Looking Glass addon experience should be stopped asap

[Jean-Bernard Marcon]

Hi all,
I am surprised nobody raised the issue already (maybe I missed the right channel)

Users are complaining about last releases of Firefox installing an addon without their consent (optin is by default).

This is definitely NOT in line with Mozilla values as stated in manifesto and various statements Mozilla used to reaffirm.

(I would not even mention the sheer stupidity to believe that promoting Mr Robot can be a good idea because it is so cool, though the vast majority of users in the world don't give a f*ck about it)

It is already too late to apologize for this very misguided piece of marketing, the traction gained by Firefox with fx57 version is currently spoiled for free and open source communities (Oh no,Mozilla did it again, they cannot be trusted)

Please "governance" do something and stop that.

Thanks

- an old Mozillian contributor

[Benjamin Kerensa]

This isn’t really a governance issue although governance does get
improperly used for complaints like this often.

Yes this is a privacy and ethical issue and it appears to go against the
Mozilla manifesto and it’s unlikely Chrome Team would ever make such a
mistake. It was disappointing to see Jascha Kayla’s-Wolff’s response to the
media it was tone deaf and unapologetic.

That said this is still not the appropriate place to get any resolution
instead it would be more effective to open a bug with legal team to discuss
those privacy and user choice implications.

> _______________________________________________
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> gover...@lists.mozilla.org
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>
--
Benjamin Kerensa

[Jean-Bernard Marcon]

Le samedi 16 décembre 2017 22:10:05 UTC+1, Benjamin Kerensa a écrit :
> This isn’t really a governance issue although governance does get
> improperly used for complaints like this often.
>
> Yes this is a privacy and ethical issue and it appears to go against the
> Mozilla manifesto and it’s unlikely Chrome Team would ever make such a
> mistake. It was disappointing to see Jascha Kayla’s-Wolff’s response to the
> media it was tone deaf and unapologetic.
>
> That said this is still not the appropriate place to get any resolution
> instead it would be more effective to open a bug with legal team to discuss
> those privacy and user choice implications.

Thanks for answering and suggesting another channel.

…though I am convinced this really is a governance issue. I don't buy marketing teams unapologetic answers. I feel something should be done at the governance level. It is far beyond a simple marketing or communication problem if some marketing people act as if they don't care about Mozilla values.

That said I have given a look at two bugs about this issue on bugzilla. One of them has been *closed* (what a good idea, this surely will solve every problem) the other is *private*.

[Laurențiu Nicola]

Hi Benjamin,

I really appreciate your frank response; thank you for that.

There's a small thing I want to point out, though. The Pocket removal Bugzilla issue was closed saying that Governance and Input ("submit feedback") are the proper places to give feedback on these decisions.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1172126#c45

[Boris Zbarsky]

On 12/16/17 3:35 PM, Jean-Bernard Marcon wrote:
> I am surprised nobody raised the issue already (maybe I missed the right channel)

It's been raised, though not all the channels that it's been raised on
are public.

Note that the Looking Glass addon has been unshipped already, though
that may not yet have propagated out to all Firefox installs.

-Boris

P.S. I posted this to the mozilla.governance newsgroup two days ago,
but it hasn't appeared on the list/group yet...

[Boris Zbarsky]

On 12/16/17 4:09 PM, Benjamin Kerensa wrote:
> Yes this is a privacy and ethical issue

Benjamin,

What, exactly, is the privacy issue? The addon involved does invade
privacy in any way I am aware of (especially given that it does nothing
at all, privacy-related or otherwise, unless a certain preference is
toggled in about:config).

There are various issues here, but privacy is not in fact one of them.

-Boris

P.S. I posted this to the mozilla.governance newsgroup two days ago, but

I don't see it on the list so far.

[Benjamin Kerensa]

Injecting addons whether enabled or disabled into a set of users based on
their geographic location is a privacy issue.

On Tue, Dec 19, 2017 at 8:29 AM Boris Zbarsky via governance <
gover...@lists.mozilla.org> wrote:

> On 12/16/17 4:09 PM, Benjamin Kerensa wrote:

> > Yes this is a privacy and ethical issue
>

> Benjamin,
>
> What, exactly, is the privacy issue? The addon involved does invade
> privacy in any way I am aware of (especially given that it does nothing
> at all, privacy-related or otherwise, unless a certain preference is
> toggled in about:config).
>
> There are various issues here, but privacy is not in fact one of them.
>
> -Boris
>
> P.S. I posted this to the mozilla.governance newsgroup two days ago, but
> I don't see it on the list so far.

[Boris Zbarsky]

On 12/19/17 3:04 PM, Benjamin Kerensa wrote:
> Injecting addons whether enabled or disabled into a set of users based
> on their geographic location is a privacy issue.

Ah, I didn't realize this addon was injected based on geographic location.

That said, it's a privacy issue only if the existence of the addon can
be remotely detected, right? Can it be, in this case?

(If it can, then I agree that this is a serious problem.)

-Boris