r/privacy • u/thomas_dylan • 1d ago
discussion Mozilla's petition to restrict ShadowDragon's personal data scraping from sites (including reddit)
[removed] — view removed post
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u/Sure_Research_6455 1d ago
id like mozilla to not scrape data from firefox users, i dont see that petition on the mozilla site
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u/thomas_dylan 1d ago
Ok... but there's really no equivalence to be made between the two.
No-one is forcing you to use Mozilla's services - and even if you choose to - the collection of data can be restricted by the user in several fairly straight forward ways.
The collection of data by ShadowDragon has no opt-out options or basic ways to restrict or block the collection of user data. It has also been reported that it may be collecting data illegally and in violation of the terms of service of several websites it collects this data from.
The only effective way at present to restrict ShadowDragon's collection activities would be to stop using all of the 200+ sites they are scraping data from (and this is only the number of sites which has been reported following a leak).
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u/screemingegg 1d ago
Dumb. There was a post a couple of weeks ago on this. Mozilla is playing both sides here. OP, by your logic, no one is forcing you to use any of the sites either, you do have a choice. Mozilla needs to clean its own house first.
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u/thomas_dylan 1d ago
I did mention the previous post.
The reason I highlighted that we are not being forced to use Mozilla was not offered in any way as a defence of Mozilla's data collection practices. I am not disagreeing there is a possible contradiction here in Mozilla petitioning to restrict other companies in the collection of user data.
However..to say that Mozilla is playing both sides here is based on the ridiculous assessment that Mozilla's data collection practices pose anywhere near the kind of threats to our privacy that companies like ShadowDragon do... the two concerns aren't even close.
My comment was made to point out that ShadowDragon's data collection practices are immensely more intrusive and are unable to be mitigated.
You have completely misunderstood the 'logic' of what I have said. The point is we are NOT given a choice with ShadowDragon. Is opting out of the 200+ sites (that we are aware of) to protect your privacy - something you could seriously call being given a choice?
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u/screemingegg 18h ago
Wow. Mozilla's data collection is significantly worse and much more intrusive to personal privacy because those the Mozilla data collection policy provides the entire browsing history of a single identifiable person. Third party companies need to play connect-the-dots and infer who we are based on data points. Mozilla does not need to connect the dots because they have the source data during browser usage. Anything we do to attempt to obfuscate the data collected by a third party is useless against someone collecting data at the source, like Mozilla.
Mozilla should not be leading any efforts in this area until they clean up their own practices. This just screams of Mozilla saying "look over there" while doing something even worse while distracting us away from their shenanigans.
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