In the nightly builds of Firefox, which will form the release of Firefox 135 on February 4, the option to enable the sending of the 'Do Not Track' (DNT) HTTP header has been removed from the privacy settings page (about:preferences#privacy). The DNT header informs websites of the user’s desire not to provide information that can be used to track movements and preferences.
The reason for the removal is cited as the widespread disregard for the DNT header by many websites, as its support is not mandatory. Moreover, in some situations, sending the DNT header can reduce privacy, as it may be used as an additional indirect identifier in passive mode, alongside indicators such as screen resolution, the list of supported MIME types, specific parameters in the headers (HTTP/2 and HTTPS), installed plugins and fonts, the availability of certain Web APIs, graphics card-specific rendering features using WebGL and Canvas, CSS capabilities, and various mouse and keyboard interactions.
Instead of DNT, users are advised to use the remaining option in the settings to enable the Global Privacy Control (GPC) mechanism, which replaces the DNT header and allows websites to be informed of the prohibition on the sale of personal data and its use for tracking the user's behavior or movements across websites. The key difference between GPC and DNT is the requirement for compliance under the CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act), which regulates the handling of personal data in California.
While the implementation of DNT header support is voluntary, signaling GPC is interpreted as the user's official refusal to share their personal data. In 2022, Sephora, which sells accumulated user data from website visits, was found guilty of violating the CCPA due to ignoring the GPC signal and was ordered to pay $1.2 million in compensation.
Additionally, changes in the leadership of Mozilla have been reported:
- Anthony Enzor-DeMeo has been appointed as the Senior Vice President of Firefox, transitioning from his role as Product Director at Roofstock. His responsibilities include overseeing the development organization of Firefox and the business growth associated with it.
- Ajit Varma has been appointed as the Vice President of Firefox Product, previously responsible for monetization at Meta for the WhatsApp messenger. Ajit will oversee the development strategy for Firefox at Mozilla.
- Girish Rao has been appointed as the Senior Vice President of Infrastructure, previously leading the engineering team for the Max streaming service at Warner Bros Discovery. Girish will manage services, security, and projects related to machine learning at Mozilla.
Source: opennet.ru
