Domain poool.fr blocked on Firefox due to privacy restriction, break services for news publishers
Categories
(Core :: Privacy: Anti-Tracking, defect, P1)
Tracking
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People
(Reporter: alex, Assigned: englehardt)
Details
What happened
Since Firefox 72, our service was blocked by Disconnect because we were using fingerprinting and lacked some points on privacy policy.
What we've done
We updated our product at the end of january and removed fingerprinting right away. We also changed our privacy policy.
See PR and issue here :
https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protection/pull/151
https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protection/issues/152
What is going on today
At this day, we got no responses from Disconnect although the were answering other recents PR.
As we are now a "functional cookie" as CNIL's definition (we exchanged with them & followed their guidelines), we see no reason that this blocking is still going on.
Informations we need
We, at least, need answers on PR because this blocking is interfering with major french news publisher subscriptions as we are their paywall. If PR do no fit with requirements, please advice and we will do what is needed. We just want to comply.
Specific issues
To be more specific about users and publishers issue, here are the impacts :
- Users can no longer access publishers content because they close down all the articles to avoid that the content is leaking free on Firefox
- Publisher lose engagement from audience because they can no longer access content, that lead to lost in subscription and global revenue.
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Comment 1•5 years ago
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It is unclear to me why this was reported to Firefox' issue tracker? If there is an issue with Disconnect you will have to contact Disconnect about that.
I can open and access https://poool.fr/ in Firefox 76 (both in normal and private mode).
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Reporter | |
Comment 2•5 years ago
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Hello Andre,
Thank you for replying.
We are very aware that the issue is on Disconnect side but as i stated in my initial post, we had no answers since the pull request (more than 3 months). We understand that they got a lot going on but they are answering other recent issues and PR, so they are active.
You can check the consequence of this blocking here :
https://www.lopinion.fr/edition/international/crise-sanitaire-vue-think-tanks-5-europe-orientale-russie-chronique-217251
The article is wide open on Firefox but show the paywall on other browsers / when you deactivate advanced protection on FF.
The problem is that news publishers rely on subscriptions. It's a big part of their business model and the fact that Firefox block our script create issues on their revenue directly and hit their value proposition. This sector was already damaged pre-covid but with the issues on paper distribution they can not afford to have a fully opened website on one browser. It's also why i'm writing here today, because we can not "wait" anymore for Disconnect to answer us.
We decided to open the issue on FF bug tracker after three month because we definitly have no way to contact Disconnect. Any introduction to them will be appreciated as we don't even know if all the changes that we made can grant us a whitelist.
Again, we just want to be compliant here.
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Comment 4•5 years ago
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I think this is better handled in tracking protection.
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Assignee | |
Comment 5•5 years ago
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Disconnect has removed Poool from their blocklist here https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protection/commit/6410e1d5fe1cca3ac317f21ce6fccc139d641bb4. I've poked them to stage these changes on our repositories so we can get these into Firefox.
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Assignee | |
Updated•5 years ago
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Reporter | |
Comment 6•5 years ago
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Thank you very much, we exchanged mail with them. Your input was much needed and is really appreciated here. We're happy that this issue can be finally adressed.
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Assignee | |
Comment 7•5 years ago
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I've verified that the changes are now live via https://github.com/mozilla-services/shavar-prod-lists/pull/199. poool.fr will no longer be blocked by fingerprinting protection. Note that the domain is still on Disconnect's tracking blocklist, meaning it will be blocked in Private Browsing mode by "Tracker" blocking. Since this report is about the fingerprinting blocking in normal mode I'm going to close it.
Just saw that we're no longer blocked in normal mode. That's awesome, thank you for everythng.
We're looking forward with Disconnect for the "Tracker" blocking now.
Description
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