Mozilla can solve this problem the right way by doing what debian does when it wants to collect statistics: Ask users if they want to donate their information to Mozilla on first run or during the installer.

Recording users' behavior by default with informing the user clearly and giving him the option to opt-out is abhorrent, regardless of the benignity of the reason behind it.

Disclosure: I use firefox, but periodically strip all relevant hidden add-ons and disable all information sending possible.

> Mozilla can solve this problem the right way by doing what debian does when it wants to collect statistics: Ask users if they want to donate their information to Mozilla on first run or during the installer.

> Recording users' behavior by default with informing the user clearly and giving him the option to opt-out is abhorrent, regardless of the benignity of the reason behind it.

(Even as a Firefox/Mozilla fan,) I completely agree that this behavior is what Mozilla should follow everywhere. I always choose to enable telemetry for Firefox because I want to help Mozilla and trust it. But defaults need to be sensible and protective of the user, first and foremost. If most people choose to turn it off on first run when asked for, then the actions to be taken would be educating users (in simple language) on the scope of data collection and improving the reputation of the organization/company behind it.

I dunno. The stats are really super useful for insight into how REAL PEOPLE (not self-selected do-gooders) use the software, and also how new things (like Stylo!) interact with the many unique hardware, driver, software environments people run Firefox on.

Then let's record video and audio from everyone who has installed Firefox to understand even better how the real users use the browser. Let's also record all the sites they visit and all the keys they press on a virtual keyboard.