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

  • boatswain@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • fubo@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

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

  • abhibeckert@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • Pxtl
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    1 year ago

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

      • OtterOPA
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        1 year ago

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

  • NickwithaC@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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!

      • tabular@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

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

        • elscallr@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          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@lemmy.world
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            1 year ago

            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@lemmy.world
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              1 year ago

              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@lemmy.world
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                1 year ago

                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@lemmy.world
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                  1 year ago

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

    • OtterOPA
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      1 year ago

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

  • ekky43@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    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…

  • 2xsaiko@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 year ago

    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@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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@aussie.zone
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        1 year ago

        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

    • OtterOPA
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      1 year ago

      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

    • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • OtterOPA
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      1 year ago

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

      • ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

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

  • MonkderZweite@feddit.ch
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    1 year ago

    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?

  • Polkira@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    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.

  • DreamButt@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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?

    • OtterOPA
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      1 year ago

      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

        • OtterOPA
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          1 year ago

          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.

          read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation