Mozilla's page talking about privacy has Google analytics enabled

[taspeotis]

Mozilla have a Google Analytics Premium account and they try to minimize the information they share [1].

    Our Google Analytics premium account is set to opt-out on all of 3rd party
    uses of the data and the only people who have access to the anonymous
    aggregated data is Mozilla Employees. This is not the normal Google
    Analytics setup that most people use on other websites.

    Also, to increase privacy we flipped the anonymize flag in the Google
    Analytics request...

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1122305#c8

[vog]

Why don't they simply analyze the log files on their own, without sharing that data with other companies?

For example, running some log files offline through AWstats is not that hard, and the AWstats output is quite good for most purposes.

[aw3c2]

Good for them. They are still ratting out their visitors to Google.

[lawl]

Or they could just setup Piwik[0] or something like that...

[0] https://piwik.org/

[cbd1984]

Or so they claim.

Is there any way for anyone else to verify that?

[nodiscpls]

What sort of analytics do Mozilla actually need?

[bshimmin]

And they also include JavaScript from https://ethn.io/, the relative privacy value of which you can judge for yourself, and whose parent company, I note in the footer, was bought by Facebook...

[yebyen]

These people have a Del tha Funkee Homosapien reference right on their landing page. I therefore can't muster any hate onto them.

[UserRights]

When you open a freshly installed Firefox on Ubuntu or Windows (that is where I checked) you will have a google cookie set right before the first usage, without any chance of opting out or being asked before.

Yes, anybody can change the startpage, delete all cookies and restart the browser. How many users will do this? And does forcing every user into google surveillance comply with this privacy marketing of mozilla, or is it just a zynical fake campaign?

There should be a startpage explaining what cookies are, describing the difference between temporary and permanent cookies and how these help to track your web usage, and provide one single, visible button to delete all cookies.

After this I should be asked if I would like to help mozilla funding by redirecting me to a google web search which will set a permanent cookie.

[userbinator]

Given how much they've lobotomised the interface over the years, I think it's very unlikely they'll make default such an easily accessible option to delete cookies; quite possibly the only reason some cookie management still remains is because it was there in the first place and the privacy advocates would scream very loudly if it was removed. Otherwise, I think web developers with their "appeal to stupidity" argument ("but it breaks my sites if users are allowed to do X!") have been quite successful at taking control away from the user.

[robin_reala]

Is this due to the Safe Browsing database? http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2012/02/28/the-google-cookie-tha...

If so then it shouldn’t be present in current versions. Did you accidentally import cookies from another browser? Probably worth filing a bug if not.

[userbinator]

I've had GA's domains redirected to 0.0.0.0 in HOSTS ever since I knew of them.

It's also another one of these single-page-apps that require JavaScript to display any content at all.

I think with such a design they're clearly not targeting the sort of privacy levels that more users on HN than the Internet in general expect.

[Programmatic]

Check out RequestPolicy sometime if you're concerned about GA and other tracking and went through the trouble to bit bucket it in hosts; it's really nice to be able to set which other sites any given site can contact, and I trust it more than the other curated options like Ghostery etc. since I can see for myself where each site is allowed to go.

[ChrisAntaki]

Mozilla tried to launch a site to help educate people while tracking engagement?

This seems like a much bigger issue than the NSA copying entire datastreams from American internet hubs.

[sp332]

I don't get your comment (even sarcastically). It's not that big, but it's still a problem. People who are trying to avoid being tracked would probably prefer not being tracked. The page is self-defeating.

[aw3c2]

The website is totally broken for me: http://i.imgur.com/y01g1NG.png

[0xff00]

You should mention which platform/browser/version you're running so they can fix it.

[userbinator]

As they seem to be implicitly telling you to download Firefox, you're probably not using Firefox. There's a div that covers the whole page with class "modal--old-ie" which that download button is in, but I guess they don't want anyone using anything but Firefox, since I get that with Chromium too.

[afandian]

Me too, except I only get the dark section.

[kuschku]

This is completely inacceptable.

Preaching water and drinking wine, eh?

If they’d really want some kind of tracking, they could have used a locally installed system like piwik, as the largest issue with tracking comes when the data from many sites is combined.

[threeseed]

Sure. They could've done that. But that would cost how much to install, manage and configure remembering that (a) Mozilla gets quite a bit of traffic and (b) that is money that could be better spent on their products.

[tombrossman]

Not only enabled, but in breach of the Google Analytics' Terms which state very clearly: "You must post a Privacy Policy and that Privacy Policy must provide notice of Your use of cookies that are used to collect data. You must disclose the use of Google Analytics, and how it collects and processes data. "

See section 7 "Privacy" here for the full text. http://www.google.com/analytics/terms/us.html

[userbinator]

They do mention it here, so I don't think they violate GA ToS:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/websites/

Third party Services We use third party services such as Google Analytics and Optimizely. They use cookies, IP addresses, and online data tools.

[miji]

one of the prime reasons gnu forked firefox for icecat was google safebrowsing , besides that i dont think firefox really doesnt give a shit about your privacy and shit like that . their primary concern is to ship software , not code quality or issues of relevance to users .if the illusion can be maintained that it does care about your privacy then it works fine for them , it works fine for their major "donors".

[KraigWalker]

Next time you go to a movie theatre and there's someone standing there keeping count of how many people are going in - because it's there job or something - make sure to complain they're infringing on your right to privacy.

[MisterWebz]

That same person is also standing at the entrance of almost every other building. To make his job easier he's also given you a unique identifier, so that he can notice when you enter a building he watches. I'm sure you've never noticed him, most people don't.

[belorn]

We can test this theory. Go to nearest movie theater with a camera and a clipboard, and start taking pictures and recording people who goes in to watch a movie. Also, stop people and ask what movie they are going to watch, with a noticeable "hmmm" and "really? You are that kind of person?". If anyone ask why you are doing this, say you will be selling this information to highest bidder, as there is always someone interested to exploit it.

[weland]

If Google Analytics provided nothing other than a counter, those simple CGI visitor count scripts we hacked up back in the 90s would have put Google out of business a long, long time ago.

[throwawayaway]

do you really think that's all google analytics provides, a hit counter?

you should really use it sometime, or at least familiarise yourself with its capabilites.

[bitJericho]

I often pass by without handing him or her my ticket. Fight the power!