Mozilla, the nonprofit foundation behind the development of Firefox, has recently been accused of tracking user behavior without obtaining their consent.
“Allows Firefox To Track User Behaviour”
The Vienna-based privacy rights group None of Your Business, commonly referred to as NYOB, has filed a complaint against the organization, alleging that its new privacy feature is tracking Firefox users’ behavior across various websites.
“Contrary to its reassuring name, this technology allows Firefox to track user behavior on websites,” NYOB mentioned in a press release.
Called “Privacy Preserving Attribution (PPA),” the new feature was developed in collaboration with Meta in 2022 and is enabled by default in Firefox version 128, which was released in July of this year.
According to None of Your Business, “this technology allows Firefox to track user behavior on websites. In essence, the browser is now controlling the tracking, rather than individual websites.”
The group argues that although the feature is an improvement over “invasive cookie tracking,” the developers did not seek user consent to activate it. Instead, it was enabled by default when users upgraded to the new version of Firefox. This is concerning, as Mozilla has built its reputation as a privacy-friendly alternative to popular browsers like Chrome and Edge.
Concerns Raised Over Firefox’s PPA Feature
NYOB asserts that the PPA feature allows Firefox to collect user data regarding ad interactions and share it with advertisers, stating that “similar to Google’s Privacy Sandbox, this has turned the browser into a tracking tool for websites.”
While Mozilla maintains that the new feature enhances user privacy by measuring ad performance without disclosing personal data to individual websites, NOYB argues that the tracking occurs within Firefox, potentially violating the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
If you are using Firefox, you can disable the PPA feature by going to the browser’s Privacy and Security settings and unchecking the option labeled “Allow websites to perform privacy-preserving ad measurement.”
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