In desktop Firefox 70, we intend to remove Extended Validation (EV)
indicators from the identity block (the left hand side of the URL bar which
is used to display security / privacy information). We will add additional
EV information to the identity panel instead, effectively reducing the
exposure of EV information to users while keeping it easily accessible.

Before:


After:


The effectiveness of EV has been called into question numerous times over
the last few years, there are serious doubts whether users notice the
absence of positive security indicators and proof of concepts have been pitting
EV against domains <https://www.typewritten.net/writer/ev-phishing/> for
phishing.

More recently, it has been shown <https://stripe.ian.sh/> that EV
certificates with colliding entity names can be generated by choosing a
different jurisdiction. 18 months have passed since then and no changes
that address this problem have been identified.

The Chrome team recently removed EV indicators from the URL bar in Canary
and announced their intent to ship this change in Chrome 77
<https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/forum/#!topic/security-dev/h1bTcoTpfeI>.
Safari is also no longer showing the EV entity name instead of the domain
name in their URL bar, distinguishing EV only by the green color. Edge is
also no longer showing the EV entity name in their URL bar.



On our side a pref for this
(security.identityblock.show_extended_validation) was added in bug 1572389
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1572389> (thanks :evilpie for
working on it!). We're planning to flip this pref to false in bug 1572936
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1572936>.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns,

Wayne & Johann
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