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Welcome to Mozilla’s first-ever Annual Consumer Creep-O-Meter

Annual Consumer Creep-O-Meter

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/annual-creep-o-meter/

Welcome to Mozilla’s first-ever Annual Consumer Creep-O-Meter. In 2023, the state of our digital privacy is very creepy.

Mozilla’s Annual Consumer Creep-O-Meter distills what’s good, what’s bad, and what’s just plain creepy in the world of consumer tech.

Includes 'big picture trends', 'best and worst products', and 'numbers'

If you haven't used PrivacyNotIncluded before, here is a link to the homepage where you can search up other products and services that you are interested in: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded

60 comments

boatswain

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Seems like a weird and random assortment of items. Why was Google Hangouts mentioned, but not Gmail? What about Discord, Slack, etc? Or smart TVs? Almost felt more like guerrilla advertising for a few niche products.

otter

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It's a short fun quiz that's meant to direct your attention to the actual tool (https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded) which has a lot more stuff. The key bit on this page is the summary underneath

You can find the rest of the video call services here: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/categories/video-call-apps/

They have sections for smart home products and entertainment, but no smartTVs yet. Would be a cool category to request

boatswain

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Oh. That's not clear at all; I don't even remember seeing a reference to a tool.

otter

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The tool is the site itself, I guess they could have included a link back

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded

It's also on me since I got to the article from the site, so maybe they assumed users would have done the same

AbidanYre

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Hangouts was an odd choice. Didn't that get shut down recently?

rush

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somehow, it still exists.

AbidanYre

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Well, I'll be damned. It's still in the play store.

Is it just for workspaces or something? I would have sworn they shut it down.

rush

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I have no idea, I think its kinda merged with Duo and Meet?

drekly

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I saw discord in there as well as smart TV platforms

boatswain

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Oh interesting; I wonder if the quiz just chooses a random assortment of a big list of tools?

Baku

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I was thinking the same thing. Apparently I'm "off the grid" because the only thing they listed that I use is telegram

DNU

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Id guess maybe because Email is inherently insecure?

fubo

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BetterHelp is probably still violating US federal medical-privacy law.

MaxHardwood

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BetterHelp has partnered with the Israel government

I offer no commentary on the war but that's pretty... weird..

sheogorath

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Don't worry, if you're an Israeli citizen and you told your therapist at BetterHelp that you might not support the government they'll kindly inform the government to help make you understand that what they're doing right now is for the best of you.

otter

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https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/03/ftc-ban-betterhelp-revealing-consumers-data-including-sensitive-mental-health-information-facebook

FTC to Ban BetterHelp from Revealing Consumers’ Data, Including Sensitive Mental Health Information, to Facebook and Others for Targeted Advertising

I've also heard that the therapy they provide is mediocre, from friends more involved with mental health stuff

chiliedogg

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NASCAR drivers don't drive for Uber.

Why would top-notch therapists side-hussle for Better help? It's the Cameo of mental health

abhibeckert

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Um... the page literally asks me to enter my email address so my privacy can be protected? WTF?

Hows about no, I don't enter my email, and you just let me read episodes of the newsletter on a webpage? That would protect my privacy.

otter

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As the other comment thread says, you can just click no

MaxVoltage

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but its mozilla

Pxtl

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Huh, it thinks I'm off the grid because all my horrible privacy invading gear is Google, Samsung, and Philips.

Psythik

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Yeah this website sucks.

otter

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The tool itself is decent. I think the quiz is broken lol

NickwithaC

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Having to put my email address in after clicking on the products I own to see how bad they are for my privacy is irony in the extreme!

mypasswordis1234

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You can skip it. Read things carefully 🙃

tabular

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Indeed they can skip it, but it's still ironic because it's still creepy to ask before giving the results.

elscallr

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Not when the text says "hey, do you want to share your email?" and there's a big button that says "no, just take me to my results"

This stupid shit is the reason we need warning labels on things. They're not there to protect the idiots that drink bleach to get rid of covid, they're there because idiots will drink bleach anyway then blame Clorox for not having the label they wouldn't have read anyway.

tabular

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They ask for an email before sharing the results in the hopes that they would get more people to sign up. If not a dark pattern then that's at least sus.

elscallr

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Just because you don't have the attention span to not react to every input you see doesn't make it a dark pattern. It means you need to be less impulsive.

tabular

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Like how a gambler should just stop gambling? The fault is on them if they didn't read the sign saying stop when the fun stops?

Buddahriffic

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While others might seek to exploit addictions, addicts absolutely have personally responsibility for their addictions.

otter

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That's for the newsletter, which is separate from the results

JackSkellington

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There’s a button to skip to results!

ekky43

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I guess the emoji were there to set the proper mood, which they succeeded in, as the most horrifying thing about that article definitely was the abhorrent use of emoji.

Closely followed by me not being able to tick a single product in their quiz and getting a "perfect score" while using Discord, of all things, as primary messenger....

Appoxo

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I noticed that devs really love to put emojis on everything.

Must be a correlation.

FunkyMonk

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Neat, says I'm off the grid, I'm a bit shocked after clicking like 6 things but hey.

otter

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Out of curiosity, which ones did you go with? Since I only picked a smaller handful

The quiz is more just for fun, but it looks like they mixed a few of the best with a few of the worst. So if we pick only from the good pile, I guess we get a nice score

FunkyMonk

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Sonos, Signal, Nook, prolly some more.

AbidanYre

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It seems to depend on the things.

I have SL speakers but it says they're on because there's no mic and Sonos is pretty good about not selling your information.

2xsaiko

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I half expected them to absolutely rip into the Apple Watch. Instead, a lot of other smart watches and fitness trackers that are a lot higher on the big list, and the top two things in this list that I have are... WhatsApp and Discord. Figures, those are the two I'd be most happy to get rid of for good (though Discord a lot more than WhatsApp).

Also holy shit the state of car privacy is bad.

Cool site! Subscribed to the newsletter.

Chobbes

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I believe the Apple Watch is far better for privacy than Fitbits are. Health data is end to end encrypted on Apple watches. Fitbit requires you to sync things with their cloud services and they have access to all of the data AFAIK.

Baku

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Also Fitbit is owned by Google now and if you created an account afterwards, everything is tied to your Google account. Which is a yikes

MonkderZweite

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Just looked for e-readers, but they seem to only check privacy policies, no logging of traffic, no nmap, no look into the system, nothing?

kadu

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ipkpjersi

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How in the world could all of these products have good privacy? https://i.imgur.com/1NdcB5y.png

https://i.imgur.com/fKJ9OV1.png

There's no way lol

otter

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Yea I'm starting to think the quiz is broken lol

ipkpjersi

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Guess they should have hired me one of the 3 times I applied to Mozilla, smh.

Honytawk

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It is because nobody uses Google Hangouts

eya

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The Nissan thing was recently clarified by Louis Rossmann as accidental misinformation.

topinambour_rex

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He says to dont trust him.

Polkira

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Interesting read! I signed up for the Newsletter. The eyeballs following where my thumb touches on my screen is definitely surprising though I guess it shouldn't be that surprised.

mihnt

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Polkira

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Omg what? That's hilarious

tdawg

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This is great an all, but how exactly does Mozilla profit from this? Like didn't they axe a huge swath of employees a couple of years ago because they had too many departments not generating profit?

otter

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Mozilla's core purpose isn't to make profit, and so some projects won't (and shouldn't) be focussed on making money. I don't think people would trust the recommendations if there was a profit aspect mixed in

Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all. An Internet that truly puts people first, where individuals can shape their own experience and are empowered, safe and independent

tdawg

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are they not a for-profit company?

otter

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My understanding is that Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit organization that focuses on open & accessible internet, and they have a for-profit arm that helps fund those initiatives.

So it's possible that the for-profit arm might axe projects that aren't working / not bringing in money, since otherwise it would put their wider goals at risk.

tdawg

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Aaah, gotcha. For someone reason I thought it was the other way around. Thanks

otter

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No problem, happy to share :)