Firefox collects and sells users browsing history soon?

Is Mozilla/Firefox thinking about suicide?

Mozilla Stealth Data Project;
According to this article on TheRegister.com, Mozilla CEO John Lilly and VP Engineering Mike Schroepfer have plans to use Firefox for collecting users's browsing history. And of course to sell this information for hard currency, 'cause while Mozilla is a non-profit organization, their CEO makes a cool $500.000 a year.
As of now the idea seems to be to use an opt-in solution. But that might change of course...

Personally I haven't got much faith in companies collecting users browsing habits.
Remember AOL that collected client's data. First they said it was an accident, only later they admitted it was intentional.
In the AOL case, the so-called anonymous data later proved to be not anonymous at all.

So my question is, would you guys have trust in Mozilla/Firefox if it's their goal to get data collected from a potentially 170 million people userbase?
That's data about your music/movies/cars/art/etc interests (e.g hobbies) but also your medical history, your sexual preferences, your religion, your income, your taxes, your drinking habits, your family situation e.g your private life.
Do you believe that the information would be truely anonymous and also would stay anonymous?
What do you guys think of this plan?

Edit;
Additional sources;
Mozilla CEO John Lilly's blog
TechCrunch article

 

I'd switch to another browser.

 

I highly doubt they would do that.

 

In the first article I linked to, it states;
"Executives last week confirmed they are working on a project referred to internally as "Data". This would gather anonymised data on a voluntary basis, and provide the analytical information for anyone who wanted it."....

 

Meh. Until a more reliable source writes the article, I don't believe it.

 

I will move to Safari...

 

...Safari is the least safe. If I HAD to change...Opera most likely.

 

Voluntary basis, so you would to agree for them to collect your browsing history,
well thats the way I see it.

 

Meh, I've added a link to the blog of Mozilla's CEO in which he describes the project.
And as for reliable sources, you really think TheRegister.com is unreliable?
Even NBR uses it frequently as a source.

 

Didn't know that. Never even heard of TheRegister...so I guess its unreliable, imo. ;o

EDIT: After browsing the site, it does have a lot of legit info on others. Lol.

 

Oh. It's going to be voluntary IF they go through with this plan. They only want 1% of their 170 million FF users. I'm just going to simply deny IF this comes out.

 

I guess I am pessimistic...such a policy - even if voluntary to begin with - very quickly can become a for-profit operation, which is also when it starts taking on shades of grey. At this point, the suits usually will resort to subterfuge when referring to it because they know - as we all do - that this is a very touchy subject.

Yet, we have seen it happen before - as the OP pointed out, AOL is a case in point. Actually, come to think of it, I can give you some examples from even the 18th century. Of course, in the context of this thread, this is probably stretching it too far.

Personally, I feel that this will eventually have to happen and we will have no choices in this - rather the only choice will be to be either completely online or completely offline - not simply off the internet but offline from a network which is being increasingly sustained by a digital dependency-structure. At that point, as Jeter in his book, Noir, suggests - for those who choose to be online, the problem will not be so much to get online, but how to get off the network!

So, if indeed the report is true and FF is thinking in these terms, I think they will eventually get into a mode of this kind of info-trading - this would be the best-case scenario. There are other much darker possibilities. Call it intuition...call it paranoia...call it pessimism...call it techno-determinism - but I think this is the logic of a digital economy.

So, I guess eventually the question I will need to ask myself is not simply do I want to use FF or will I continue to use FF (I generally use Opera). The more pressing question is - Do I want to be online or offline?

Cheers!

 

Why isn't this prospect illegal? Probably because every new internet "privacy" law caters to big business having the right to invade people's privacy.

Once Firefox does this, so will most other browsers. I highly doubt the claim of anonymised and voluntary enrollment will be held up:

My impression of the future is that web browsers will offer a free version which collect data and a pay version which claims not to.

Anymore of this and I'm joining the Amish.

 

I agree. I can see other browsers doing the same if FF goes through with this. But on the same token, I'm sure many many many users hate this idea and are going to bash Mozilla for this. They will lose most of their 18% browser market if this happens. I doubt they want that to happen since they have been becoming increasingly more mainstream.

 

Not if ALL the browsers do it - in which case Mozilla would not be doing anything out of the ordinary. Of course there could be a new breed of browsers, which would be really cool...! Getting bored of using the IE/FF/Opera/Safari and other such browsers...

 

One thing I find amazing is that once a service is mainstream, they can do whatever they want.

Google didn't anounce that they catalog all search history indefinately until after they had so many people addicted to their service. Still though, the fact that they do this doesn't drive much traffic away from their site. It is so mainstream most casual internet users aren't aware or simply don't care.

Firefox could likely just manufacture this ability, but not implement it until they are so mainstream that casual users can't avoid their browser.


I don't blame these companies for trying to do this. They are simply trying to make more money off of a service they offer free of charge.

I find ISP's to be the problem here. They are the companies we all pay to use their service. I feel they should have a legal obligation to ensure the privacy of their customers. They are also the people with the most ability to ensure privacy. Unfotunately they are more than happy to assist in this severe invasion of privacy.

I'm writing a letter to Comcast tomorrow. A mean one.

 

How can ISPs ensure privacy?

 

So they`ll see my pr0n site visiting habits?
Seriousely, volunteer basis, but for what? an average user checks his mail.maybe reads some news and some minor reads.

 

Paying bills online, purchasing stuff online, start a bank account online, basically you can do anything online.

 

Well yes they are becoming mainstream, but I don't think they ever will be. 18% of browser share is nothing. With pc's coming default with IE and a lot of users liking Opera and Safari, FF will only increase a little at a time and at a very slow pace.

As far as claiming its the ISP's fault. I don't think so. Their job is just to provide us internet access. ENSURING privacy is going a little too deep. That may cause prices to incline and users to get upset if it's annoying. It's the individual user who determines how privacy is allowed. Buying appropriate software and firewall and whatnot.

 

So the CEO of the Firefox making company steal your credit card #?
We live in a world of much paranoia and scepticism.

 

No, I'm not saying that's what their going to do or intend to do. Just saying that I don't think many FF users are going to be okay with Big Brother Mozilla watching over their every move online.

 

The ISP's job is just to provide us with internet access, I agree. However, it wouldn't be much work for them to blind our IP adresses similar to how proxy servers do.

With a little more work they could blind MAC addresses too (when applicable). That is the step that binds browsing habbits to a particular person.

However, I understand that wouldn't eliminate all identity tracking. Internet services could still track patterns of information which could be used to identify a lot of what people are doing on the net.

Such as this site which I found which pulls information from random sources, without your knowing it:

http://www.rapleaf.com/

It is a larger problem than the ISP's can solve alone. However, they do have an opportunity to eliminate some of it. And they are the easiest people to blame, because they are the only people who get money out of my pocket.

It is harder to criticize companies like Mozilla, who don't charge people to use their service.

 

I don't and can't see any action on ISP's behalf unless government gets involved and makes it a law to ensure privacy.

FF is free, if you don't like the service their are many other alternatives. FF is not a monopoly lol. But yeah, I would be completely upset if FF goes through with this. I'm an avid FF user and have recommend it to everyone I know.

 

Then we are actually in agreement. I may not have stated it as clearly as I meant to, but I feel the government should push the ISP's to ensure privacy. Of course, it is mainly up to users to voice that concern, otherswise the government and companies would have no motivation to undertake that task.

And as I said before, I can't blame Mozilla. They offer a good service free of charge. However, I am absolutely sure that if Firefox ever implements this, every other major browser will too...

 

Eh.. Firefox is opensource.
They can't make it non-free.
They can't force people to send their browsing history, as it would mean the end of Firefox.
There is at least one good alternative using Gecko engine - SeaMonkey - and I'm 99,99% sure they will never implement such a thing.
Theres also bunch of others.
And IceCat with is pretty much a copy of FireFox, but made to be entirelly free software. I doubt that it will implement such dubious techniques as well.

You are free to modify Firefox code. http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/about/licensing.html

Now please stop panicin' and bull****in'.

 

I'm pretty sure Mozilla wouldn't do this, and if they did i wouldn't care as Firefox is FOSS so I'll be able to use alternatives that are directly based off of it.

 

Like what?

 

I am waiting for the big shock, the shock when people find out how much of their personal lives are invaded. I use yahoo for email, and it is getting harder and hard to tell which e mail is real and which is spam. Yahoo is scanning my personal email and selling the key words to spammers. Do many people realize this. Free or paid is not the point.
When people realize what has been done to there privacy, they are going to absolutely flip. I give it four years.

 

There are quite a few already out, one off the top of my head would be IceWeasel. I may just use Opera though.

 

The Register is unreliable. NBR also links to Engadget

 

Of course it's unreliable. It's almost exactly like theinquirer.net. Both are good at gossip, baseless speculation, and the occasional leaked information that makes it worthwhile to read them.

But reliable? Never.

As for this "story", obvious BS.
Mozilla's CEO says they're working on a project to gather anonymized data from users, and of course people have to make a conspiracy out of it.

*Yawn*
wake me up when you've mapped how much information Google has on you. Because that's a hell of a lot more than Mozilla will ever be able to get near. And Google gives virtually *no* guarantees about what they use it for.
Has that stopped people from using their various services?