June 2, 2006

Privacy fears over Mozilla Firefox

by Brian Turner

Google

Privacy fears have been raised over the possibility of Firefox data being supplied to Google.

The Mozilla Firefox browser has become an increasingly popular alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser.

Google have been working more and more closely with the Mozilla Foundation, who are responsible for developing the Mozilla suite of tools, including Firefox.

The latest colaboration, due for release in Firefox 2.0, involves Google supplying anti-phishing software – to help prevent users being directed to fake banking sites by scam emails.

However, concerns have been raised that the way the system works will allow Google to spy on Firefox users.

Google is well known to be interested in data collection, especially of user behaviour. Free products such as GMail have ostensibly been released in an effort to collect data on users.

This was seen as a necessary “catch-up”, as companies such as Yahoo! and Microsoft (via it’s MSN network) have been able to do this for years with their own free email software.

A principal aim of Google’s user data collection is to help with it’s ad targeting program.

However, moves such as collection of data from Mozilla Firefox can only help highlight privacy concerns with how the larger internet service providers collect and use such personal information.

This remains an issue that will become increasingly acute while ISP’s are seen to use personal information without further assurances on privacy protection.

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