The world is not black & white. If Firefox starts collecting a small amount of data in a privacy-sensitive manner and makes it opt-out, that does not at al make it equivalent to e.g. Google collecting all the user data it can.
Except that's not true. Firefox collecting a small amount of data in a privacy-aware manner does not mean "convenience being always more important than privacy", not by a long shot. I don't understand why you're insisting on such an absolute black & white viewpoint.
Firefox being so arrogant to presume I want to collect the data by default is a very rude thing. You don’t just assume someone wants it, and do it for them, especially if it might hurt them.
First ask, then fuck up. Is that concept so hard to understand?
If you’d do that IRL to someone they’d never talk to you again, it’s the same with Firefox if they do this.
Firefox collecting data in of itself isn't at all rude, or problematic. Nobody cares if Mozilla has "data". What they care about is if they collect data that violates the user's privacy. The whole point of RAPPOR and differential privacy is it's an approach to collecting data that is supposed to preserve user privacy. So the real question is, does it preserve user privacy sufficiently that it's ok to make something opt-out instead of opt-in? But that's not what you're complaining about, you're just ranting because they're collecting data, period, without actually understanding the extent to which your privacy is being violated (if at all).
And of course this all started with you saying that you may as well switch to another company's products, a company which you know violates your privacy quite significantly. You still haven't explained why Firefox collecting a small amount of data in a way that tries to minimize any privacy violations means you should just give up any semblance of privacy and use a product that tries to collect as much personal information as possible.
First off, I’m a developer myself. A developer in the EU. In Germany. Working on open source. In fact, on open source with goals to preserve privacy.
I’ve dealt with these issues before myself.
And I understand well what they collect, how, and why. I understand how painful it is when you have no data on what is used, and how, or not even crashreports.
But there also is a limit to how far you can go, and where consent is required.
And when transmitting anything, or collecting anything, consent is required.
You could make it dependent on situation. If a performance issue occurs, show a bar: "Is this website slow? Click [Here] to submit a report so it can be improved. [Details] [X] Always submit".
This gives the user a far better understanding of what is submitted, why it is needed, it is contextual, and it is still opt-in (but with far better conversion)
