Mozilla Drops New Privacy Partner After CEO Found Tethered To Data Brokers

Last month we noted how Mozilla had launched a new privacy protection tool dubbed Mozilla Monitor Plus. According to Mozilla, the new service scours the web for your personal information at over 190 sites where brokers sell information they’ve gathered from online sources like social media sites, apps, and browser trackers.

We noted that the tool was built on the back of services from a company named Onerep, which basically offers the same service. We also noted that the effort was likely a game of whac-a-mole given the sheer volume of data brokers and other companies trafficking in consumer data in a country too corrupt to pass even a baseline privacy law for the internet era.

Anyway, about that.

Before the ink was dry on the new deal, Mozilla announced they were severing their relationship with Onerep. Why? Security researcher Brian Krebs found the company had ties to the very privacy-violating companies and services it professes to be protecting users from.

More specifically, Krebs found that Onerep CEO and founder Dimitiri Shelest had founded dozens of data-hoovering “people finder” type websites over the years, including Nuwber, a data broker with a checkered past that sells detailed consumer behavior, location, and other data gleaned from user devices.

Shelest was forced to issue an apology for not being more up front about his not insignificant role in an industry he professes to be protecting people from:

“I get it. My affiliation with a people search business may look odd from the outside. In truth, if I hadn’t taken that initial path with a deep dive into how people search sites work, Onerep wouldn’t have the best tech and team in the space. Still, I now appreciate that we did not make this more clear in the past and I’m aiming to do better in the future.”

Mozilla issued its own statement clarifying that no user data was put at risk, but that “the outside financial interests and activities of Onerep’s CEO do not align with our values.”

We’ve noted repeatedly how the U.S.’ corrupt refusal to pass a privacy law or regulate data brokers isn’t much of a laughing matter. The largely unregulated industry is now routinely caught up in dangerous scandals involving over-collecting consumer data, then selling access to any nitwit with a nickel (like, say, right wing activists targeting abortion clinic visitors with misinformation).

Mozilla, which publishes numerous excellent reports on consumer privacy, likely provided Onerep with a reputation boost. But this latest mess once again highlights how modern America’s online privacy problems aren’t something that can be fixed with an app. The rot runs deep, and fixing it requires passing a privacy law — and giving regulators the staff and resources they’ll need to enforce it.

Unfortunately when you have so many interconnected industries making a killing on the existing dysfunction (even apparently the ones claiming to help), meaningful reform is hard to come by.