> This is also a good example of the benefit of telemetry:
The benefit can be claimed only if the user consented into their private information being shared with the browser vendor in the first place. With most browser telemetry that is not the case and browser is simply not respecting users' privacy. The right to privacy, as a human right, trumps the 'right' to have the product 'improved'.
Otherwise we can find "benefit" in everything. One of the benefits of hell, for example, is that it is never cold.
If Firefox was selling a physical product in a retail store, they would be able to watch you walk around the store on CCTV, see you avoided an aisle because there is a polar bear lurking, and then remove the polar bear.
But since the product is digital they just have to give it away blind? Never knowing if people even use the features or not?
>they would be able to watch you walk around the store on CCTV
That seems like an unfitting comparison.
The problem doesn't arise in the store, but when using the product at home.
The equivalent of store cctv in this comparison would rather be a server log on the Mozilla website (where people get the product). It's fine to do telemetrics there without me consenting (as long as it's only used by first party) if you ask me.
But after I leave their premises it's none of their business how I use the product.
Sounds like you want it to be ok that your newly bought pack of condoms sends out a message to the factory once you open one.
Software is often described as "tools" and so an analogy to a drill or a magnifying glass is as apt as any. In fact a car is a good analogy to a browser because we use browsers as sort of a "second home" in our computer and it allows us to "visit websites" and a browser is a whole ecosystem unto itself.
So if software is a tool and my drill is monitoring the holes I make in stuff and its efficacy in doing that, that seems fine, but if the drill is sitting in my toolbox being a busybody and sending back everything it can find about me from within the toolbox, that drill is made by assholes, don't you agree?
It does, but I think that's only for whether to send a detailed crash report (which could contain private data). I think (but haven't checked) that the
"number of crashes" telemetry includes cases were you don't choose to allow it to send the full report.
Every telemetry will at least transmit users' IP address (by the nature of how requests are made), which is legally considered private information.
Even if that was not the case, a privacy respecting (any?) browser has no business whatsoever sending any information from my machine, including "I crashed because of OoM" or "I clicked button X" unless I consent with it doing so.
Therefore zero telemetry by default is the only acceptable standard for any browser that claims to be privacy respecting.
The benefit can be claimed only if the user consented into their private information being shared with the browser vendor in the first place. With most browser telemetry that is not the case and browser is simply not respecting users' privacy. The right to privacy, as a human right, trumps the 'right' to have the product 'improved'.
Otherwise we can find "benefit" in everything. One of the benefits of hell, for example, is that it is never cold.