Austrian digital rights organization NOYB (None of Your Business) has filed a complaint with the Austrian data protection authority against Mozilla, accusing it of violating users' privacy. According to the organization, Mozilla activates a privacy feature in the Firefox browser without the explicit consent of users. This, according to them, is used to identify users' online activity.
The Privacy Preserving Attribution (PPA) feature, developed in partnership with Meta, was integrated into Firefox version 128, released in July 2022. Mozilla described PPA as a "non-invasive alternative to cross-site tracking" designed to help advertisers measure the effectiveness of their ads without providing information about users' online behavior.
Despite the claims about privacy, NOYB has expressed concerns that the feature may enable Mozilla to track users across different websites. They argue that the PPA does not guarantee user anonymity. Instead, it merely transfers tracking control from websites to the browser. Additionally, Mozilla activates this feature by default as soon as users install the latest Firefox update.
Mozilla claims that the system improves privacy by measuring ad performance without individual websites collecting personal data. But according to NOYB, the PPA allows Firefox to store data on how users interact with ads and aggregate that information for advertisers.
Firefox users can disable the PPA feature by opening the web browser's Privacy & Security settings and unchecking the "Allow web sites to perform privacy-preserving ad measurement" option.
However, rights activists argue that some of the tracking is done in Firefox, and this violates users’ rights under the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). According to Felix Mikoláš of NOYB, Mozilla has created an option for the advertising industry to track users with Firefox by using it as ad measurement tool. While Mozilla may have had good intentions, it is unlikely that ‘privacy-preserving attribution’ will replace cookies and other tracking tools. It is simply a new, additional way to track users, said Mikoláš.
The complaint is here.
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Opt-in, opt-in, opt-in! All I have to say about it. I’m not happy about it! However, I understand why Mozilla chose opt-out instead. There is no one who would turn on the function otherwise ;)
A tip for those searching for “Allow websites to perform”, but failing to find the item mentioned above.
Firefox separates the words, and writes “Allow web sites to perform”. It held me up for a while.
Sergey, thanks very much for this. Our privacy is now getting run down even by those such as Firefox, whom we regard as the good guys.
Thanks for the note, I will fix the typo.
@Sergey Tkachenko: I know this has nothing to do with Mozilla and the news. But have you thought about setting up a forum on winaero?
I know that there will be more work, and maybe not take off. But have a forum with the news that you can talk to others about and have a small group of people who like technology.
I think it is a good idea. I will do eventually.