Firefox will scan your browsing history to suggest advertiser sites

[Tom Ritter]

On 27 May 2015 at 03:22, rysiek <rysiek at hackerspace.pl> wrote:
> Dnia środa, 27 maja 2015 11:35:08 Lodewijk andré de la porte pisze:
>> It's fine if it's client side. They can make it client side.
>
> Not holding my breath, though...

"""
4) The browser fetches all available suggested tiles based on country
and language from Onyx without using cookies or other user tracking
identifiers.
5) User interactions, such as clicks, pins and blocks, are examples of
data that may be measured and processed. View Mozilla’s Privacy Policy
or our Data Privacy Principles for more information.
6) Onyx submits the interaction data to Disco, a restricted access
database for largescale analysis.
7) Disco aggregates all Firefox tiles interactions, anonymizing
personally identifiable data before sending to Redshift for reporting.
8) Charts and reports are pulled from Redshift using Zenko, a Content
Services reporting tool, for analysis by Mozilla.
9) Mozilla sends this report to the partner shortly after the campaign ends.
""" [0]

"""
How do you determine user interests?

For Suggested Tiles, we know whether users are interested in your
market category by matching a list of defined URLs (domains, or
subdomains) with their most frequently and recently visited URLs in
Firefox. In this way, we are able to preserve users’ anonymity while
providing a high level of confidence about their interest in different
site categories.

What input do I have over the interest categories?

We work with all our Suggested Tiles partners to define the most
effective interest categories. Partners may provide suggestions for
what URLs should be include. Mozilla’s Content Services Team will
actually define those categories.
""" [1]

I'm most curious about what 'User Interactions' are reported.  Clicks,
pins, and blocks all reveal which tile a user saw, and therefore
something about their browsing history. But they're also pretty
fundamental to advertising.  I'm more worried about Firefox reporting
"Views" or "Mouseovers" or other things that are not clear,
user-initiated actions.

-tom

[0] https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/files/2015/05/How-data-is-protected-Infographic1.pdf
[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/partnerships/contentservices/faq/