Buzz
Under this proposal, users who do not consent to sharing their information with the company will not have the user data collection feature activated by default.
Firefox may remove the user data collection feature
Georg Fritzsche, an engineer at Mozilla, explains that the data collection feature helps the company gather 'precise' information to enhance their Firefox browser, including top websites users visit and sites containing Flash content.
Differential Privacy
Mozilla aims to utilize differential privacy and ensure all data information will be collected discreetly and completely secure, so even if Firefox users agree to share information with the company, their privacy rights will be fully protected.
'Google's open-source project called RAPPOR is deployed to execute differential privacy. We have investigated the use of RAPPOR for these cases, with initial simulation results promising a lot,' explained an engineer at Mozilla.
Currently, Firefox browser may consider discontinuing user data collection to observe browser behavior and user feedback.
'What we are planning to do now is run SHIELD research without collecting user data for RAPPOR deployment. This research will collect values for user homepages (eTLD + 1) for a randomly selected group of users. We hope this research will start in mid-September. This is not the type of data we have collected in the past and is a new approach for Mozilla. We are still testing the project and want to gather feedback,' said Fritzsche.
Some leading companies also use differential privacy to improve their products, including Google, which has previously implemented this approach on the Chrome browser. Chrome users may have higher data security than other browsers.
In addition to Firefox, many other services also collect user information, with Facebook being a prominent example collecting information for advertising purposes. You can prevent Facebook from collecting information to avoid displaying annoying advertising on your News Feed.
