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Julien Voisin blogs:
Today, I updated my Firefox, and had a new icon on my toolbar: pocket. I took at quick look at the ToS and privacy policy; here is my tl;dr:
Read it Later, Inc. is collecting a lot of intimate information and is tracking you.
When you share something through Pocket with a friend, the emails contains spying material using malware-like techniques to track your friends.
They are sharing those information with trusted third parties (Could be anyone they are doing business with.).
The policy might change, and it's your responsibility to check Pocket's website to see if it has.
[...] The Pocket implementation is not an extension (while it was available as an extension), it's implemented in Firefox. You can not remove it, only disable it, by going in about:config, since this option is not available in the preferences menu.
What the hell is pocket? on Mozilla's site:
The Pocket for Firefox button lets you save web pages and videos to Pocket in just one click. Pocket strips away clutter and saves the page in a clean, distraction-free view and lets you access them on the go through the Pocket app. All you need is a free account, an Internet connection and the Pocket button.
Original Submission
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 13 2015, @02:06PM
> Does Pocket report back info for every site you visit or just the one you invoke Pocket on?
> If it is not a privacy problem unless I use it then good. If it is nosy and reports everything then it has to go
The mozilla guys have been saying that if you remove the icon from your toolbar it doesn't even load the pocket libraries into memory much less execute the code. If they are misrepresenting the truth that will be the last straw for me and I will start looking into the various forks.
Either way, this is still a stupid, stupid, stupid PR move. They keep pulling features out of the user-interface claiming that stuff that isn't widely used shouldn't clutter-up/confuse the users and then they embed what, at most, should have been a bundled extension. They are starting to suffer from ivory-tower syndrome and are out of touch with the perception on the ground.
(Score: 2) by tempest on Monday July 13 2015, @06:28PM
That's part of my biggest annoyance with Firefox now, they pull useful shit off the default UI, but then pack in gimmicky garbage they want to push. They still have a microscopic bookmark button, and worse still have the "bookmark this page" star right next to it and the two can't be divorced. The claim this is all in the name of usability loses credence every time they pull a stunt like this.