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SOFTWARE DEVELOPER Mozilla has floated the idea of using Firefox users' web browsing history to deliver personalised content.
Mozilla said it has been working on the idea of serving personalised recommendations to Firefox users for a year. The firm is floating the idea that by having the web browser go through the user's web history, with the user sharing those interests with third party websites, then websites can serve content that's of interest to the user.
Mozilla product manager Justin Scott said that the organisation has been doing experiments on creating a user personalised web with some volunteer Firefox users who opted-in for the trial. Now the outfit is going one step further, looking at the idea of Firefox users sharing the interests gleaned from analysing their web browsing history with other websites.
Scott described what the service could end up doing, "As I browse around the web, I could choose when to share those interests with specific websites for a personalized experience. Those websites could then prioritize articles on the latest gadgets and make hockey scores more visible."
He said the analysis of web browser history would be done on the client with no data being sent, unless of course the user then wishes to share their interests with websites.
Scott said that Mozilla is still in the experimental stage and is "testing the concept with volunteer participants". He didn't say whether Mozilla is planning on taking the idea beyond the experimental stage, but if it does Mozilla will have work to do to convince users that analysing their web browsing history and sharing it with websites isn't an invasion of privacy.
Mozilla said it has been working on the idea of serving personalised recommendations to Firefox users for a year. The firm is floating the idea that by having the web browser go through the user's web history, with the user sharing those interests with third party websites, then websites can serve content that's of interest to the user.
Mozilla product manager Justin Scott said that the organisation has been doing experiments on creating a user personalised web with some volunteer Firefox users who opted-in for the trial. Now the outfit is going one step further, looking at the idea of Firefox users sharing the interests gleaned from analysing their web browsing history with other websites.
Scott described what the service could end up doing, "As I browse around the web, I could choose when to share those interests with specific websites for a personalized experience. Those websites could then prioritize articles on the latest gadgets and make hockey scores more visible."
He said the analysis of web browser history would be done on the client with no data being sent, unless of course the user then wishes to share their interests with websites.
Scott said that Mozilla is still in the experimental stage and is "testing the concept with volunteer participants". He didn't say whether Mozilla is planning on taking the idea beyond the experimental stage, but if it does Mozilla will have work to do to convince users that analysing their web browsing history and sharing it with websites isn't an invasion of privacy.
