Mozilla has teamed up with a non-profit organisation, The Markup for the "Facebook Pixel Hunt project" to shed light on Facebook’s data collection and tracking methods.
The Facebook Pixel Hunt research project is currently asking users to download Rally – Mozilla’s privacy-first, data sharing platform. After downloading Rally, users can share their browsing behaviour with the platform. A JavaScript component will track users’ actions when they respond to advertisements.
Mozilla Rally will then examine the kind of data Facebook collects – like the sites that have access to this data, the information that this data can reveal about people and how widespread Facebook’s tracking network is. This project aims to build on a previous collaboration with Princeton University’s Center for Information Technology Policy about politics and COVID-19-related news and misinformation.
However, previous projects with similar goals have failed, mainly, because Facebook has restricted access to researchers. These restrictions have previously been applied to researchers at New York University studying micro targeting political ads
[2 minute read]
