Tom RitterMar 5

I've been seeing a lot of comments online about how browser telemetry is just a way to spy on users and we never actually use it, and it provides no value.

We can debate whether you think someone (Firefox or otherwise) overcollects telemetry, or doesn't collect it in a privacy-preserving enough way. And you should be able to turn it all off, for any reason.

But it's been instrumental for me, personally, to ship multiple security improvements to Firefox - and I'm just one of hundreds of developers. I wrote up some more here: https://ritter.vg/blog-telemetry.html

telemetry helps. you still get to turn it off - ritter.vg

Tom Ritter's personal homepage, where he rambles about tech-related topics.

Show threadCassandrichMar 5

@tomrittervg It doesn't matter how useful you think it is. It's still unethical and wrong.

I could go through your examples of "Concrete wins from Firefox Telemetry" one by one and detail how each should and could have happened just as smoothly without telemetry, using normal, ethical means like paid QA, voluntary reporting by power-user early-adopters, etc.

But I think this misses the point. You don't get to decide that having telemetry on-by-default (even with an way to opt-out) is acceptable just because you think you think it produced immensely beneficial results.

Show threadkhmMar 5
the "I bet you don't seed your torrents either" turns this from a good-faith argument for telemetry into an attack.

my opinion remains that any ethical goal which can be achieved with telemetry can be better achieved by having an actual relationship with users. I have yet to see an argument that isn't rooted in some informal fallacy or another -- in this case, appeal to consequences.

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Show threadFrederik Braun �Mar 5
@khm @dalias @tomrittervg how would you maintain an actual relationship with hundreds of millions of people, many of them not speaking English?
Show threadkhm
very well, thanks

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Mar 5 at 6:39pmWeb