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David Culley

OUTDATED⚠️
Mozilla bought the Android email app K-9 (which didn’t include any trackers) and integrated trackers as part of #Mozilla‘s rebranding under the #Thunderbird name.

They even made it opt-out instead of opt-in. Their defense for breaking the law: ”we wouldn’t have enough data if we obeyed the law.“

It doesn’t matter whether you ”anonymized“ the data or not: If you want to extract data from someone’s device to yours, you may do so only if they knowingly consented.
sigmoid.social/@davidculley/11

3 October at 19:31 | Open on sigmoid.social
62 comments
Trent

@davidculley can anyone suggest an alternative?

3 October at 21:01 | Open on eigenmagic.net
Jason Bowen

@davidculley I've been using FairEmail on Android for quite a while and I'm happy with it.

email.faircode.eu/

3 October at 21:02 | Open on mast.hpc.social
noodlejetski :verified_gay:

@davidculley oh god, can they atop already? Mozilla, I really want to like you but you make it so hecking difficult

3 October at 21:17 | Open on masto.ai
Frank Kumro
@davidculley Mozilla is making it very difficult to use their products. We need LadyBird...
3 October at 21:31 | Open on genserver.social
Fritz Adalis

@davidculley @sj
Damn it, I knew when they bought k9 it was going to go to shit.

3 October at 22:35 | Open on infosec.exchange
Ste5e

@davidculley the Mozilla jokes keep writing themselves.

3 October at 23:37 | Open on fosstodon.org
Force of Habit

@davidculley @9x0rg @kuketzblog Seriously, at this point, browsers are politics. Just don't use the worst like vinalla Chrome or Edge.

4 October at 0:21 | Open on infosec.exchange
Zoe 💜

@davidculley@sigmoid.social huh, I thought K9 was always owned by Mozilla? That sucks though

4 October at 1:06 | Open on blahaj.zone
mcSlibinas
David Culley

@mcSlibinas only for 1 or 2 more years. Then you have to migrate to Thunderbird.

4 October at 11:33 | Open on sigmoid.social
mcSlibinas

@davidculley or use web version. I hope there will be some new browser or smh.

4 October at 11:57 | Open on river.group.lt
LumiWorx

@davidculley ... any idea where the opt-in/opt-out toggle is in the Android app?

I can't find it anywhere under app settings or account settings.

4 October at 3:08 | Open on mastodon.social
David Culley

@lumiworx Are you using K-9 or ”Thunderbird for Android“? These are still separate apps, currently developed in parallel.

It was only in the latest release (8.0b1) of the beta version that this was included. Something like "Settings > Data collection > Usage and technical data“.

4 October at 3:40 | Open on sigmoid.social
LumiWorx

@davidculley ... I used K-9 on the desktop for years, and in trying to break out of the Google/Gmail box lately, I now have it loaded on Android to trial run it again. I saw the recent blurb on Thunderbird and was tempted, but happy enough as-is.

Thanks for the clarification.

4 October at 3:49 | Open on mastodon.social
Philip Mallis 🇺🇦

@davidculley
That's a massive shame, I've loved K-9 Mail. It's been easy to use and reliable. This will unfortunately make me move to another email client.

4 October at 6:51 | Open on aus.social
David Culley

@philip Understandable. Feel free to share that feedback with @mozilla. I doubt that they will change their course, but then at least they know why their users are leaving them. They’d do good to hear that their users won’t tolerate their privacy-invading, law-breaking attacks on our rights.

K-9 could make ”informed product decisions“ completely without integrating trackers, which made them the best email app for Android and so sucessful that you bought it, @mozilla. So spare us your bullshit.

4 October at 8:49 | Open on sigmoid.social
Scarred and Terraformed
roteiro
tessarakt

@roteiro @davidculley Github? They're no longer using Bugzilla for bug tracking?

4 October at 12:27 | Open on mastodon.social
#

@davidculley That's really frustrating that each year one of those companies fall, where you thought they stand for something.

Ads. Fuck ads. Why the fuck did we collectively even got lured into believing that a business model based on ads is a good thing?! Yeah I know, because of "free stuff". Because I can't afford the gazillion types of media out there supported by that money. Because I don't want to pay for every page request. That's why.

4 October at 9:15 | Open on esperanto.masto.host
#

@davidculley And ads in mass media were a handy tool for fascism. We got this pristine source of knowledge and contacts -- the internet -- and wrapped it into one of the well-known tools for raising fascism in Germany and elsewhere -- ads and mass media.

That criticism is at least 80 years old.

4 October at 9:20 | Open on esperanto.masto.host
Bogomil Shopov - Бого
AlexTECPlayz

@davidculley Oh, what the fuck. K-9 Mail was so good, all it needed was Material You and it would have been perfect.

4 October at 9:33 | Open on techhub.social
Derick Rethans

@davidculley Ugh, I saw this earlier, but hadn't realised this is going to replace the excellent K9 app 😕 .

4 October at 9:44 | Open on phpc.social
Guenther Schmitz ⏎

@davidculley oh WTF - thanks for the post.
Now adding *.telemetry.mozilla.org to my pi-hole blocklist 📝

4 October at 10:27 | Open on toot.cafe
Donty

@davidculley We've been through Netscape nightmares through all the Firefox fun and now it looks like we need another option.

Enshitification does actually seem real. Like so many things I guess it's just about greed and money.

4 October at 10:36 | Open on mastodon.tetaneutral.net
jn

@davidculley Mozilla is really trying to become the new Oracle, isn't it?

4 October at 10:54 | Open on boopsnoot.de
David Culley

@jn Mozilla consists of two parts: a for-profit and a non-profit part. The for-profit is no different than any other big Silicon Valley company. It just has the non-profit do the marketing for them.

4 October at 10:59 | Open on sigmoid.social
Stefan Arentz

@davidculley @kuketzblog I am not a lawyer and this is clearly a tricky situation. But I am pretty confident that under the GDPR a company does not have to ask for consent for anonymous product telemetry that does not contain personal details. Mozilla’s telemetry collection practices are sound and tested and from past experience I know that they will never collect anything that can tie the data back to an actual person.

4 October at 11:00 | Open on mastodon.social
Stefan Arentz

@davidculley @kuketzblog Should they have implemented opt-in? Yes 100% given all the other controversial situations they are in. But there may not have been a legal reason in this case.

4 October at 11:04 | Open on mastodon.social
David Culley
Stefan Arentz

@davidculley Oh they speak from a “TDDDG” perspective. Is that something Germany added on top of the GDPR?

4 October at 11:37 | Open on mastodon.social
David Culley

@st3fan It’s not GDPR, it’s the ePrivacy Directive.

TDDDG is the German national implementation of the ePrivacy Directive.

Important (and violated) is Article 5, sentence 3.
eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/L

4 October at 11:43 | Open on sigmoid.social
Stefan Arentz

@davidculley I am not a lawyer. But I am really not sure if that section means what you think it means.

4 October at 11:53 | Open on mastodon.social
David Culley

@st3fan It’s not what I say. It’s what privacy experts and their lawyers say. I just read their blog.
sigmoid.social/@davidculley/11

4 October at 11:57 | Open on sigmoid.social
David Culley

@st3fan Besides, it says:

> is offered the right to refuse such processing

How can I refuse if the telemetry is sent as soon as I open the app, before I can even go to the settings menu and change opt-out to opt-in? The telemetry was already sent without me being able to refuse.

So I don’t think I misunderstood it.

4 October at 12:03 | Open on sigmoid.social
Stefan Arentz

@davidculley I don't know. I am not a layer and I definitely don't know the German situation well. I do think it is complicated and somewhat ambiguous. It seems the TDDDG specifically applies to the Telecommunications and Telemedia industry? And it mostly talks about websites and cookies. Is a mobile app part of that? Or would K-9 fall under the BDSG, which seems to use the same definitions as the GDPR around classification of personal data and when consent needs to be asked?

4 October at 12:56 | Open on mastodon.social
David Culley

@st3fan I’m just a reader of the blog @kuketzblog. I’m not a lawyer either.

4 October at 13:01 | Open on sigmoid.social
David Culley

@st3fan Data privacy experts disagree. See the linked posts (German).

4 October at 11:10 | Open on sigmoid.social
opal
Paul Wilde :blobcatnim: :dontpanic_nobg:

@davidculley So, to confirm, we're talking about the current "Thunderbird for Android" (which is still K-9) and not the explcit "K-9 Mail" app here?
Anyone know if these changes will be up/down streamed to actual K-9? I hope not.

4 October at 11:12 | Open on notnull.space
Ortwin Pinke
Lapo Luchini
I just hope somebody will have the will to keep an existing and working "K-9" unadulterated project alive and kicking.
4 October at 12:19 | Open on f.lapo.it
tessarakt
Philip Kiff

@davidculley Just to clarify, I didn't realize that Mozilla "bought" K-9?

I had the impression that they took over development and that they hired the lead K-9 developer/maintainer.

Which by the way seemed at the time to be good news, since there wasn't a company or entity sustaining the K-9 open source project?

4 October at 12:29 | Open on mastodon.social
David Culley

@pkiff ”According to Thunderbird's Jason Evangelho, the Thunderbird team has acquired the source code and naming rights to K-9 Mail.“

arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/0

4 October at 12:54 | Open on sigmoid.social
Stefan

@davidculley
Mozilla has gone rough, sadly, became just another greedy Company with lots of PR Bullshit. 🙄

I switched long ago from K9Mail, due to some issues with it, to FairMail and never looked back since. 😉

#Mozilla #K9Mail #FairMail
@IzzyOnDroid

4 October at 12:43 | Open on quasselkopf.de
Leeloo

@davidculley
That was fast. Glad I swicthed to #FairEmail as soon as I read the Thunderbird announcement.

4 October at 12:54 | Open on techhub.social
araly

@davidculley wasn't Thunderbird not Mozilla anymore ? so when they said they had a beta for Thunderbird on android it was really just an existing app with new branding ? wtf is going on

4 October at 13:36 | Open on gamedev.lgbt
ari 💫

@davidculley good grief what a pathetic excuse. do better, mozilla :(

4 October at 14:15 | Open on ice.arimelody.me
Lawrence Pritchard Waterhouse

@davidculley *sigh* The amount of software ending up on my list of "things you ought to rewrite from the ground up to be rid of utter shit once and for all" is growing faster every year, and fucking @mozilla have been the leader of the pack for quite a while now.

4 October at 14:42 | Open on ioc.exchange
Bastelwombat

@davidculley Surely there musf be some kind of K9 fork, right?

4 October at 14:46 | Open on chaos.social
Party Snacks
@davidculley browsers are so fucking shit that it's not enough to shit up the web anymore
4 October at 14:48 | Open on netzsphaere.xyz
FoxoBread 🦊

@davidculley
Oh for the love of dog... :blobfoxfacepalm:

4 October at 15:43 | Open on bark.lgbt
Iron Bug
something that buys other software cannot be free software, it's coprorate BS and it's evil. Mozilla turned into a monster a long ago. do people need more evidence to see?
4 October at 20:20 | Open on friendica.ironbug.org
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