Consumer Education

The Consumer Education project at Mozilla will explore the viability of a community-based consumer education program for non-technical users to build skills and raise awareness with respect to online security, privacy and overall web savvy-ness.

Goals

The goals of the Consumer Education project are to:

• Help non-technical end-users have the best possible online experience by raising awareness and building skills around online security, privacy and overall web savvy-ness.
• Position Mozilla as the most trusted source of consumer information about the web.
• Increase the size and scope of the Mozilla community by inviting non-technical users to participate and providing a new scalable platform for participation.
  

Implementation

The Consumer Education project has defined a proposed content flow that will enable us to develop consumer education content and publish it using a variety of media.  The intent is to maximize the re-publication of each piece of content in as many different ways a possible using both Mozilla and third party publication channels.

Suggestions for additional publication channels for Consumer Education content are welcome.   Please make suggestions in the Discussion Pages. 

Note that while many of the terms used here (such as "book" and "booklet" ) imply physical (dead tree) delivery of the content, most of the publication will be via cyber-media. Some topics may never be made available in print form.

Content Topics

A "snippets" question is in the queue to provide feedback from Firefox users on topics of interest.

Topic: Passwords

The initial topic for Consumer Education content is a small piece on Passwords. 

This will be used as an example piece and we will endeavor to get members of the Mozilla community to contribute content for future topics.

The content for the Simple Secure Passwords topic is available in various formats.

Topic: Social Media Safety

This piece discusses how to use social media while minimizing the risks of leaking sensitive information. It discusses both exploits and ways that people inadvertently encourage friends to leak personal information.

The draft master for Social Media Safety is currently available in an XHTML file.

Topic: Protecting Your Identity Online

This topic discusses practical things a person can do to minimize the chances of becoming a victim of identity theft.

Future Topics

The list of future topics and the order in which they will be published is currently open.  As it develops it will be posted here. While the focus will be on topics related to internet security, safe online shopping, and general web-awareness, other topics should be considered.   If you have suggestions for topics, or thoughts on the order in which topics should be published, please leave comments in the discussion pages.