A public discussion was started to get to know how people felt about privacy conserving telemetry collection that would be opt out by default. There was massive negative feedback (duh). The feature did not ship in 57.
https://medium.com/georg-fritzsche/data-preference-changes-i...
"instead we always collect LESS data on Firefox release."
"Firefox by default shares data to: Improve performance and stability for users everywhere
Interaction data: Firefox sends data about your interactions with Firefox to us (such as number of open tabs and windows; number of webpages visited; number and type of installed Firefox Add-ons; and session length) and Firefox features offered by Mozilla or our partners (such as interaction with Firefox search features and search partner referrals).
Technical data: Firefox sends data about your Firefox version and language; device operating system and hardware configuration; memory, basic information about crashes and errors; outcome of automated processes like updates, safebrowsing, and activation to us. When Firefox sends data to us, your IP address is temporarily collected as part of our server logs.
Read the telemetry documentation for Desktop, Android, or iOS or learn how to opt-out of this data collection."
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I have no idea where you pull the "this seems to include what URL's you're browsing; this could be a security risk for apps like Dropbox and OneDrive" stuff from. The only place I know of that these could potentially be recorded is a crash report, and this has always been the case if you allow it to send crash reports back because they contain the stack contents.
Telemetry was previously only enabled by default in Nightly and Aurora:
https://blog.theochevalier.fr/telemetry-enabled-by-default-o...
The telemetry data includes a lot more than just update checks. You wouldn't need to send information to Mozilla to get an update or get CA revocation lists.
For example, from the privacy policy[1]:
Firefox features offered by Mozilla or our partners (such as *interaction with Firefox search features* and search partner referrals). [emphasis added]
I already did. Much of the stuff you mentioned has always been enabled and had nothing to do with telemetry. This is most obvious with the update checks. And yes, you DO need to send information to know which add-ons to update. Probing every installed add-on to see if there's an update amounts to sending over the list of installed add-ons. Let's be forthright about that.
I quoted an article from one of the Telemetry engineers explaining that now LESS data is collected by default.
I think that's a good enough rebuttal to your claim that there has been a change of direction to collect more.
In fact, your link explicitly explains that you cannot control the extent of data collection now. ("There is just one control for data upload for Firefox") It also explains that this is a new change ("which is on by default.")
Trying to spin this or casting aspersions on casual users who noticed a change won't change the facts.
> (URL's? Form data?)
> this telemetry does cover usage.. i.e., this seems to include what URL's you're browsing; this could be a security risk for apps like Dropbox and OneDrive.
Back these claims up with something specific and concrete, otherwise they're just wild speculation.
The search bit you're quoting refers to when you, say, search for something using Amazon via the Amazon search provider built into the browser search box, a piece of data is sent along with the request to Amazon to attribute Mozilla as the source. In aggregate this influences how much Amazon pays out to Mozilla for their default presence in Firefox.
I'm happy to try to clarify any concerns about telemetry or other data collection you might have (in an individual capacity, not as a representative of Mozilla), but usually that should come before the flinging of damaging accusations over a public forum.
I was pointing out that this is a new opt-in change. The links that were posted prove it. Is that FUD?
> specific and concrete
In the absence of specific information, should we not assume the worst?
> data collection
That sounds reasonable for normal users, but any of this data can be used for fingerprinting, data mining, etc. Do you disagree?
One suggestion for improvement would be that the specifics of what data is collected and why would be a welcome addition to the Privacy Policy page, or perhaps a more detailed page that the PP links to. This would be something people could paste in public forums to refute incorrect statements... especially if the page was on mozilla.org instead of Medium.
https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/t...
The wording of the search partnership disclaimer could be made clearer. Is there anything else that you find confusing or disconcerting?
Any request to Mozilla is sending info to Mozilla, and thus should be covered under the privacy policy. Every check for an update likely also includes the current version running so they can send back info on whether the update is important/security related or not. Even if it was just a "list all versions" request, it still signifies that IP used the browser. Similarly, a CRL list update signifies that the IP used Firefox and that the conditions that trigger a CRL update were met (which might mean an HTTPS address was visited, or it might happen at startup).
Any time Firefox implicitly requests data from Mozilla, that's something that they would likely cover in their Privacy policy. Chrome got a lot of flack a few years back for essentially the same problem, but with a twist. Every time it started it would download a binary blob from Google. It turns out it was the code to do voice recognition, which was executed after download. Fairly innocuous if you trust Google, but it was executing remote code from Google on every startup, so people were rightly disturbed by what they saw going on until an explanation was put forth.
But CliqZ did ship for some German users, randomly chosen. Which tracks your entire browsing history, and sends it to a company that’s most known for its tracking products.
After this, Firefox deserves to be treated as just as much spyware as Chrome.
"Mozilla pilots Cliqz engine in Firefox to slurp user browsing data"
"Users who receive a version of Firefox with Cliqz will have their browsing activity sent to Cliqz servers, including the URLs of pages they visit," Mozilla says. "Cliqz uses several techniques to attempt to remove sensitive information from this browsing data before it is sent from Firefox."
http://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-tests-cliqz-engine-whic...
That's so much of an improvement for a browser which people only use because they want absolute privacy.