Comment by proaralyst
9 years ago
Looks like it's a promo for Mr Robot, which is really not ok.
> What's happening? Are you a fan of Mr Robot? Are you trying to solve one of the many puzzles that the Mr Robot team has built? You’re on the right track. Firefox and Mr Robot have collaborated on a shared experience to further your immersion into the Mr Robot universe, also known as an Alternate Reality Game (ARG). The effects you’re seeing are a part of this shared experience.[0]
EDIT: looking at this[1] comment, perhaps it's not a promo?
[0]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/lookingglass [1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/7jh9rv/what_is_loo...
Wow. So Mozilla lets advertisers push extensions to your browser? Is that right or am I misunderstanding something?
It seems to be developed by Mozilla employees, which is less terrible than allowing actual third-party addons, and it's disabled by default, but still - pretty distasteful.
> So Mozilla lets advertisers push extensions to your browser?
Of course not.
Mozilla can install extensions if you have "shield studies" enabled. They use extensions it to run UI studies and things like that. I think you have to opt-in to each study individually if you want to be part of it. Enabling the studies in your settings only means "notify me when there's a new study I can participate in".
See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/shield and https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Shield/Shield_Studies
Now they have partnered with Mr Robot to use the same feature to offer some sort of "Alternate Reality Game".
That sounds like "no they haven't pushed an unsolicited advert at all ... except to people who offered to be in a development program, who they've pushed an unsolicited advert to" ...
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But it appears from the link thread that there was no individual opt-in to this particular study, done for what appears to be the purposes of advertising. Clearly it's not as bad as what I first thought it to be, but still sounds fishy.
From the page:
> No changes will be made to Firefox unless you have opted in to this Alternate Reality Game.
Also, from the same page for those that appreciate irony:
> One of the 10 guiding principles of Mozilla's mission is that individuals' security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional. The more people know about what information they are sharing online, the more they can protect their privacy.
> No changes will be made to Firefox unless you have opted in to this Alternate Reality Game.
That can't possibly be true. I had it installed, and I'm on my work machine using Firefox Developer Edition. I didn't opt in to any ARG.
I think what they mean is that the addon doesn't do anything unless you opt-in. Still, why install it at all?
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It's installed, but apparently doesn't do anything if you don't have "studies" enabled.
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> No changes will be made to Firefox unless you have opted in to this Alternate Reality Game.
How does it not occur to them that this is a clear lie?
Because the previous ads for Pocket and Telefonica were effective and they don't care?
I hardly think it's a lie. My browser contains no trace of anything related to Looking Glass, even though I'm opted into Shield Studies. It seems to affect some people but not others. Definitely something that should be fixed in the core mechanism of how these things are downloaded by your browser if there are cases where it can happen without user intervention, but it doesn't seem to be intentional to download extensions without the user's consent.
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The ads during the show are super cringey. It's not as bad as the Alexa product placement, but still
Seems kind of like it is part of an ARG. I can't say I'm totally against something like that; Mozilla's gotta make money somehow, and as long as it's not selling out user privacy it's a better tradeoff than Chrome.
You think having advertisers change text on unrelated websites you visit is an acceptable tradeoff?
Yes
Still better than everything else
> Mozilla's gotta make money somehow
Actually they do not. their revenue is at an all time high despite the market share reaching an all time low.
https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-revenue-jump-fuels-its-fir... https://www.computerworld.com/article/3240008/web-browsers/m... https://www.ghacks.net/2017/12/02/mozillas-revenue-increased...
Not to mention the great amount of money they've wasted in certain previous frivolous, doomed projects, like Firefox OS - great idea, by the way, to make your "native" app platform the most power hungry, slowest of them all, and then market the OS only for pairing it with low end devices sold to third worlders - because third worlders totally need slow software running on the hardware they can barely afford - it's not as if they were people, with real world needs, just like us, and not lab rats. For a company that prides itself on its open values.. that's really treating people with contempt.
However they're experimenting with selling user privacy to 3rd party companies, with small percentage of users in Germany (it's enabled by default).
Come on! their business model has been exactly that since they created the corporation to stop illegally collect money from google.
The whole partnership with google to put its search engine as default is about enabling google to profile firefox users and shows them ads.
> Mozilla's gotta make money somehow
They're a nonprofit; they're not allowed to just "make money". And, they already take donations.
I think the the term “non-profit” is more about how an organization spends the money, rather than how they make it. Non profits and charities definitely bring in money through channels other than donations...
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This is a very common misconception about non-profits that is not true. The details depend on local laws, but generally a non-profit only means that the owner of the non-profit can't take the all of the actual profit (money) directly out of the non-profit via dividends. Things like non-profits must be focused public good or they can't pay high (or any) salaries are urban legends that have no basis in reality.
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"non-profit" isn't a magical incantation that means they can run with a revenue deficit forever though. They have expenses and there has to be enough revenue coming in to cover those expenses, or they will go out of business. That's true for any business, whether it's for-profit or non-profit.
Mozilla foundation (the non profit) set up Mozilla Corporation (the for profit raking in hundreds of millions of dollars) when the IRS investigated the foundation about tax fraud.
Of course non profits are allowed to make money.
I believe the idea is that Mr. Robot fans use Firefox to participate in the ARG, not that Firefox users suddenly start watching Mr. Robot. So if anything I'd expect that Mozilla pays Mr. Robot for this.
If it was a promo, it would be a real bad promo. I did not watch Mr Robot and that quote did not made me aware of it until people started referencing it here.
The extension is for shield study, when you install Firefox for the first time it asks if you want to take part in it (it is enabled by default though)
Mr Robot is a tv show repeatedly showing how you can pwn other people computer by pushing seemingly innocuous code.
It has been praised for its technical accuracy, basically the show warns us about exactly what mozilla did as this could be exploited to hack into computers.
> Looks like it's a promo for Mr Robot, which is really not ok.
From what I've heard (I work for Mozilla), this is promo for Firefox. As I just wrote elsewhere in this thread: I believe the idea is that Mr. Robot fans use Firefox to participate in the ARG, not that Firefox users suddenly start watching Mr. Robot. So if anything I'd expect that Mozilla pays Mr. Robot for this.
That would be an idiotic waste of money by a non-profit organisation considering the audience of Mr Robot.
> So if anything I'd expect that Mozilla pays Mr. Robot for this.
The irony is that Mr. Robot is owned by Universal, a subsidiary of Comcast. So much for that commitment to net neutrality.
Google is among the worst privacy offender there is and mozilla has been sending their users towards then in return for a small share of the google mega profits.
So much for the advertised protection of user privacy.