Privacy policies and Mozilla's compromised position [LWN.net]

Privacy policies and Mozilla's compromised position

Posted Aug 8, 2009 9:33 UTC (Sat) by coriordan (guest, #7544)
Parent article: Ubuntu's multisearch surprise

Even if the data being collected by Ubuntu is only what was already being collected by Mozilla+Google, the users should have been notified so that they have the possibility to view Ubuntu's privacy policy for this data.

Secondly, Mozilla isn't a good yardstick for privacy respect. Their income is almost completely dependent on Google and their deals as based on Google receiving masses of personal information about Firefox users.

Many privacy protecting features and plugins have been written for Firefox, but Mozilla will never consider including them in Firefox because their income model is based on Google having access to all that personal info about Firefox's users. And if a GNU/Linux distro does include such features, Mozilla prohibits them from using the "Firefox" trademark. Very nasty altogether.

People should not use any webbrowser called "Firefox". Use IceCat, or IceWeasel, or Konqueror, or another free software browser.

to post comments

Privacy policies and Mozilla's compromised position

Posted Aug 8, 2009 9:46 UTC (Sat) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link] (10 responses)

The trademark guidelines don't tie you to Google.

Privacy policies and Mozilla's compromised position

Posted Aug 8, 2009 9:58 UTC (Sat) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link] (9 responses)

Mozilla distribute Firefox in configurations that lead to masses of personal info being sent to Google. If you don't use their configuration, you can't use their trademark. So the two are indeed tied.

Where are the "Firefox" webbrowsers that include Tor anonymity plugins? Adblock plugins? Anonymised search plugins?

There are none because such configurations would reduce the amount of personal info being received by Mozilla's financial boss, Google.

Privacy policies and Mozilla's compromised position

Posted Aug 8, 2009 17:47 UTC (Sat) by sbergman27 (guest, #10767) [Link] (1 responses)

I don't always agree with you, to be sure. But I must say that it is good to know that I'm not the only one who sees the Google<->Mozilla Corp relationship for what it really is. The otherwise obvious fact usually gets lost in all the FF cheerleading.

Privacy policies and Mozilla's compromised position

Posted Aug 10, 2009 8:18 UTC (Mon) by regala (guest, #15745) [Link]

> But I must say that it is good to know that I'm not the only one who
> sees the Google<->Mozilla Corp relationship for what it really is

hmmm, God bless you then...

Privacy policies and Mozilla's compromised position

Posted Aug 9, 2009 15:03 UTC (Sun) by AndreE (guest, #60148) [Link] (3 responses)

Forgive me for my ignorance, but I am currently using Adblock Plus, Better Privacy, and Torbutton addons downloaded from the Firefox site.

Are these addons rendered ineffective by some hardcoded usage sharing in Firefox?

Privacy policies and Mozilla's compromised position

Posted Aug 9, 2009 21:26 UTC (Sun) by coriordan (guest, #7544) [Link]

They work fine, and using them is a great idea. And because Firefox is free software, Mozilla can't prevent you from using them.

The question is, why are these great plugins that protect user privacy not included in the default install?

The answer is that Mozilla's funding comes almost exclusively from Google, and Google's business model is based on gather as much personal information about Internet users as possible.

Tech savvy users like you and I are fine, we install plugins or switch to other software, but our parents and children will mostly install Mozilla's Firefox without any plugins, and they won't benefit from any of the privacy protection which is widely available.

Privacy policies and Mozilla's compromised position

Posted Aug 10, 2009 15:12 UTC (Mon) by nick.lowe (guest, #54609) [Link] (1 responses)

As far as I am aware, there is no "hardcoded usage sharing in Firefox".

Firefox just has its default homepage set to http://www.google.com/firefox

Most of Mozilla's revenue derives from traffic sent to Google at that
address.
(The theory being most people won't change it to http://www.google.com/ if
they want Google set as their homepage.)

Privacy policies and Mozilla's compromised position

Posted Aug 12, 2009 2:26 UTC (Wed) by k8to (guest, #15413) [Link]

Keyword search helps them a certain amount more. It's not pure evil, but it is not obvious to this user when reviewing the mozilla install and interface that it phones home by default for every typo I make.

Privacy policies and Mozilla's compromised position

Posted Aug 9, 2009 17:36 UTC (Sun) by tzafrir (subscriber, #11501) [Link]

That is the default package as distributed by Mozilla. But the trademark guidelines of Mozilla don't forbid you from making your own modified Firefox distribution with e.g. a different search engine plugin.

Privacy policies and Mozilla's compromised position

Posted Aug 11, 2009 5:20 UTC (Tue) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link] (1 responses)

Using Google as the default search provider in Firefox gives Google no more "personal info" than if you did the search by visiting google.com.

So what on earth are you talking about?

Privacy policies and Mozilla's compromised position

Posted Aug 11, 2009 5:22 UTC (Tue) by roc (subscriber, #30627) [Link]

I should add:

Using Google as the default search provider in Firefox gives Google no more "personal info" than if you did the search by visiting google.com *in any other browser*.

These claims that Mozilla configures Firefox to ship masses of personal information to Google are, as far as I can tell, false.