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Mozilla Labs Wants To Monitor (Volunteers') Firefox Use

Posted by timothy on from the voluntary-counts-a-lot-for-me dept.

Howardd21 writes "PC World reports that Mozilla Labs wants 1% of its Firefox users to voluntarily provide information about how they use the browser, and their web browsing habits. This would be done through an add-on named "Test Pilot" that collects the information and associates it with some demographic information that the user has provided. Unlike other data collection utilities that software developers may include to provide usage information, the add-on will follow the same open source concept that Firefox adheres to, allowing the market to better understand what is being collected. Mozilla Labs stresses privacy when discussing how they will collect, store and use the data, including publishing it for other researchers to to analyze."

4 of 118 comments (clear)

  1. Won't happen by jerep · · Score: 5, Funny

    I'm not giving them my best porn sites.

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    Do you D?
  2. Mandatory by Bocconcini · · Score: 5, Funny

    In Soviet Russia, open source monitors you!

  3. Self-selection will skew results by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "This is very odd... all of users primarily visit technology sites, and, uh, porn."

  4. Why? They already have reams of feedback by AaronLawrence · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Users have submitted thousands of bugs, and then voted on them.
    Yet those votes don't get acted on. Mozilla fixes bugs or adds features when "something else" tells them they should - often, what's cool for developers or what some big company wants.

    Why would they pay attention to the statistics generated by this program when they don't pay attention to the much more focussed statistics already in Bugzilla?

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    For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke