Did Mozilla just sell all Firefox users' location data to AccuWeather without our consent? (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 years ago by AeroLemming@lemm.ee to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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This just showed up on my home page after an update. I wasn't asked and never gave any sort of consent.

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[-] TwilightKiddy@programming.dev 39 points 2 years ago

They are probably just using your IP address to determine the location. That will show the location of your ISP, not your location. That's not much more info than any other server gets when you are connecting to it. Also does not require Mozilla to send any geolocation data.

[-] ExtravagantEnzyme@lemm.ee 16 points 2 years ago

Are you implying Mozilla paid AccuWeather to have placement on it's browser? It's always the other way around, think about Google paying to be the default search engine on Safari. If anything, I have to think Mozilla was paid to incorporate AccuWeather and not the other way around.

[-] EherNicht@feddit.org 2 points 2 years ago

They also payed to be the default on Firefox ._.

[+] AeroLemming@lemm.ee -2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

[deleted]

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemm.ee 11 points 2 years ago

Have you got a source that shows that data of FF users actually went to AccuWeather or is this purely speculation?

[-] ExtravagantEnzyme@lemm.ee 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Why would Mozilla pay AccuWeather in user data? This would cut into their revenue and be horrendous press. Doing so makes no sense, legit entirely illogical. AccuWeather paid to get placement on the new tabs page. But, if you're this worried about it and haven't spent time in about:config to prevent fingerprinting, tracking, and location data collection, start there for sure. Either way, this seems like a huge stretch and wouldn't make sense for Mozilla try and pull off.

[-] solrize@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I think you are saying Mozilla sold tabs screen placement to Accuweather, which means Accuweather gets user IP addresses (and therefore approximate location among other things) when the user launches the browser. So I guess the answer to OP question is yes.

And yes, opt-out is possible, but a pro-privacy approach would require opt in.

[-] ExtravagantEnzyme@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago

Oh, I see, I interpreted the statement as Mozilla handing over previously collected user data as payment for getting AccuWeather's widget.

However, any webpage visited in a bowser provides this info. So if you haven't stopped it happening from the get, you're handing this data over in mass. But thanks for clearing that up for me!

[-] solrize@lemmy.world 2 points 2 years ago

Sure. Normally I think of visiting a site in a browser as navigating to that site on purpose. If Mozilla sells placement in the browser so that the browser navigates to that site automatically (unless you disable that), it's invasive. That said I do remember Mozilla sets the default start page to something annoying and I had to reconfigure it to about:blank when I set up the system.

[-] davel@lemmy.ml 13 points 2 years ago

I wouldn’t know.

[-] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

Just use Librewolf + Mullvad with extensions. Problem solved

[-] piracysails@lemm.ee 4 points 2 years ago

The weather is sponsored?

[-] ArtVandelay@lemmy.world 8 points 2 years ago

This thunderstorm brought to you by Carl's Jr

[-] palitu@aussie.zone 2 points 2 years ago

Idiocracy quote?

[-] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

is this a serious question? the weather forecast is the question

[-] helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

This is an Intresting one. I'm curious what the deal was.

Assuming accuweather is paying Firefox, thats probably a good thing because Firefox definatly needs to diversify its income.

I wonder what exactly AccuWeather gets. Is only for more web traffic (which is significant) or is it something else?

[-] TachyonTele@lemm.ee 3 points 2 years ago

It's not on my browser.

[-] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 2 points 2 years ago

I just updated firefox and am not seeing it anywhere, including on the new tab page before I type in a URL or something.

this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2024

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