Mozilla Named 'Most Trusted Internet Company For Privacy' 70
redletterdave writes "Mozilla announced on Tuesday that it has been named the 'Most Trusted Internet Company For Privacy' in 2012, according to a new independent study released by the Ponemon Institute early this morning (PDF). Ponemon Institute surveyed more than 100,000 adult-aged consumers over a 15-week period ending in December 2012; of the 6,704 respondents, representing 25 different industries, Mozilla was ranked the top Internet and social media company. While this is a great achievement for Mozilla, especially considering this was their first year making the list, Mozilla's team took note of the fact that 'Internet and social media' was still the least trustworthy sector out of the 25 total industries listed. 'It means we as an industry all have a lot more work to do,' Mozilla wrote on its blog."
Isn't that like winning the "Best Lohan" Award? (Score:1)
Just saying
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Or the "least skanky crackwhore".
Re:Isn't that like winning the "Best Lohan" Award? (Score:4, Funny)
That's the same award.
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I skimmed the PDF... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is the Peoples' Choice Awards of privacy and security. And remember, when you think of how stupid the average person is, bear in mind that 50% are below that.
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It's a good thing that "average" has only one meaning which is shared with "arithmetic mean."
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Technically correct but actually wrong. Since intelligence falls on a normal distribution, the mean and median end up being the same.
It doesn't fall on a normal distribution, it is normalized to give an IQ score. It's like taking the time on the 100m dash and say "You run faster than X% of the population", but it doesn't say how fast you run relative to anyone else or how quickly you'd move up or down the list of results. The reason is that we can order people by how much they answer correctly but we have no objective measure of how much smarter they had to be in order to do it.
cat /dev/zero /proc/sense/humor (Score:2)
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Given that Mozilla is the only browser maker that is not a for-profit company, maybe the people aren't so stupid.
I'm not saying all for-profit companies are evil, but their ultimate goal is to make money, and that can easily conflict with protecting users' privacy.
The profit motive gets you companies like IBTimes.com (one of the links in the summary) that auto plays videos, and restarts those videos if you stop them. (I'm baffled why SoulSkill would have included an IBTimes link in the summary.)
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...and it's all about perception and how people feel, not how the world actually works. Therefore, it may give people fuzzy/happy feelings, but it doesn't necessarily mean squat if it's not actually correct.
Well, the Ponemon Institute brought us Pikachu, which makes me feel pretty fuzzy/happy about Mozilla.
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For security, Chrome has more vulnerabilities than Firefox, it's up with IE. Google and Microsoft hold more data on you worth stealing so you're going to be more valuable target.
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On that basis, I'm willing to give it security points. Since they do not have a vested interest in selling your information or locking you into an OS, they are likely to have consumer interest a bit more in mind than the others.
Pokemon Institute? (Score:1)
I mean, seriously?
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Yes, seriously. Professor Oak did a LOT of research before dispatching Brock, Misty, and Ash to Firefox World Headquarters with the news.
Unfortunately, Team Rocket got there first, and Jesse, disguised in a suit, was waiting for them in Mitchell Baker's office. Things got a bit dicey for a while... but let's just say that, in the end, Team Rocket blasted off again.
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For companies overall: Microsoft #17 Mozilla #20
Yes, I saw that. This is surprising; Anyone can explain why one could have more trust in Microsoft, a for-profit company, than in non-profit Mozilla foundation? At least Mozilla does not have a financial interest to betray its users
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That's easy. 90% of the market believes that a computer can't run without a Microsoft ritual blessing. With that godly blessing, computers are safe. It's a cult thing, really - get your WGA approval, run your updates, and everything is fine in computer heaven.
Whether that faith is warranted or not is subject for another discussion.
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Whether that faith is warranted or not is subject for another discussion.
I understand: trust is a faith-related notion, not a rationale one.
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Mozilla sells your privacy. You are their product, the browser's their bait. Microsoft sells a product. And your privacy. But they make most of their money off other stuff, selling your privacy is just their change jar.
It's all about motive. Now, some might wonder if someone who doesn't survive off selling your privacy will take better or worse care of it than someone who will die if anything happens to their access to your personal data, but I doubt very many think like that.
Well (Score:2)
Most trusted != Most trustworthy
Just sayin....
Lying to yourself (Score:3)
Ill stick with microsoft products since they work the best and provide the best security, because I know what I am doing. If you have security issues with MS products then its because you are a retard or lazy or just dont know how to use them in which case youre at a security risk no matter what product you use.
You like Microsoft. Cool, that's your prerogative. Lying to yourself can cost you, though.
I've been doing security full time for sixteen years. You'll find my name on CVEs where I've found flaws to instantly take out wikipedia and other top tier sites. That pretty much puts me at opposite end from "retard" when it comes to network security. When DHS and I tell you Microsoft products are full of giant security holes, we know what we're talking about. Pretending otherwise and getting the least bit slop
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Ill stick with microsoft products since they work the best and provide the best security, because I know what I am doing.
Well that's the wrong attitude for a start. A company should provide the best security because they know what they're doing, not you.
What did they expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
Social media, by definition, is an invasion of privacy. Except it's usually not some faceless corporation invading your privacy, but yourself, and the people with whom you socialize.
You can't socialize without giving up some privacy, plain and simple. And you're not going to be able to do socialize online, where all data is stored digitally and can be copied on a whim, without exposing your socializing to the entire world. Whether the rest of the world cares is another matter altogether.
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Social media, by definition, is an invasion of privacy.
True. We are socializing here on Slashdot.
Slashdot is owned by Dice.
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How do you figure?
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The difference is choice. If I invite you into my home, that's OK. If you invade my home uninvited, that's not. Likewise the voluntary relinquishing of privacy inherent in all social interaction is distinct from the involuntary invasion of privacy which people - yes, even those who use the internet to communicate - are opposed to.
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No Brainer? (Score:2)
What would a company like Mozilla have to do to offend our privacy concerns anyway?
Companies like Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Yahoo have all kinds of information on us. It's part of their business model to walk that fuzzy line between privacy and profit.
But Mozilla, with a browser and a few other auxiliary apps, plus a website that very few people even use beyond downloading apps, just doesn't have the capacity to piss people off like the other companies do.
I might as well say that New Egg has an excel
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They could write contracts with Microsoft, Facebook, Google and more, in which they assist in tracking users, for a fee. It seems pretty obvious that hasn't happened yet. I don't see it happening in the near to medium future, either. The distant future? Hell, anything can happen twenty years down the road.
Just waiting (Score:2)
I'm just waiting for some Micrsoft shill to name Microsoft the "World's Most Trusted Internet Company For Privacy".
In 3 . . . 2 . . .
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Too late. [slashdot.org]
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I don't think you know what astroturfing is.
I'm also bemused at why you continue to use a piece of software that drives you to such rage. It is not as though there is a shortage of browsers.
Microsoft beat them (Score:2)
It's just Microsoft didn't fit in the "Internet & Social Media industry" sub-category. Mozilla is 20th in the top 20 overall. So Internet Explorer beats Firefox.
Hell, Amazon is number 3. How do you think they make money? Selling you targeted stuff.
When you buy XYZ from some company via Amazon, do you think they don't get told that it was because the customer clicked on a "we think you'll also like..."?
Google's location-aware browsing in Firefox (Score:2)
about:config
In the Filter box, type geo.enabled
Double click on the geo.enabled preference
Location-Aware Browsing is now disabled.