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Firefox’s new AI ‘Smart Window’ (only in beta builds so far) surprises reviewer by unexpectedly handing browsing history to 3rd party hosted models (www.omgubuntu.co.uk)

submitted 1 week ago by cm0002@no.lastname.nz to c/privacy@programming.dev

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[–] moto@programming.dev 2 points 1 week ago

Smart Window uses ‘memories’, things Mozilla says “…it learns from your activity” to inform its responses. You can delete memories individually, and you can set any given chat session to not use/store them.

Fine so far.

The problem? My memory list isn’t populated with things Smart Window learned since I enabled it. Oh no.

It has activity going back months. We’re talking searches and website interactions from long before I enabled this. features. Firefox just handed that history to the AI models to plough from, without telling me upfront.

I found this the creepiest aspect of Smart Window.

Mozilla says this was a flub; it will refine the onboarding around Smart Window to limit memory formation to post-opt-in activity only. That’s obviously the right fix.

Yuck. It feels like an oversight but that's one of those things you really should have more eyes + thought around.