Mozilla: Study by Firefox creator reveals privacy concerns

Mozilla, the creator of the iconic Firefox web browser, has raised worrying concerns about smart devices. For example, they are said to not only make life easier, but on top of that, they involve a serious invasion of privacy for many people.

Alarming study findings

An Alexa speaker in the living room, a smart wearable on the wrist and over the floor drives with reliable regularity the suction robot. For some time now, this image has no longer been a fantasy from some science fiction movie. What was once unthinkable is now reality in many households. The Internet makes it possible. But it is precisely a big player in the Internet business that is now sending out worrying signals regarding this trend toward more and more smart gadgets in our own four walls and beyond. This year, for example, the Mozilla company has once again published the results of its in-house study on many smart devices.

As part of this study, which has now been conducted for the fifth time, the Firefox inventor took a close look at smart helpers for the home. The results are likely to cause horror among many. Mozilla examined a total of 151 devices. This is a colorful mix across the world of digital helpers, toys and wearables. With 46 devices, just under a third of the test objects came up with the alarming result of only providing inadequate protection of the user’s privacy. But there is also good news. For example, 22 of the products tested are said to guarantee excellent data protection.

Light and shade

Let’s start with some of the positive shining lights. Mozilla itself highlighted the great data protection of iRobot’s vacuum robots, among other things, as part of its study. In addition to the so-called robots of the “Roomba” series, the compact but sonorous HomePod Mini from Apple, for example, also scores with commendable privacy protection. Among the fitness trackers, Garmin’s GPS trackers received high praise. But unfortunately, the downsides of the studious review were somewhat greater than the highlights. In particular, Amazon’s Echo Dot scored extraordinarily poorly under Mozilla’s applicable minimum standards. However, the same also applies to other devices. For example, the “Treadmill” sports device from Nordictrack and also the e-reader from Onyx are said to only be able to guarantee poor privacy protection.

In the case of Amazon’s smart helper Alexa, it even goes so far that even after being asked to refrain from collecting data, it does so anyway. Mozilla asked Alexa to do this as part of a test setup and was ultimately bitterly disappointed. The voice assistant acted contrary and collected valuable data for suitable offers. Mozilla also considers some of the so-called skills that Alexa has to offer to be questionable in terms of data protection. According to Mozilla, the collection of data in the area of sports equipment is also alarming. Established fitness systems like Peloton use the user data to sell it for profit. This behavior is particularly bad in the case of the “Treadmill” treadmill mentioned above. Here even contact data of the users are resold. Over following advertising calls one does not have to be surprised then.

The miserable search for privacy policies

Another big problem Mozilla noticed on the subject of privacy policies. Here, the search for the applicable guidelines sometimes turns out to be like searching for a needle in a haystack. In particular, Mozilla cited manufacturer Amazfit, which is known for its low-cost wearables. The e-reader from Onyx, on the other hand, makes the search very easy – but in a negative way. After all, the manufacturer apparently does not use any such information for its “Onyx Boox” at all. However, according to Mozilla, the topic of data protection unfortunately only plays a subordinate role with many manufacturers nowadays. After all, only a few devices point out any data protection tips to their users.

To the study results, the head of research Jen Caltrider commented as follows:

“We found that too much responsibility for protecting one’s privacy continues to rest on the shoulders of consumers*. They sometimes have to read complicated documents scattered across multiple websites to even begin to understand how and where their data is being used.”