Firefox, you're supposed to be in my pocket, not the other way around.
Sun 12 July 2015 — download

Disclaimer: I'm a bit pissed off, so this article might contain some anger.

Today, I updated my Firefox, and had a new icon on my toolbar: pocket. I took at quick look at the ToS and privacy policy; here is my tl;dr:

Firefox nom nom nom

Privacy

TL;DR of the privacy policy:

  • Read it Later, Inc. is collecting a lot of intimate information and is tracking you.
  • When you share something through Pocket with a friend, the emails contains spying material using malware-like techniques to track your friends.
  • They are sharing those information with trusted third parties (Could be anyone they are doing business with.).
  • The policy might change, and it's your responsibility to check Pocket's website to see if it has.

Usage

TL;DR of the ToS:

  • Your account may be terminated without notice at Read it Later, Inc. sole discretion.
  • Non-free software-powered. You want to host your own instance? You can't. Also, you can't modify, translate, reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or create any derivative works based on the Pocket Technologies, including any of its files, tables or documentation, or any portion thereof, or determine or attempt to determine any source code, algorithms, methods or techniques embodied in the Pocket application or any portion thereof. Yes, this service is integrated in your favourite Open-source web browser.
  • They reserve the right to refuse service, terminate accounts or limit access to the Pocket Technologies in their sole discretion.
  • Since it's enabled by default in Firefox, does it qualify as an access to or usage of Pocket technology? If so, this pile of bullshits the ToS applies.
  • You can not share/publish/display inaccurate material, or anything illegal anywhere in the world.
  • Read it Later, Inc. can read everything you communicate through their service, you shall have no expectation of privacy.

Implementation

The Pocket implementation is not an extension (while it was available as an extension), it's implemented in Firefox. You can not remove it, only disable it, by going in about:config, since this option is not available in the preferences menu.

Conclusion

It seems that I am not the only one that hates this awful idea. Mozilla is getting worse and worse and worse and worse those days, instead of not hurting the web… it used to be a defender of privacy, now it's promoting shady services. Fortunately, the pocket people know what they are doing.

edit: It seems that this article received way too much attention (Something like 76k visitors.) that it deserved, thanks to r/linux, r/firefox, r/privacy, hackernews, LWN, twitter … I wrote it after some beers because I was pissed off, it wasn't meant to be a serious article.

It makes me a bit sad that this article on which I spent a lot of time about an important subject didn't get the same treatment. You should be reading it instead of this shitty one.