A talk given for the Mozilla Summit 2010 in Whistler, Canada about how Firefox can improve privacy be giving users better control over their personal data online.

1. Giving Firefox Users
Control of Their Data
Mozilla Summit 2010

2. We are:
Mehdi Mulani Jennifer Boriss
Mozilla Intern Extraordinaire Mozilla User Experience Designer

3. We work on:

4. We work on:

5. We work on:
(mostly)

6. Warning: This project has just started.
We’re after feedback and discussion.

7. One of the Firefox team’s priorities for
Firefox 4.0 is improving privacy on the
web.

8. Privacy vs. Security

9. Security refers to the prevention of
material harm to the user.

10. Security refers to the prevention of
material harm to the user.
Harms include:
• Theft
• Fraud
• Data Loss

11. Privacy refers to users’ control over what
they reveal about themselves online,
whether or not what they reveal might
lead to material harm.

12. Privacy refers to users’ control over what
they reveal about themselves online,
whether or not what they reveal might
lead to material harm.
All internet users reveal some
information about themselves to some
sites, but the user has privacy if his
discretion determines what information is
shared with whom.

13. Firefox has local privacy...

14. Firefox has local privacy...
• Private Browsing Mode
• Clear Recent History
• Forget About this Site

15. Firefox has local privacy...
• Private Browsing Mode
• Clear Recent History
• Forget About this Site
...but lacks network privacy

16. The most far-reaching way Firefox can
protect user privacy is by providing
intelligent defaults that protect user data

17. ...such as preventing advertisers from creating
profiles based on user behavior without user
knowledge

18. Also important is giving users the ability
to easily fine-tune their privacy settings,
giving complete control of their own data

19. However, just “control” isn’t enough.

20. Firefox already provides very fine-grained,
precise control over privacy settings.

29. The problem: Firefox’s privacy controls are
framed around the implementation model
rather than the user’s mental model.

30. Implementation model:
The actual way that a system works from the programmer's
perspective
User’s mental model:
The way the user perceives that the system works
Design model:
The way the designer represents the program to the user

31. Questions the current system can’t answer:
“What access does this particular site
have?”
“How can I turn off all access to this
particular site that I don’t trust?”

32. What do other browsers do?

33. Chrome’s design...

35. ...is just like ours.

36. Internet Explorer presents privacy permissions
in a very different way

39. Proposal:

40. Proposal: Site-specific rather than
technology-specific privacy preferences

41. Site-specific preferences

42. Domains
displayed
based on
freceny
score
Site-specific preferences

43. With “All
Sites”
selected,
global
privacy
options can
be
configured
Site-specific preferences

44. Site-specific preferences

45. Privacy
preferences
for only
the site
selected
Site-specific preferences

46. Demo!
Follow along at home: search for “Site Preferences” on addons.mozilla.org
or go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/181744/

47. Better privacy preferences are great in
preferences, but should some of this
functionality be revealed in the main UI?

48. The site identity button is a good candidate:
• Linked to the identity of the current site
• In primary UI
• Currently useless

49. Site identity button

50. The site identity button could present a UI
for the specific privacy controls that the
website has requested or the user has set

51. Site identity button: Preferences interface:
• Changing • Consistent
• Specific control • Global and specific control
• Modified while browsing • Modified while user is explicitly
(not the main user task) configuring their options

52. Questions we’d like feedback on:
• How well do you feel this interface addresses privacy
in the browser?
• How should we group sites - by domain, subdomain,
visit, etc?
• Are there site-specific preferences that belong in this
interface aside from privacy access?
• Other ideas? Thoughts?