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Mozilla, reading the room extremely well, seemingly just recently flipped the switch to enable-by-default sponsored weather results from AccuWeather in every new Firefox tab you open. Clicking "Learn more" takes you here, with zero information on if your location is sent to AccuWeather every time you open a new tab: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customize-items-on-firefox-new-tab-page
Probably only noticed because I normally have a blank new tab page but this showed up after updating Firefox!
Furthermore, would "hiding weather on new tab" actually stop this feature from still regularly sending my location to AccuWeather? Great question! I have no idea
After checking about:config, "Hide weather on New Tab" sets the config value "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.showWeather" to "false", but leaves "browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.feeds.weatherfeed" as the default of "true". So, my suspicion was correct, #Firefox is still sending your location off every 30 minutes to get the weather in the background by default even if you disable this new widget: https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/browser/components/newtab/lib/WeatherFeed.sys.mjs #infosec #privacy
I think "constantly broadcast my location to a 3rd party by default and don't tell me about it or what's happening with that data and then keep doing it when I think I've disabled it" is pretty obviously a terrible privacy default
@ryanfb I dunno if it's documented anywhere and I'm not a fan of the widget, but according to someone on the Mozilla alumni Slack server it sends location data through a proxy such that your location is never tied to your IP address or any other info before AccuWeather sees it.
I really wish they put that on the settings for it, instead of just... not mentioning it. Ugh.
@Osmose @ryanfb It's documented for another weather-related feature here: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/get-your-local-weather-forecast-firefox-address-bar
@zackbatist @Osmose they absolutely need to link to that from the weather section of the support page “learn more” currently links to from the weather widget
@ryanfb @zackbatist @Osmose You know what's nice about support.mozilla.org is that you can contribute to it now that you know the answer.
You know what's even more mind blowing? You could have asked someone before going on a rant but hey I guess it's easier to shit on Mozilla than helping.
@dannycolin good to know that this is actually MY problem that I personally need to fix for everyone because I’m the one who raised it, and not Mozilla’s for shipping a feature to wide release in this sorry-ass poorly-documented state. And fixing the docs doesn’t fix the underlying pref behavior or defaulting to being newly enabled without consent on every install
@ryanfb And throwing rocks at people on the web doesn't fix the underlying problem either. At the very least, you could have asked someone and/or file a bug as I said earlier. Someone would actually have been more than happy to help fix the issue because SURPRISE it got filed pretty quickly when folks at Mozilla discovered it https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1918539
Again, I guess it's easier to blame the world and enjoy your feeling of entitlement. That's definitely how we'll reclaim the internet.
@dannycolin yes, I do actually believe I’m entitled to use my web browser without it newly-defaulting to constantly broadcasting my location, and that turning the feature off should turn the broadcasting off. Those expectations were violated and I felt that other privacy-conscious Firefox users would like to be aware of this new behavior and how to actually disable it.
If Mozilla doesn’t need my consent to enable it by default, I certainly don’t need their consent to publicly complain about it.
@ryanfb My issue isn't that you're critizing Mozilla. It's that your tone implies some sort of malice in the way it was implemented. There are still good people in this org and that kind of tone is simply burning them and yes it makes me angry because I know some of them personally and care about their well being.
So on a less antagonistic note to end this, what I said is simply reach to them or some contributors, we'll be more than happy to help escalate the issue.
@dannycolin
@ryanfb - Taking a risk here but .. When you get used to organisations doing crappy things you get habituated to that and expect organisations to do that and prepare yourself to jump on it when it happens.. the #agencyproblem creates the motivation for companies to screw you over - people become primed to respond. - But with #foundations and #coops - The motivation isnt there but people have still been primed to expect it . It takes time to relax and get used to the idea.
@dannycolin@floss.social what a joke. the user base is extremely clear about what it wants, and we're all sick of more than a decade of broken promises.
you want people to deal with Mozilla in good faith? trust is earned, and Mozilla is doing the opposite. fix the advertising and ai debacles, re-hire the rust team, and let me disable fucking pocket with a normal preference option, and then we'll talk. otherwise they've earned this reputation through their well documented and constant bad-faith actions.
@dannycolin @ryanfb so because you have personal and emotional connections to mozilla employees, users shouldn’t criticize them public. Do you see how absurd your position is?
@ryanfb @dannycolin That sensation of entitlement comes with a price. How much have you contributed to Mozilla this year? Because developers don’t work for free, servers don’t pay for themselves, bandwidth doesn’t grow on trees.
@JustinDerrick Because that sensation of entitlement arises from what are recognized by many governments as basic human rights to privacy, it does not, in fact, come with a price.
@ryanfb Excellent. Great way to look at it. I'm looking forward to your release of a secure, private browser that works across a dozen hardware platforms that you give away for free, without concern for how you'll earn a living and pay your bills.
@JustinDerrick @ryanfb @dannycolin It is worth considering that the person that helped resolve that bug is a volunteer contributor, as are the many Mozillians all over the world that will take the updated text of the support article and localise it into their own language.