This seems to have traveled under the radar, but the question is, what, if any hooks, does spyware company (which also produces technology) Google, have into the tracking… (read more)
This seems to have traveled under the radar, but the question is, what, if any hooks, does spyware company (which also produces technology) Google, have into the tracking of user activity within Firefox's guts.
This is also, if nothing else, to have Firefox Foundation disclose if or if not Google has any less than open ways in which it gets a ping on every site visited by every user visiting every site.
Obviously, one who chooses to keep the "tyranny of the default" search engine choice of Google is asking for its information to be mass gathered by the monster monopoly spying on the world's citizens and manipulating search results to its liking.
But that's not the vector that is necessarily up for discussion here.
It has been posited from time to time that the need to learn if one is about to visit a "dangerous" site and to allow that to be blocked is not a Google-pinging "feature." In other words, how the nice company "helps" to keep you protected from the evil spyware of the world.
But in reality, forever, the "about:config" shows you, with a simple search for the phrase: "goog", shows/implies a mighty number of connections to Google's servers, but with the ability to blank out the results of the key pairs.
So, what is the full, transparent policy concerning Google as the Firefox Foundation? Is there a transparent disclosure of:
a) how much money Firefox receives each year;
b) exactly what the agreement, if any, is for taking the money;
c) if it is for making Google the default search, rather than the more ethical choice of presenting users with a list of search engine choices; or
d) any other items, such as "Block dangerous and deceptive content" for certain leaks a user's ip address or any other info to Google;
e) if any other item in the browser, unbeknownst to the user, may compromise security.
While Firefox provides an invaluable and excellent option for browsing the web to the otherwise virtual monopoly of Google Chrome, it also is essential that it be/stay clean of playing footsie with the monopoly of pervasive spyware known by the big data name of Alpha.
Attached is the about:config view of google keys
