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A comment on Can the new Firefox Quantum regain its web browser market share?. Parent comment

Re:Can the new Firefox Quantum regain its web browser market... by forapurpose on Friday November 24, 2017 @02:09PM (#15772473)
> Mozilla is up front and transparent about what it's doing

A statement in a blog that only a tiny percentage of users will read is not at all transparent.

Do users who receive browsers with Cliqz get a clear, effective opt-out warning? Really, it should be opt-in but that doesn't appear to be the case:

The users will receive a version of Firefox with Cliqz recommendations enabled out of the box.

https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-i...

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Re:Can the new Firefox Quantum regain its web browser market... by dao- on Friday November 24, 2017 @03:15PM (#15772777)
> Do users who receive browsers with Cliqz get a clear, effective opt-out warning? Really, it should be opt-in

Either way would render the experiment useless (self-selection bias). Obviously if something like this should make it into Firefox proper, that would make something like an opt-out warning a hard requirement.

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Re:Can the new Firefox Quantum regain its web browser market... by Silhouette on Friday November 24, 2017 @05:04PM (#15773273)
Either way would render the experiment useless (self-selection bias).

But that is Mozilla's problem, not their users'.

As probably would be the legal position in many places, if news of this got out more widely and regulators started getting involved. It's hard to see how this wouldn't fall foul of even general EU data protection laws today, never mind anything stronger that is specific to Germany.

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Re:Can the new Firefox Quantum regain its web browser market... by dao- on Friday November 24, 2017 @05:28PM (#15773357)
> But that is Mozilla's problem, not their users'.

Sure, I'm just telling you how we arrived at the current situation and why your proposed alternative is a nonstarter for an experiment that tries to figure out if this feature adds user value in the first place.

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Re:Can the new Firefox Quantum regain its web browser market... by daveFNbuck on Saturday November 25, 2017 @01:09AM (#15774668)
If the warning is a hard requirement after the experiment, running an experiment without the opt-out warning biases your results. Having the warning in the experiment gives you a better picture of what happens to users when you present them the option.
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Re:Can the new Firefox Quantum regain its web browser market... by dao- on Saturday November 25, 2017 @01:55AM (#15774786)
Except that the question that the experiment wants to answer isn't what happens when you present users with the option. That would only become relevant later. The question right now is whether Cliqz' address bar autocomplete results are superior to the status quo.
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Re:Can the new Firefox Quantum regain its web browser market... by Sylos on Friday November 24, 2017 @05:32PM (#15773377)
It would have to be opt-in or the user would have to be clearly informed, if it actually collected personally identifiable information. That's German law. But it doesn't.
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