Privacy/Indicators

The Problem

Users are not able to differentiate apps from a privacy perspective.

Proposed Solution

Let's give users a small set of indicators (self selected by developers) that can help them search and differentiate apps based on their privacy practices. Let's make these indicators matter to developers by making them represent in the developer terms that the indicators have to be accurate.

Implementation

The developer is given 4 questions during the app sign up workflow:

1. Does your app communicate with you or anyone else in any way without express user consent? (Y/N)
2. Are all your app's online communications encrypted? (Y/N)
3. Does your app use behavioral or location based advertising?(Y/N)
4. To use the core features of your app, do users need to log in or connect it to an account or identity aside from a user’s Persona account? (Y/N)

The user is given a set of 4 icons in an appropriate place in the Marketplace that show up based on the question:

1. Privacy indicator 1:"This addon never communicates with the developer or anyone else." (this state only shows up for addons without communications back to a server) OR "This [app or addon] communicates with the developer or someone else"{"in some cases, automatically."OR "but only when you specifically initiate or choose that communication."}
2. Privacy indicator 2: "This [app/addon] uses behavioral or location based advertising" OR "This [app or addon] does not use behavioral or location based advertising."
3. Privacy indicator 3: "You can't use the core features of this [app or addon] without logging into it with an account other than your BrowserID."OR "The only account you might need to use the core features of this [app/addon] is your BrowserID."
4. Privacy indicator 4: "This [app/addon] uses behavioral or location based advertising." OR "This [appor addon] does not use behavioral or location based advertising."

MDN Documentation

We have the first iteration of our documentation up at https://developer.mozilla.org/Privacy_policies