150439 - Privacy: What's Related tab sending out data when sidebar closed or hidden

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 139894

(SeaMonkey :: Sidebar, defect)

Description

[Dan]

From Bugzilla Helper:
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Win 9x 4.90; en-US; rv:1.0.0+) Gecko/20020606
BuildID:    2002060616

If What's Related is not the currently chosen tab in the sidebar then the tab
does not send out data to xslt.alexa.com. Okay.

If What's Related is the currently chosen tab in the sidebar then the tab sends
out data to xlst.alexa.com to get the related list. Okay, you might think.

However it still does this even if My Sidebar is closed (=sidebar handle clicked
once to make the sidebar disappear and the handle collapse to the left hand side
of the window) or hidden (=F9 pressed to make the sidebar and its handle
completely disappear). This is not okay.

The reason is 'out of sight, out of mind'. People can do a What's Related search
then close/hide the sidebar and not touch it for weeks. Meanwhile information
about their browsing is getting sent out.

It doesn't matter if they have a privacy policy - everyone knows they change at
the drop of a hat and mean nothing if the company goes bust or is taken over.
The best way to keep privacy is not to give out the information in the first
place unless the owner has explictly given permission (which means having the
tab selected AND the sidebar open).


Reproducible: Always
Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start MS-DOS prompt.

2. Start Mozilla, open sidebar, select What's Related.
3. Go to www.mozilla.org.
4. Type netstat in the MS-DOS prompt - confirm xslt.alexa.com is listed. Wait 10
seconds or so for TCP port to close. This is supposed to happen.

5. Click on the sidebar handle to close the sidebar.
6. Go to www.netscape.com.
7. Type netstat in the MS-DOS prompt - confirm xslt.alexa.com is listed. Wait 10
seconds or so for the TCP port to close. This is not supposed to happen.

8. Click on the sidebar handle to open the sidebar again then press F9 to hide it.
9. Go to www.google.com.
10. Type netstat in the MS-DOS prompt - confirm xslt.alexa.com is listed. Wait
10 seconds or so for the TCP port to close. This is not supposed to happen.

11. Press F9 to show the sidebar. Choose another tab, like bookmarks.
12. Go to www.microsoft.com.
13. Type netstat in the MS-DOS prompt - confirm xslt.alexa.com is not listed (or
if it is it is closed). This is supposed to happen.

Comment 1

[R.K.Aa.]

related: bug 53239, bug 133073

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 139894 ***

Comment 2

[sujay]

bulk verification.