Mozilla will soon remove its telemetry service Adjust from the Android and iOS versions of browsers Firefox and Firefox Focus. It appeared that the developer was collecting data on the effectiveness of Firefox ad campaigns without disclosing that.
Mozilla, the developers of Firefox, until recently used the telemetry service Adjust to collect data from its Firefox and Firefox Focus apps for both Android and iOS. Through this service, the company collected data on the number of installs of these specific apps following Mozilla’s ad campaigns.
No mention in release notes
Mozilla watcher Sören Hentzschel points out that the release notes for Firefox version 192.02 (the regular versions for Android and iOS as well as the Focus version for iOS) do not indicate that Adjust was removed. In Firefox Focus for Android, Adjust integration will disappear with the
upcoming update to version 130.0.
According to Hentzschel, that is why since the release of Firefox 129.0.2 for Android, the ‘Marketing Data’ option has disappeared from the settings. For reference: it was still there in version 128.0.3.
Previous privacy complaints
The company’s actions may also result from previous complaints about the default enabling of ‘privacy-protecting ad metrics’ in Firefox. This option has been enabled by default since the July 9 release of Firefox 128.
The service collects data on how users respond to ads, which is shared aggregated with advertisers. Users can disable this option, however.
Mozilla says it regrets enabling such telemetry but defends the reason for turning it on by default. According to the browser provider, advertisers’ desire for information about the effectiveness of their campaigns is very difficult to escape.
Mozilla hopes to address this in the most user-friendly way possible. For now, the functionality will only apply to test sites and Firefox users.
Also read: Mozilla integrates HTTP Observatory test tool into MDN environment
Correction: an earlier version of this post stated that end users didn’t know telemetry data was sent via Adjust. That is not correct: Mozilla has made no secret of this. However, the fact that the service was removed as of version 129.0.2 was not mentioned in the release notes.