With the help of The Markup, an American nonprofit specializing in data journalism, the Mozilla Foundation launched Facebook Pixel Hunt. This study will be conducted until next July and consists of collecting data that Facebook collects when you surf the Internet to highlight the actions of the social network.
Mozilla and The Markup want to know as much as possible about the recovery of personal data
The Markup is known for proving that Google monopolizes 41% of the first page of results on its search engine. With this new project and the help of this association, the objective is to track the “Facebook pixel” that the social network makes available to websites so that they can obtain information about their visitors. It is also useful for Facebook to recover data.
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The two partners wish to highlight the methods used for data collection, but also what types of data are collected and the sites that do not hesitate to share them.
In order to carry out this project, Mozilla will exploit its extension Rally, “Tech giants have built their success by exploiting your data. Mozilla Rally gives you the power to give your data to conduct studies » specifies the foundation. Ultimately, the better understanding of data collection should allow the construction of new tools, the writing of documentary resources or the implementation of new regulations, protecting Internet users as well as possible.
The Rally extension developed by Mozilla is at the center of the Facebook Pixel Hunt study. Picture: Mozilla.
How to participate in the Facebook Pixel Hunt project?
In order to participate in the project, you will have to be very patient. However, here are the few steps to follow to take part:
- First, you need to install Rally, the extension offered by Mozilla. At the moment, the tool is a victim of its own success and is only gradually accepting users. You will therefore have to go through a waiting list.
- Then you have to join the Facebook Pixel Hunt project. Once again, a waiting list exists distributed among many countries, including France. Note that the study is active until July 13, registration is open until this date. It is quite possible to be accepted into the program several weeks after your registration.
- As soon as his profile is validated, all you have to do is surf the internet as usual. Mozilla and The Markup will collect the data that Facebook collects when you are online (URL of web pages visited, metadata generated, time spent on the page, presence of a Facebook identification cookie, etc.)
Mozilla ensures that only anonymized data will be extracted from the databases thus constituted and that they will be used only within the framework of the study. The first results will undoubtedly come in early fall 2022, after analysis by the teams working on the project.