3w ago

Mozilla Backs off on Data Collection: Firefox Labs to Not Require Telemetry or Studies in Future Updates

www.quippd.com

Mozilla Clarifies on Data Collection: Firefox Labs to Not Require Telemetry or Studies in Future Updates

Starting in Firefox 138, Mozilla started gating Firefox Labs features behind data collection.

Mozilla had announced that some new Firefox features would be released via Firefox Labs.

It is now a few hours since I posted, and there is reason to celebrate – Mozilla is updating Firefox Labs to let people access features without needing to enable data collection.

22 comments

Jesus christ the entire upper management needs to disappear. It's as if they're deliberately self-sabotaging Mozilla
- The damage is done. I'm moving away from Mozilla. Sort of. IronFox is working fine for now.
  
  how long does it take ublock updates to catch up?
I've noticed a worrying trend among Firefox fans: too many of them supported this mandatory telemetry for on-device features.
They had never held this position before. Mozilla made a change, and too many fans simply adopted it uncritically.
Personally, I believe everyone should have internal ethical guidelines that aren't mandated by their favorite corporation. Mozilla's recent behavior has been particularly egregious because they push an ethical manifesto on their website and they promise every application they produce upholds them. Hopefully it should be clear to people that Mozilla's stated goals are good because they are good and not simply because they came from Mozilla. If Mozilla updates their principles to suck, then they'll suck. Ethics should not be treated like a religion.
But this blog post is good news. It demonstrates that criticism actually has merit, and that Mozilla can be coerced into rolling back bad changes.
I hope the Firefox fans who adopted Mozilla's silent stance just a couple days ago will rethink their positions and decide not to be so harsh when they see criticism of Mozilla.
Dear internet, I am confused. I don't know how to feel about this rollercoaster of events.
- deleted by creator
- If you imagine that the referenced bug was present in the first place, then you'll end up at a pretty good place: slightly bummed that you can't both try out Labs features before they graduate and disable telemetry, but understanding that it's a technical limitation.
So in a few hours your post went all the way up the chain, the cost-benefit analysis changed, and the course was reversed? That's neat.
Or, of course, it was never an intentional evil plan that was "backed off" from... Perhaps it indeed was an artefact of how things evolved over time with an unfortunate side-effect, and we shouldn't be too quick to jump to the worst-faith interpretation of events.
Sorry, I'm just a bit tired of the reactionary pressure to be outraged about everything on social media. Even the non-VC-funded ones.
- I have no idea what prompted them to shift their position - I just know that they shifted. Look at the release notes and the support pages if you disagree. There is clearly a change.
  
  I agree that there's a change in that it's now publicly communicated that it's not an ideal end state to tie Labs to whether telemetry is enabled, but that might just as well have been the case in the first place - just not communicated publicly. (If that is indeed the case, then of course ideally that would have been explicit somewhere immediately, but alas.)
- I'm just a bit tired of the reactionary pressure to be outraged about everything on social media.
  Have you tried... I dunno... just skipping the posts you don't like? Others are clearly interested in this post and topic. You're not the social media judge who decides what's worthy of discussion. Just keep scrolling, friend.
  
  That kinda works, but it's just that I've also been on the other side of this. Like, just now I read this, and it just makes me sad.
  Me not jumping on the bandwagon doesn't make it better. But I'm hoping for a movement to dissuade others from doing so.
  And also, I know the lure of being outraged about everything, and I'm sure that among everyone who thinks they are interested in it, there are plenty who would actually be better off not getting wound up about it. (But yes, that's probably not you.)
- So in your opinion, how should the public have responded?
  
  Either log a feature request in Mozilla Connect and otherwise not talk about it on social media, or if you talk about it on social media, start with a "hmm, I wonder why this" attitude, rather than a "Firefox is becoming spyware and no longer open source" one.

22 comments