The Austrian data protection organization nyob has filed a complaint against Mozilla. A new advertising tool in Firefox is said to be tracking unsuspecting users.

Noyb has filed a formal complaint against Firefox with the Austrian data protection authority. He explains why in detail in a blog post. The non-profit organization is annoyed by a new feature in the browser that would allow Firefox to track millions of European users.

Firefox released version 128 in July Data protection attribution (PPA) The feature was introduced as a more privacy-friendly alternative to cookies. The purpose of this feature is for Firefox to collect data about advertising on websites and make it available to websites through an aggregation service. This means that websites no longer have to collect data from visitors.

Less drastic, but still drastic

Noyb doesn’t entirely agree with Firefox’s reasoning. The organization acknowledges that this system is less drastic than cookies, but the essence that users are still followed does not change. Tracking is now simply shifted from website administrators to Firefox, which still violates GDPR.

The last straw for noyb regarding GDPR is that since the Firefox 128 update, PPA is enabled by default for all users. Users have the option to disable the feature, but they have to perform this action themselves. You can check the privacy settings below Website privacy settings the opt-out box.

“It’s a shame that an organization like Mozilla thinks users are too stupid to say yes or no. Users should be able to make a choice and the feature should be disabled by default. Mozilla is giving in to the narrative that the advertising industry has the right to track users by turning Firefox into a measurement tool. Although Mozilla had good intentions, it is very unlikely that this will replace cookies and other tracking tools. It is merely a new, additional way to track users,” says Felix Mikolash, lawyer at nyob.

Follow Google?

Firefox’s PPA feature reminds you of Google’s failed attempts to ban cookies from Chrome. Google created the Privacy Sandbox to find better alternatives: a failed initiative, according to Nyob. Google will continue to maintain third-party cookies for now.

Mozilla has now responded to the complaint via Tweakers. The company stresses that the controversial feature is still in the testing phase and no end-user data has been submitted yet. Mozilla says it is open to Nyob’s comments, but maintains its view that PPA is “an important step towards improving privacy on the Internet.”