1mo ago

Mozilla Has Been Sharing Aggregated Firefox Data With Advertisers Since 2017, When it Enabled Telemetry by Default

www.quippd.com

Mozilla Has Likely Been Sharing Aggregated Firefox Data With Advertisers Since 2017, When it Enabled Telemetry by Default

TL;DR: With Firefox 56, Mozilla combined Firefox Health Report and Telemetry data into a single setting called “technical and interaction data”, which was then enabled by default. This data was then shared with advertising partners on a de-identified or aggregated basis.

privacy @lemmy.ca

yoasif @fedia.io

1mo ago

Mozilla Has Been Sharing Aggregated Firefox Data With Advertisers Since 2017, When it Enabled Telemetry by Default

www.quippd.com /writing/2025/03/12/mozilla-has-been-sharing-aggregated-firefox-data-with-advertisers-since-2017-when-it-enabled-telemetry-by-default.html

Privacy @lemmy.world

yoasif @fedia.io

1mo ago

Mozilla Has Been Sharing Aggregated Firefox Data With Advertisers Since 2017, When it Enabled Telemetry by Default

www.quippd.com /writing/2025/03/12/mozilla-has-been-sharing-aggregated-firefox-data-with-advertisers-since-2017-when-it-enabled-telemetry-by-default.html

15 comments

Well shit. I left telemetry on because I liked Firefox and didn't mind helping the developers with their free software. I very much mind helping marketers. I'm really curious what exactly is being shared.
But I've already moved on to Waterfox and Librewolf on everything but my phone.
- Same. If you don’t enable telemetry, how are they supposed to know if a feature is popular?
  Meanwhile, they’re selling the data to fucking ad networks. Scum.
- Put Waterfox on your phone! It's been great for me.

on a de-identified and aggregated basis
Ehh can't say I care too much, especially since you've always been able to turn it off

Draaaaaamaaa
- right?!? Just go to Firefox Data Collection and Use, and decide if you want to unclick "Allow Firfox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla". nbd
  
  But that's a looooooooot of work, though. Like I did it a long time ago, but my hand muscles still hurt all these years later. :(

Read the post and I don't understand how the author reached the conclusion that this has been happening since 2017. They enabled telemetry by default in 2017, but there's no proof that data started being sold starting then.
- Did you see that the privacy policy was updated to use Technical & Interaction data to "suggest relevant content"?
  It's a package deal.
  
  The "suggest relevant content" refers to their sponsors like websites that show up on the front page. It's not evidence that they actually sold that data to other companies.

15 comments