Data protection complaint: Noyb takes action against tracking function in Firefox

Civil society organization Noyb, founded by Max Schrems, has filed a complaint against Mozilla with the Austrian Data Protection Authority. The reason is a new function in Firefox for the supposedly privacy-friendly display of advertising. Activists suspect that the process called “privacy-preserving attribution” (PPA) is a violation of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Contrary to its “trusted name”, Firefox may use technology to track user behavior, Noyb complains. Essentially, the browser now takes over the tracking – no longer the individual website operator. This could be “an improvement over even more invasive cookie tracking”. However, users are never asked if they want to activate the PPA.

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Mozilla activated the function by default when installing the software update to version 128. This is particularly worrying because the browser maker “generally has a reputation for being a privacy-friendly option”, particularly for Google Chrome. Yet, there is not even a reference to the new function in Mozilla’s data protection guidelines. The only way for users to disable these is to find them in a submenu of the browser settings – under ad measurement – and deactivate them. “Irritatingly,” one Mozilla developer justified the move by saying that users “can no longer make an informed decision” about personalized advertising.

good intentions, poor execution

the heart of PPA An aggregation server is located between ad providers and user data. Its purpose is to anonymize information from individual web browsers. Only then does the intermediary make the aggregated data available to participating ad clients. “Instead of placing traditional cookies, websites would have to ask Firefox to store information about users’ ad interactions,” explains Noyb’s idea. “Then you would receive combined data from many people.” Google has developed a similar approach with the equally controversial and currently underused Privacy Sandbox. Ultimately, according to civil rights activists, PPA does not replace traditional cookies. Rather, it represents an additional opportunity for online portals to place and measure targeted advertising.

“Mozilla’s intentions may be good,” says Felix Mikolasch, data protection lawyer at Noyb, assessing the case. However, it is unlikely that the PPA will wipe out other tracking tools from the market. It is therefore simply a new, additional tool for collecting data and creating profiles. For the expert, it is a “sad joke” that Mozilla considers Firefox users “too stupid to decide between yes and no”. They should be able to make a choice. This feature should have been disabled by default. According to Noyb, the contacted data protection authority should, among other things, ensure that the US company deletes all unlawfully processed user data.

Mozilla has so far tried to put the blame on the advertising industry, which has turned the Internet into a surveillance network. Firefox CTO Bobby Holley said the PPA function was a practical solution under these circumstances, aimed at protecting user privacy.

(KST)