On Saturday, June 6, 2015 at 7:56:43 AM UTC-7, [email protected] wrote: > On Friday, June 5, 2015 at 6:59:56 PM UTC-3, [email protected] wrote: > > (Pasted from https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1172126. There > > are some comments on Hacker News at > > https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9667809). > > > > Mozilla's recent integration with Pocket, a proprietary third-party > > service, is a mistake. > > > > It is very exciting to see the ways in which Firefox continues to improve. > > And it's even more exciting to see the ways that Mozilla advances it's > > stated mission outside of the Firefox browser with new developments like > > Firefox Accounts. Pocket now allows you to log in on their site using your > > Firefox Account; being able to authenticate with a trusted third party like > > Mozilla is a huge win for online privacy advocates and the Mozilla > > community. However, adding Pocket as a built-in feature to Firefox should > > not have been done. > > > > This is particularly surprising since it was Firefox that made browser > > extensions mainstream. Pocket should have been an extension (in fact, a > > Pocket extension used to exist). It could have even been bundled with the > > browser. This distinction is important, since extensions can be removed > > entirely, whereas currently Pocket can only be disabled. > > > > The user experience of disabling Pocket is not good, either. It needs to be > > disabled in about:config, which is not at all user friendly, and therefore > > not in line with Mozilla's mission. In the past, Mozilla has been very good > > about showing the user what new features have been added to the interface > > and explaining any privacy implications that may come with them. That is > > why I was so surprised when the Pocket icon suddenly appeared in Firefox > > Developer Edition a couple days ago. It is so unlike Mozilla to introduce > > something like that, I ran a virus scan and checked what programs had been > > installed recently -- I assumed it had been put there in the same way that > > IE users used to get the Ask Toolbar installed. > > > > It may also not be clear to some users that, even when signing in with your > > Firefox account, you are still giving your email address to a third party > > whose privacy policy is different than Mozilla's. Many users would not > > assume this, since it is a feature that is bundled with the browser. > > > > Mozilla's recent blog post about the Pocket feature is titled "Firefox Puts > > You in Control of Your Online Life" > > (https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2015/06/02/firefox-puts-you-in-control-of-your-online-life/). > > Had this been coming from a startup, that post would be humorously ironic. > > But given how much people care about Mozilla and it's stated mission, it is > > more painful than funny. > > > > Firefox should continue to add new features that benefit its users, but > > those features must be done in accordance with Mozilla's core values. This > > feature should've been done as an extension, which allows for greater user > > choice and avoids bloat. Most importantly, there was very little public > > discussion about this inclusion of a proprietary, third-party service. It's > > a huge departure from Mozilla's commitment to transparency. The existence > > of the Pocket code in Firefox is a bug in the browser, and it does not > > adhere to Mozilla's core mission. > > I strongly agree with this removal. Integrating with third-party proprietary > technologies seems to go quite clearly against Mozilla's stance on open > source. > > Back in the day, Mozilla implemented Mozilla Weave (now Firefox Sync) exactly > because existing alternatives were proprietary. I believe that's the way to > go forward. > > As a long time user of Firefox, I now suddenly feel that contributing and > donating to firefox wouldn't just promote freedom and open source, but also > promote a third-party for-profit proprietary solution (Pocket). > > On top of that: there's no reason to affiliate with pocket (or is there money > in the middle?), when implementing this sort of thing is pretty trivial. It > is, after all, basically a subset of the feature bookmarking includes, and > bookmarks are already sync'd.
I was going to sign up for Pocket until I carefully looked at the link in my email tag. It stated my email in part was via [email protected]. Doing a bit of searching "eigbox" seems to be associated with the EIG group. I had some bad spam related experiences with BlueHost hosting's "Mojo" which is owned by EIG. That was enough to make me remove it from my Firefox toolbar. _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
