Technology @lemmy.world Otter @lemmy.ca 8 mo. ago

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

foundation.mozilla.org Annual Consumer 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

58 comments

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.
- 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
  
  Oh. That's not clear at all; I don't even remember seeing a reference to a tool.
- Hangouts was an odd choice. Didn't that get shut down recently?
  
  Permanently Deleted
- I saw discord in there as well as smart TV platforms
  
  Oh interesting; I wonder if the quiz just chooses a random assortment of a big list of tools?
- I was thinking the same thing. Apparently I'm "off the grid" because the only thing they listed that I use is telegram
- Id guess maybe because Email is inherently insecure?
BetterHelp is probably still violating US federal medical-privacy law.
- BetterHelp has partnered with the Israel government
  
  I offer no commentary on the war but that's pretty... weird..
  
  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.
- 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
  
  NASCAR drivers don't drive for Uber.
  
  Why would top-notch therapists side-hussle for Better help? It's the Cameo of mental health
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.
- As the other comment thread says, you can just click no
- but its mozilla
Huh, it thinks I'm off the grid because all my horrible privacy invading gear is Google, Samsung, and Philips.
- Yeah this website sucks.
  
  The tool itself is decent. I think the quiz is broken lol
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!
- You can skip it. Read things carefully 🙃
  
  Indeed they can skip it, but it's still ironic because it's still creepy to ask before giving the results.
- That's for the newsletter, which is separate from the results
- There’s a button to skip to results!
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....
- I noticed that devs really love to put emojis on everything.
  
  Must be a correlation.
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.
- 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.
  
  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
Neat, says I'm off the grid, I'm a bit shocked after clicking like 6 things but hey.
- 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
  
  Sonos, Signal, Nook, prolly some more.
- 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.
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?
- Asking GPT to summarize a privacy policy is easy.
  
  Researching and testing is hard.
  
  This advertising piece isn't worth the effort.
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
- Yea I'm starting to think the quiz is broken lol
  
  Guess they should have hired me one of the 3 times I applied to Mozilla, smh.
- It is because nobody uses Google Hangouts
The Nissan thing was recently clarified by Louis Rossmann as accidental misinformation.
- He says to dont trust him.
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.
- https://dn.ht/picklecat/
  
  Omg what? That's hilarious
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?
- 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
  
  are they not a for-profit company?

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