Comments on: Mozilla CEO John Lilly Reveals More Details On Stealth Data Project

By: » update market news XVIIII» Blog Archive » nugg.ad blog

» update market news XVIIII» Blog Archive » nugg.ad blog — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 07:53:53 +0000

[...] that anonymized data and create very statistically relevant analytics reports for all websites. Read more about the “Stealth” Data [...]

By: Privacy Software » Blog Archive » Firefox a Privacy Safe Haven? Or Not?

Fri, 18 Jul 2008 10:23:16 +0000

[...] Firefox, the popular open source browser, gained much of it’s popularity and market exposure by being open and allowing developers to create useful extensions. One of the more popular extensions is called Adblock Plus, which allows surfers to turn off most traditional web based advertisements. But Firefox, which is helping users remain private on some fronts, is also creating a stealth start up based on sharing usage data across the web graph. [...]

By: ICT magazine » Internet » SearchCap: The Day In Search, May 15, 2008 · Information & Communications Technology magazine

Sat, 24 May 2008 08:55:09 +0000

[...] Mozilla CEO John Lilly Reveals More Details On Stealth Data Project, TechCrunch [...]

By: Fluffykins

Fluffykins — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:32:58 +0000

Yes Michael

I REALLY DO PROMISE I won’t look at any data I’m not supposed to.

Yes, I know I have access to it.

Yes, I know that I COULD and that you’d never know.

I really do promise MOST SINCERELY I won’t

And you can’t see if my fingers are crossed.

By: john

john — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:28:41 +0000

@ Paul Neto

Since when was Alexa opt-in? I thought the parasite got installed as default with IE.

If I recall correctly it is reported by Adaware and offered as sometihg undesirable.

Maybe I’m wrong.

The more I hear of this, the more I think of Phorm et al.

With this capability, all it would take would be for an untrustworthy little git from the bottom of the marketing foodchain to buy into Mozilla and it would really be stuffed.

Would you really trust your sensitive data to be available to someone with a demonstrable track record in highly underhand activity, even if they’s promised most sincerely that they wouldn’t look at it?

About as much as you’d trust a paedophile to run a creche no matter how much he claimed to be reformed.

By: alphaxion

alphaxion — Mon, 19 May 2008 20:16:59 +0000

Thing is, this data is only really of any use to those who wish to mine it for monetary gain. Why would any normal web user wish to see what was the top website 5 minutes after a highly watched TV show? Or the web of browsing that explodes around a single tweet.

Any altruistic nature of “setting the data free” is therefore blown out of the water.

As others have pointed out, the data is very specific compared to the “stream of consciousness” that is gathered through the proliferation of google services on peoples websites rather than the browser that peers into them.
Also, gradual change can alter this to the point where it is similar to the nefariously omnipresent google toolbar – as a network admin, this application concerns me since many non-related applications attempt to stuff this down your throat (why is it packaged with cd burning software and iso mounting apps?).

What was once opt in gradually morphs into opt out and then into simply integrated.

We need to look for ways in which to fund development of the net and the many outbreaks of innovation without suckling at the teet of the advertiser and its trampling of the right to privacy.

Ask yourself, why should they know?

By: duckie

duckie — Mon, 19 May 2008 13:28:09 +0000

Goodbye then Firefox, it was nice knowing you.

By: Mozilla plant das Daten der Nutzer zu sammeln | Raven :: Online v7.0.0.2 preALPHA

Sat, 17 May 2008 14:00:47 +0000

[...] TechCrunch , Gulli Lesezeichen erstellen/Beitrag suchen [...]

By: Basic Thinking Blog | Mozilla: Mehr ein OS/Web als ein Browser?

Basic Thinking Blog | Mozilla: Mehr ein OS/Web als ein Browser? — Sat, 17 May 2008 09:26:01 +0000

[...] Techcrunch Artikelzusatzinfos 1. Tags: browser, Datenanalyse, firefox, Ideen, Mozilla, Open Source, web [...]

By: The Magnate

The Magnate — Thu, 15 May 2008 15:30:15 +0000

MagNet is coming!
But Mozilla is on the right track -

By: Paul Neto

Paul Neto — Thu, 15 May 2008 13:12:06 +0000

Jack #7 – I wouldn’t quite compare this to an Alexa which is an opt-in for a toolbar – and not a community user of a browser. As for managing a bias, I would argue that dealing with a browser bias is much more manageable than the bias of someone joining a tracked panel. Further, opt-in participation is largely driven by intent of data use.
I am assuming FF will be taking an open approach to aggregating data. One thing is for sure, data availability supports and fosters innovation – data coming from a black box does not.

By: TechCruch2

TechCruch2 — Thu, 15 May 2008 05:23:59 +0000

Your collected data will represent a very very small group of ff users. So, in other words… FF will be clasiffied as a false positive spyware application? jeje j/k

By: championslacker

championslacker — Thu, 15 May 2008 04:05:51 +0000

Here’s an interesting question — what does Google think about this? Fair question to ask, since Google is Mozilla’s ad-revenue benefactor.

http://slashdot...7/11/11/2036218

Through all the cookies laid down by AdSense and DoubleClick, Google has a uniquely complete view of Internet usage. Is democratization of that information at scale in Google’s interest?

By: kevin gao

kevin gao — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:13:05 +0000

great idea for mozilla to continue differentiating itself as well – can’t imagine msft/ie leading the charge on this one

By: Denis

Denis — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:09:15 +0000

I think this is pretty cool. People browse internet and contribute to shaping it, it makes sense that people should be able to get this information back for themselves, in aggregate. It will help everyone.

Except of course the moment one person makes a decision based on it will be the moment another person will start stuffing the ballots.

By: Frank Church

Frank Church — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:45:07 +0000

I don’t want to “ruin this for everyone”, so how about:

No, thank you.

By: Steven Roussey

Steven Roussey — Thu, 15 May 2008 00:09:43 +0000

It could be useful as a representative sample of the type of user that installs a third party browser, which might or might not be just as good as being a representative sample of the internet universe. I’ll have to chew on that…

By: Julien

Julien — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:50:47 +0000

I know it’s opt-in… but usually Firefox users don’t like to be spied and use FF because it’s open source and therefore there is no danger for their privacy. By doing so Mozilla would do the same thing that we hate in the Google Toolbar when we ask for the “advanced” version.

Also remember the listing of queries done by AOL users that AOL was keeping in a really safe place but one day was on the web. And again, this kind of logging is very dangerous for everyone’s privacy, imagine you would have a (very nasty) login page that would contain “login=bla&password=bla”.

Oh by the way, maybe they will do the same thing as Apple did with the Safari installation included with the Itunes upgrade : someday, the checkbox will be already checked when you upgrade FF and you will send all your browsing history to Mozilla. But hey, it was a young developer who did this, he did not know what he was doing right ?

However all this information would be very useful, but again, this would limit the stats to FF users, which is not (yet) everyone.

By: Shahar Nechmad

Shahar Nechmad — Wed, 14 May 2008 23:28:32 +0000

The big question is how many users will opt in, and if the profile of the users who opt in is broad enough.
My initial reaction is that people who will opt in will be from the same group of users who sit in the valley, use twitter all the time (yes. me included). This group is definitely not representative of all the people.

That said, if there is one company that can actually make also the “normal” users to opt is it’s probably Mozilla, so we can all cross fingers and wish them success.
The challenge of course will be to give users enough incentives to opt in…

By: whoopie

whoopie — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:34:06 +0000

@7 – firefox is not a fringe product. they are at a minimum of 20% penetration. higher on some foreign markets. its likely that globally they have 100 million+ regular users…and these are spread geographically, so you’ll be seeing a lot of sites you have never heard of in the stats (which is good).

By: Geoff

Geoff — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:30:17 +0000

And props to MA for the profile in FastCompany. I had no idea you were such a big muckety muck!

By: Geoff

Geoff — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:28:17 +0000

This is a (potentially) big deal. The naysayers above remind me of the Brendan Francis Behan quote: “Critics are like eunuchs in a harem…”

By: Prashant Sharma

Prashant Sharma — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:14:52 +0000

Mozilla can be trusted upon and hence it’s proposed data.
(As most of the traffic data analysis websites give a wague(not accurate) data analysis)

By: ohnopirates

ohnopirates — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:14:35 +0000

As much as Arrington thinks this is a godsend, it’s not.
As anyone with any sort of background in analytics or just general statistics can see, it’s almost identical to Alexa except it’s run by Mozilla.

Ok. If you want to know how the specific subset of Mozilla users who choose to opt into this program browse the web, great. This will be the free service for you.

If you want more, not so much.

By: sedwick

sedwick — Wed, 14 May 2008 22:08:49 +0000

I agree reader… pretty darn bold for them to do that. Gone are my Firefox days. Back to good ol’ IE. Although IE8 seems really cool.