This fun Mozilla tool rates products on a ‘creepy meter’ to help you shop safely this holiday season

Mozilla has come up with a fun creepy product rater and guide to help people be aware of privacy issues by helping them shop safe products this holiday season. Their opening line - “Teddy bears that connect to the internet. Smart speakers that listen to commands. Great gifts—unless they spy on you. We created this guide to help you buy safe, secure products this holiday season.”

Source: Mozilla

When you click on a product, you can see a description, a creepiness rater, ‘a how likely to buy it’ option, and different privacy-related questions and answers. “It is a super fun poke by Mozilla at the overwhelming majority of the technology industry who treat privacy as a nuisance at best and as a non-event at worst,” said a hacker news user.

It may be Mozilla’s way of illustrating their mission of being advocates for privacy.

Read More: Is Mozilla the most progressive tech organization on the planet right now?

Some people also disagreed with Mozilla’s jibe. “The page looks to be targeted at consumers, with the 'creepy' meter that changes as you scroll. However the PS4 and Xbox are considered 'A little creepy' and a sous vide cooker is listed as 'Somewhat creepy'.

Despite the arguments made on the respective pages for why they are creepy (generally "Shares your information with 3rd parties for unexpected reasons") I don't think any consumer on the planet is going to consider any of those gifts even slightly creepy.”

“This list definitely feels very shallow and disconnected from any deeper reasoning about specific security practices, business models, whether a net connection is actually required or not, etc. It's a popularity poll at best, and the actionable advice is minimal. It's a bit disappointing coming from Mozilla, at least to the extent that it's a wasted opportunity on something that the public is growing more aware of.” said a hacker news user.

Most of the people agree that this is just for fun poll by Mozilla without any serious implications.

Read more such hackernews comments. Also, have a look at Mozilla’s guide.

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