Netzwerk KriKoWi6d ago
wakest likes your bugs ⁂

Firefox just updated their TOS to let us know they will sell all our browsing history with advertisers. If this isn't the final nail in the coffin I don't know what else is.

Thanks to @javi (https://goblin.band/notes/ak78rax5htqlh5qo) for posting about this situation.

@javi

<p>Firefox updated their <a target="_blank" href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/#notice">Terms of Use</a>? Let's see!</p><blockquote><p>As you type a search query within Firefox, Firefox offers <a target="_blank" href="https://support.mozilla.org/kb/search-suggestions-firefox">search suggestions</a> to provide you with faster and more direct access to what you’re looking for. Some of the search suggestions come from your search provider (“Search Suggestions”). Others come from Firefox, and are based on information stored on your local device (including recent search terms, open tabs, and previously visited URLs), or content from Mozilla and Mozilla’s partners, including paid sponsors and internet resources like Wikipedia (“Suggestions from Firefox”).</p></blockquote><p></p><p>Here chat. Here. This is where Firefox dies. </p><p>"information stored in your local device" and "content from mozilla's parners" and "paid sponsors".</p><p>This is a very convoluted way of saying "we use your personal data to segment you into something we can sell to advertisers".</p><p>This is EXACTLY what chrome does, this is exactly why a lot of us stopped using Chrome and moved back to Firefox. </p><blockquote><p>In some circumstances Mozilla’s partners will receive de-identified search and interaction data, in order to serve relevant suggestions and measure user engagement with suggested content.</p></blockquote><p>This is making me really mad. THIS IS JUST CORPO-SPEAK TO DESCRIBE HOW THE ENTIRE INTERNET ADVERTISEMENT INDUSTRY WORKS. This is HOW FACEBOOK WORK. This is how GOOGLE WORK. This is how the entire programmatic advertisement industry work. This is what we call "sell your personal data". No, no one sells your address, no one sells your name. BECAUSE IT'S ILLEGAL IN A SIGNIFICANT PART OF THE WORLD. </p><p></p><blockquote><p>We also work with advertising providers to deliver relevant sponsored content using programmatic technologies. To support this, we may share limited, non-identifying information — such as device type, IP-derived location information, and category of content viewed — to help determine which ads to display. We don’t share any information that identifies you. You can turn off sponsored content in your New Tab settings at any time.</p></blockquote><p>Oh it's so nice of you Mozilla, to do THE MINIMUM LEGAL REQUIREMENTS when selling our data. You don't share information that identify me? so nice of you! you know how else does that? Meta! Google! Tiktok! Somehow big tech mega corporations are willing to comply with the minimum legal requirements as you do, mozilla!</p><blockquote><p>In some cases, we may share or publish aggregated and anonymized data to facilitate research or as part of the lawful business purposes outlined above (such as sharing aggregated insights with advertising partners).</p></blockquote><p>This is called "advertisement segmentation" and it's what it paid for Zuckenberg fortress in Hawaii!! Going places, Moz, you are operating exactly as how Facebook used to do in 2016!</p><blockquote><p>To provide our services as described above, we may disclose personal data to: Partners, service providers, suppliers and contractors</p></blockquote><p>"We never disclose your personal data!!! well, unless it's one of our partners who pays us for it, of course!"</p><p>oh wait! they include a table of what kind of data they share with partners!</p><blockquote><ul><li><p>Technical data</p></li><li><p>Location</p></li><li><p>Language preference</p></li><li><p>Settings data</p></li><li><p>Unique identifiers</p></li><li><p>System performance data</p></li><li><p>Interaction data</p></li><li><p>Search data</p></li><li><p>Browsing data</p></li></ul></blockquote><p>The SHARE FUCKING EVERYTHING. THEY ARE SELLING EVERYTHING. "Unique identifiers" is the closest to personal identifiable data they can sell. That's what advertisers can use to make a profile of you: They may not know your name, but they will know everything else about you.</p><p>This is the same information that google collects and sells from you. THE SAME.</p><p>Fucking ghouls. This is where Firefox died, folks. </p><p></p>

goblin.band
Mar 23 at 10:43pmWeb
Show threadJ.V.B.6d ago
@liaizon @javi no that's not what it says. This is simply explaining the way the omnibar has always worked. You type something and the search provider gives autofill suggestions(unless you turned it off in settings. Locally there'll also be suggestion under that which are just queries of your local firefox history bookmarks etc this is not related to the internet nor sent anywhere in any way. And then if you live in certain regions firefox will also autofill some ads.
Show threadJ.V.B.6d ago
@liaizon @javi Only the ads and the search engine are internet/server related. And they also only get whatever word or words you typed into the omnibar no other data
Show threadjavi6d ago
This is literally in the document:

"in some cases, when ads are enabled on New Tab, additional browsing and interaction data (including interactions with our advertisers) may also be processed locally on your device to measure the effectiveness of those ads; the shortcuts feature also uses browsing data locally on your device to select top shortcuts, some of which may be sponsored. Any such data will only be shared with Mozilla and/or our advertising partners via our privacy-preserving technologies on an aggregated and/or de-identified basis.

"



That's almost exactly the same of how, for example, Facebook ads work.
Show threadJ.V.B.6d ago
@javi they measure the click through rate of ads. They don't have many ads so they all just send them to all browsers with some if then rules for showing them. Like for example, show amazon ad on new tab if amazon is in browsers local search history, all of which would be done on the browser side. They only get a signal if you click on the amazon ad on the new tab page. At most if they don't anonymize it enough then them would keep your ip but they probably don't.
Show threadJ.V.B.6d ago
@javi And the advertisers don't get any data, except perhaps the total aggregated click trough rate of the new tab amazon ad for example
Firefox themselves are the ad providers here
Show threadJ.V.B.6d ago
@javi AFAIK, mozilla does not process or collect your local browser data anywhere. The only thing mozilla collects depending on your settings is browser feature related analytics, crash reports and the ad click through rates if you leave the ads enabled. Firefox sync does exist but that's e2ee so mozilla doesn't have any access to that data.
Show threadjon r5d ago
@javi
I agree, in addition to disabling remote search providers, one should also deactivate all featured content on the New Tab page, plus switching it in settings not to be used as new tab page, but a blank one instead.
@DenJohn
@liaizon
Show threadwakest likes your bugs ⁂5d ago
@yala @javi @DenJohn I don't think anyone should have to do any of that in order to use a browser and I'm certainly not gonna recommend anyone install Firefox and then tell them to go through all of those hoops just to use it first.
Show threadjon r5d ago
@liaizon
That's a point.
@javi @DenJohn
Show threadStephen Brooks 🦆6d ago

@liaizon @javi I noticed I get search suggestions even when I switched them off, but perhaps that's only after I've typed a search engine keyword (like "g" for google) and they're coming from there direct.

In any case, this reminds me of when I was using Opera and it just became a skin for Chrome. I moved to Firefox then. There might be better options now.

Show threadSibrosan5d ago

@liaizon @javi

Fake news.

That *definitely doesn't* say Firefox will sell your browsing history with advertisers.

I wonder whether your interpretation is due to lack of understanding or to bad intentions 🤔

Show threadwakest likes your bugs ⁂5d ago
@sibrosan @javi fuck off
Show threadSibrosan5d ago

@liaizon @javi

That's not very polite.

Show threadwakest likes your bugs ⁂5d ago
@sibrosan @javi and your questioning my intelligence or intentions is very "polite"
Show threadSibrosan5d ago

@liaizon @javi

OK sorry.

On second thought, you do have a point.

However, in first instance I hadn't read further than "This is where Firefox dies". And in the quoted text above that I don't recognize at all that Firefox/Mozilla would upload locally stored data or share it with partners.

But the next sections such as "In some circumstances Mozilla’s partners will receive de-identified search and interaction data" are indeed something to be worried about.

#Firefox #Privacy

Show threadjavi5d ago
ok, seriously, I think this is something people don't understand. No one (who doesn't want to risk legal troubles) sell your personal data. That's illegal in lots of countries. Google, Meta, whoever you can think of, don't sell you personal data.
What they do is take that personal data and create an ANONYMIZED PROFILE of you. And then, they sell that profile. So when an advertiser wants to target someone like you, they can go to google and pay them to make sure their ads are shown to you and other people that fits the advertiser's specifications. They use your personal data to target you, but they don't sell your personal data to their customers: Their customers don't need it, because Google et al already do the data processing for them.
Mozilla, now, is doing EXACTLY THE SAME. The only meaningful difference between them and google/facebook is that facebook stores your personal data (unsellable) and process it to create your (sellable) anonymized profile on their servers. Mozilla, instead, use your own computer to store and process that anonymized profile that then is sent to mozilla servers for selling. The way they use your data, the purpose, and the outcome are exactly the same.
The fact they are doing it locally in your laptop instead of in their remote servers is just privacy-washing, a way to convince people who don't know better that their advertisement technology is different and more ethical. But if you are an advertiser? you get exactly the same from Mozilla than from google (actually, since they have introduced programmatic ads and google runs the biggest programmatic ad exchange, I would bet that you are getting exactly the same ads, feed by exactly the same personal-data-sourced anonymous profile, than when you use chrome)
Show threadjavi5d ago
it's literally saying that they use your browsing history to serve you targeted ads. That's what 'selling your browser history' means. Advertisers couldn't care less about which pages you visit: what they care about is about your anonymized profile, so they can accurately target you with custom campaigns. And mozilla uses your personal data on firefox to sell advertisers those profiles. This is EXACTLY the same way Google or Facebook works. Google doesn't sell anyone your browser or search history. Facebook doesn't sell anyone which profiles you follow on instagram or who you message on whatsapp. They use that data to make a profile of you, and that's what they sell to advertisers, that's how they profit from your personal data.
And that's exactly what mozilla is doing with firefox.
Show threadjavi5d ago
also, as a personal note, I would advice you that when you don't understand the topic someone is talking about, avoid questioning the intentions of those who actually know the field.
Show threadjon r5d ago

@liaizon
Wait, what? I seem not to be able to believe my eyes. Is that for Firefox, the browser, or for Firefox Accounts using Firefox Sync?

It seems this doesn't apply, if one deactivates all remote search suggestion providers?

@javi

Show threadwakest likes your bugs ⁂5d ago
@yala @javi when someone installs Firefox there is an AI sidebar and sponsored bookmarks both of which are still there if you don't have search suggestions enabled.
Show threadjon r5d ago
@liaizon
Yes, I've also assumed to disable those. Quite an integration surface on all possible ends: Sponsored bookmarks (to be deleted manually), ai-everything, search suggestions, new tab sponsored everything, plus eventually needing to install an ad blocker and following from all that possibly data extortion via FF Accounts/Sync ToS through some other vicious means, circumventing the e2e-encryption.
@javi