Our online lives are generating increasing data about us as individuals and about how groups of people are using the Internet. At the dawn of the World Wide Web 15 years ago people “surfed” to websites and viewed information. Today Internet life is more participatory and people create more information. In addition, a range of tools have been developed for tracking and generating data about people and our activities. The existence and treatment of this data is important to our online security and privacy. The treatment of this data also affects the public ability to understand how people use the Internet.
I believe Mozilla must think, talk, and respond to this new level of data somehow. I recognize that any discussion of what Mozilla should do regarding data may be perceived as Mozilla wanting to use data to make money, or otherwise changing our nature. This is not the case. Our goal in thinking or doing anything regarding data will be to improve the safety and control of individual people, and to improve the overall health of the Internet.
I’ll say this in many different ways, but I expect some will remain suspicious. The good news is that people are sensitive to this topic precisely because they recognize that the treatment of data is important. I’m hopeful that people will give us the benefit of the doubt as we have these discussions. And if that’s not possible, at least keep an open mind.
Because the topic of data is so complex, I’ve put together an outline of the different facets of this conversation that are important to develop a shared understanding of the landscape. From there we can integrate this understanding with the Mozilla mission and the principles of the Mozilla Manifesto. I’ll post that framework in a separate post.