Vienna-based advocacy group NOYB said Wednesday it has filed a complaint with Austria’s data protection authority against Mozilla, accusing the maker of the Firefox browser of tracking users’ behavior on websites without their consent.
NOYB (None Of Your Business), a digital rights group founded by privacy activist Max Schrems, said Mozilla has enabled a feature called Privacy Preserving Attribution (PPA), which turns the browser into a tracking tool for websites without directly telling users.
“Mozilla’s limited test of PPA is part of our effort to improve invasive advertising practices by providing technical alternatives,” a spokesperson told Reuters. “These techniques prevent any party, including Mozilla, from identifying individuals or their browsing activity.”
While this is less intrusive than unlimited tracking, it still violates user rights under EU privacy laws, NOYB said. Firefox also has the feature enabled by default.
“It’s a shame that an organization like Mozilla believes that users are too stupid to say yes or no,” said Felix Mikolasch, data protection attorney at NOYB. “Users should have a choice, and the feature should have been disabled by default.”
Open-source Firefox was once a popular browser among users for its privacy features, but now lags behind market leaders Google Chrome, Apple Safari and Microsoft Edge with low-single-digit market share.
NOYB wants Mozilla to inform users about its data processing activities, switch to an opt-in system and delete all unlawfully processed data of millions of affected users.
NOYB, which filed a complaint against Alphabet in June for allegedly tracking users of its Chrome browser, has also filed hundreds of complaints against major tech companies, some of which have resulted in hefty fines.
© Thomson Reuters 2024
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