Mozilla's New Free Content Blocker Gives Safari Users Data Flow Control
Mozilla launched a free content blocker for Safari users on iOS 9, allowing users to control their flow of data "by blocking categories of trackers such as those used for ads, analytics and social media," wrote Denelle Dixon-Thayer, chief legal…
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and business officer. The tool can also enhance mobile device performance by blocking Web fonts, she added. "Too many users have lost trust and lack meaningful controls over their digital lives. This loss of trust has impacted the ecosystem -- sometimes negatively. Content blockers offer a way to rebuild that trust by empowering users," she wrote Monday. Standards for what gets blocked by such tools aren't clear, she wrote, saying blockers don't provide ways for content providers "to improve and become unblocked. And some content blockers remove companies from a list in exchange for payment." Dixon-Thayer wrote that Mozilla has based a portion of its tool, Focus by Firefox, on a list provided by partner Disconnect under a general public license. Disconnect "bases its list on a public definition of tracking and publicly identifies any changes it makes to that list, so users and content providers can see and understand the standards it is applying," she wrote. It means content providers can improve their practices and become unblocked, "creating an important feedback loop between users and content providers," she added.