Mozilla-endorsed security plug-in accused of tracking users
A security plug-in for the Firefox browser is under fire after users discovered it was collecting and uploading their online activity.
The outcry began after Mozilla featured the Web Security extension on its blog with a post titled "Make Your Firefox Browser a Privacy Superpower." The plug-in, developed by German company Creative Software Solutions, bills itself as a tool for blocking malicious pages and phishing sites.
It also, allegedly, logs what web pages the user visits. Shortly after the post went up, uBlock Origin developer Raymond Hill noticed that the plug-in was gathering and transmitting the address of visited websites to a server in Germany. Word got back to Mozilla, and the org moved to strike the link to Web Security from its blog and investigate the matter.
