With the latest version of Firefox for U.S. desktop users, we’re introducing a new way to measure search activity broken down into high level categories. This measure is not linked with specific individuals and is further anonymized using a technology called OHTTP to ensure it can’t be connected with user IP addresses.
Let’s say you’re using Firefox to plan a trip to Spain and search for “Barcelona hotels.” Firefox infers that the search results fall under the category of “travel,” and it increments a counter to calculate the total number of searches happening at the country level.
Here’s the current list of categories we’re using: animals, arts, autos, business, career, education, fashion, finance, food, government, health, hobbies, home, inconclusive, news, real estate, society, sports, tech and travel.
Having an understanding of what types of searches happen most frequently will give us a better understanding of what’s important to our users, without giving us additional insight into individual browsing preferences. This helps us take a step forward in providing a browsing experience that is more tailored to your needs, without us stepping away from the principles that make us who we are.
We understand that any new data collection might spark some questions. Simply put, this new method only categorizes the websites that show up in your searches — not the specifics of what you’re personally looking up.
Sensitive topics, like searching for particular health care services, are categorized only under broad terms like health or society. Your search activities are handled with the same level of confidentiality as all other data regardless of any local laws surrounding certain health services.
Remember, you can always opt out of sending any technical or usage data to Firefox. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to adjust your settings. We also don’t collect category data when you use Private Browsing mode on Firefox.
The Copy Without Site Tracking option can now remove parameters from nested URLs. It also includes expanded support for blocking over 300 tracking parameters from copied links, including those from major shopping websites. Keep those trackers away when sharing links!
I’m not inherently against anonymised and aggregated data collection by services and organisations I support. I understand that it is difficult to compete in the tech industry without this, and in the case of Firefox I believe it is very important that they continue to survive as a mainstream alternative to Google’s market monopoly (even if things are trending in the wrong direction). I also understand that opt-out makes a lot more sense than opt-in for this kind of tracking, since opt-in would significantly reduce and skew the amount of data they had access to and limit its ability to improve the product. However, I think their explanation here is a poor one:
Again, I understand that it’s not always possible to provide an explanation that is as transparent and detailed as some users may want, but you need to do better than this. I am struggling to see how my browsing experience can be improved through this type of data collection. I don’t want or need a browser that is “tailored to my needs”, and that type of language sounds privacy-invasive to me. If you genuinely believe that what you have planned is going to improve my experience then you need to do a better job of explaining that before you ask me to provide more data.
This also stood out to me, but then I remembered this weird question asking how people are using Firefox for shopping. At least based on that thread it seems FF management have disappointing and unnecessary future plans similar to Pocket acquisition.
It looks like they’re just searching for people who will respond positively to their foregone decision to add the Shopping tool. I don’t know how else to read that post, especially with how the team is interacting with the responses.
(Is that AI-generated spam in the replies too?)
That’s a good pickup. Definitely something to be watching out for in the future.