• Mozilla Collusion lets you see who is tracking you

    Firefox add-on turns the tables on marketers

    SOFTWARE OUTFIT Mozilla has released an add-on to its Firefox web browser that lets users see where and how they are being tracked by advertisers.
    Mozilla has vocally opposed advertisers tracking users and is a proponent of the'do-not-track' campaign that carries weight with regulators as well as standards groups and privacy watchers.

    Collusion is an experimental release for now, but should give web users a much better insight to the tracking that shadows their web browsing.
    "Collusion is an experimental add-on for Firefox and allows you to see all the third parties that are tracking your movements across the Web," says Mozilla in its introductory material.

    "It will show, in real time, how that data creates a spider-web of interaction between companies and other trackers."
    The software was shown off at that technology showcase and forward thinking circus, the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference, by Mozilla's CEO, Gary Kovacs.

    "Collusion will allow us to pull back the curtain and provide users with more information about the growing role of third parties, how data drives most Web experiences, and ultimately how little control we have over that experience and our loss of data," explained Kovacs in a blog post.

    Collusion is being developed with the support of the Ford Foundation.