect.
Users who enabled the extension and visited NBC Universal's site (and others) were sending extra HTTP header data to the server, data that identified them as a Firefox user, of a specific version, who had a particular extension installed -- that's how the "engagement" worked.
Do you think the server(s) that handled these types of "special" requests were configured to specifically _not_ log the incoming traffic or extra headers?
Do you think that NBC Universal would spend the resources to build an elaborate[1] ARG focused on digital "engagement" with fans, form a relationship with Mozilla to promote the show and ARG to Firefox users, but also specifically _not_ collect data about those users?
It seems unlikely.
[1] https://wiki.gamedetectives.net/index.php?title=Mr._Robot_AR...
This is disingenuous at best.
The extension (when enabled) injects an extra HTTP header into your browser's requests to 3 specific sites[1], (at least) one of which appears to be operated by NBC Universal.
Are we really supposed to believe that _all_ of the servers handling these "special" requests were set up without any kind of logging enabled? That NBC Universal wasn't tracking how many times each page was loaded? And from which IP addresses? And when?
Mozilla needs to clarify what they meant by "user data" and "collected" here. Seems like they're trying to hide the fact that your data WAS collected -- by a 3rd party, which is perhaps worse.
All you have to do is drop the word "sorry", it doesn't matter if the apology actually addressed any of the concerns that were raised.
FB was sorry for being "unclear". Mozilla is sorry for "the confusion" and for "letting down members of [the] community".
The headlines will read "[Company] apologizes for [event that triggered criticism]" and everyone will carry on as if the apology directly addressed that event. The lawyers and shareholders will breathe a sigh of relief, and the matter will soon be forgotten.
Regardless of if the criticism is justified, my point here is that there was no apology made for the planning/execution of the presentation itself -- just for the offense it caused to those who misunderstood the goals of the presenter.
It's one thing to believe an apology wasn't necessary. It's another thing to believe it's OK for "journalists" to massage this corporate non-apology into something more palatable.
In other words, a classic non-apology. The issue is that people did understand the true goal of the presentation: self-promotion.
Actually, this is exactly what was requested (and was eventually provided).