Vienna-based human rights group NOYB said it had filed a complaint against Mozilla with the Austrian data protection authority, accusing the developer of the Firefox browser of spying on users on websites without the users’ consent.
Image source: noyb.eu
Digital advocacy group NOYB (None Of Your Business), founded by activist Max Schrems, said Mozilla included a “privacy-preserving attribution” feature in Firefox that turned the browser into a tool for spying on users without their direct knowledge. the beneficiaries are the website owners.
According to Mozilla, the feature helps site administrators understand how their ads are performing without requiring them to collect information about individual users. It is described as a non-invasive alternative to cross-site tracking of individuals, helping to significantly reduce the collection of personal data. But even in this form, the function violates user rights guaranteed by European privacy laws, NOYB says, and in Firefox it is enabled by default.
«It’s a shame that an organization like Mozilla thinks users are too stupid to answer yes or no. Users need to be able to make a choice, and the feature should be disabled by default,” says NOYB lawyer Felix Mikolasch. The open-source Firefox browser was once popular among users for its privacy-protecting features, but it now trails not only market leader Google Chrome, but also Apple Safari and Microsoft Edge—Firefox’s market share is in the single digits.
NOYB calls on Mozilla to inform users about its data processing activities, disable this feature by default and delete all illegally collected data from millions of users, according to human rights activists. In June, the organization filed a complaint against Alphabet for what it said was its Chrome browser that was also illegally spying on users. Some of the several hundred complaints NOYB has filed against large tech companies have resulted in large fines.