On Monday, 21 August 2017 16:56:44 UTC+1, Georg Fritzsche wrote: > Hi, > > for Firefox we want to better understand how people use our product to > improve their experience. To do that, we are planning to run a new SHIELD > study that tests how we can collect additional data in a privacy preserving > way. Check out the details below and send me your thoughts. > > The problem. > > One recurring ask from the Firefox product teams is the ability to collect > more sensitive data, like top sites users visit and how features perform on > specific sites. > > Currently we can collect this data when the user opts in, but we don't > have a way to collect unbiased data, without explicit consent (opt-out). > > Asks for sensitive data center most commonly around knowing something in > relation to which sites a user visits: > > - > > "Which top sites are users visiting?" > - > > "Which sites using Flash does a user encounter?" > - > > "Which sites does a user see heavy Jank on?" > > In summary most asks are for occurrences of an event X per domain (more > specifically eTLD+1 [1], e.g. facebook.com or google.co.uk). > > The solution. > > One solution is the use of differential privacy [2] [3], which allows us to > collect sensitive data without being able to make conclusions about > individual users, thus preserving their privacy. > > An attacker that has access to the data a single user submits is not able > to tell whether a specific site was visited by that user or not. > > The Google Open Source project called RAPPOR [4] [5] is the most widely > known and deployed implementation of differential privacy. > > We have been investigating the use of RAPPOR for these kind of use-cases, > with initial simulation results being promising. > > Our plan. > > What we plan to do now is run an opt-out SHIELD study [6] to validate our > implementation of RAPPOR. This study will collect the value for users’ home > page (eTLD+1) for a randomly selected group of our release population We > are hoping to launch this in mid-September. > > This is not the type of data we have collected as opt-out in the past and > is a new approach for Mozilla. As such, we are still experimenting with the > project and wanted to reach out for feedback. > > Georg > > References: > > 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Suffix_List > > 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy > > 3: https://robertovitillo.com/2016/07/29/differential-privacy-for-dummies/ > > 4: https://github.com/google/rappor > 5: https://arxiv.org/abs/1407.6981 > <https://arxiv.org/abs/1407.6981>6: > https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Shield/Shield_Studies
May I as a Firefox user and who teaches Seniors computing and computing privacy and who is much influenced by European past 'big data' collection enter a small problem to Mozilla Firefox. I (note "I") opt into telemetry but I teach 'opt-out' always and every time. The population I am exposed to (Youngsters age 16 to 25 and seniors aged 55 to 93) divide into two;the youngsters are not much concerned about telemetry as long as it makes things easier for them, the seniors are extremely worried, and my recommendations of Firefox over MS browsers and Google Chrome/ Chromium would be to naught if you had an automatic opt-in policy. In Europe with its privacy concerns Firefox would be on its way to extingtion if you adopt an 'opt-out' policy. The opt-in and choice in Firefox settings is something that is used to set you appart and its in some ways your selling pointI as a user and teacher can recommend. I would not wish to loose this. The sugestions made by many more technically competant than I and their worries should be taken note off. I would note that much of my support on Windows 10 machines is turning off MS's telemetry for my students, and teaching them about privacy. I support Firefoix as an independent relaible browser and privacy always is higher than speed. Your present tell us what happened on a crash is probably sufficient for you to get user data. _______________________________________________ governance mailing list governance@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
