>Ghostery is supported by Ghostrank, our 100% opt-in feature that collects information about the trackers you see and the sites on which you see them. Our parent company, Evidon, packages that information and sells it back to sites who use it for privacy, performance, and security audits; and also ad tech companies who use it for competitive intelligence about each other.
>That information is totally anonymous - it's all intelligence about the tracking industry, none about our users. And Ghostery works exactly the same whether you choose to share that with us or not.
But at that point, what exactly is it phoning home about? If it's still sharing the data you explicitly refused to share, then that's one thing. If it's simply asking home if there's an update, then that's something totally different.
Firefox is managing extension updates already. As an app developer, you don't need to know this data.
As a security surface, you really don't want this data in real-time. It makes you a target.
I presume the problem is that Firefox isn't sharing this install/update data with the extension developers. So, they're trying to collect it themselves.
Getting updates published on the Firefox add-on site takes a few weeks [1], and as I understand it (haven't needed to do it myself recently) queuing a new version bumps you all the way to the back of the line. If the add-on needs to update non-code things (such as what sites to block) on a shorter time frame having its own service is pretty necessary.
See also the various lists adblock plus / uBlock / lightbeam use. Or for that matter the safe browsing lists Mozilla uses instead of shipping it in a new version of the app.
(I still don't use Ghostery because their relationship with the advertising industry freaks me out, but that doesn't mean I have to be critical of them about the list updates.)
So, you are saying that every single extension in existence uses Mozilla's update feature and doesn't have an internal system for updating? Because it seems to me I've seen a few that seem to update themselves with no involvement of the add-on panel of Firefox.
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1c4wjz/we_are_the_ghos...
>Ghostery is supported by Ghostrank, our 100% opt-in feature that collects information about the trackers you see and the sites on which you see them. Our parent company, Evidon, packages that information and sells it back to sites who use it for privacy, performance, and security audits; and also ad tech companies who use it for competitive intelligence about each other.
>That information is totally anonymous - it's all intelligence about the tracking industry, none about our users. And Ghostery works exactly the same whether you choose to share that with us or not.