Mozilla Releases Lightbeam Software: Track the Trackers

Tracking our browser habits is considered by many, to be an outrageous invasion of privacy. Others, such as the National Security Agency (NSA), take the stance that monitoring the world’s activities around the web is a vital part of America’s war on terrorism. Still more view the metadata collected through the process of tracking individuals’ browsing histories and website feeds as big business, worth billions of dollars. Whether dollars or data, everyone wants to get in on the act. More than ever, that applies to the “little people”- the everyday internet users, who feel like they really have no control. The overall climate of suspicion has been getting hotter than ever with the continuing disclosures regarding the NSA’s surveillance. Internet users are not simply paranoid. They just want to know who’s tracking them and why. Mozilla, the free software developer behind the Firefox browser, has been a longtime champion of end-user privacy and control. Today, it is releasing its new browser add-on called Lightbeam aimed at helping users of the Firefox browser see who is tracking their browsing habits.