The company Mozilla presented project Rally , providing a platform for conducting research and user preferences, allowing users to control the transmitted data. Unlike uncontrolled user data collection, Rally implies the need to obtain an explicit consent to participate in the experiment (OPT-IN) and the ability to track in detail what data are transmitted for analysis who will receive access to them and how long information will be stored.
Each study is issued in the form of browser add-on for Firefox (later promise to add support and other browsers ), Which is invited to install users connected to Rally. Participation voluntary and user is free to choose in what studies to take part, and in what no. With the consent to participate in the study, the user shows the details of the experiment and what information about its actions will be transmitted. The user at any time can stop participating in the study and, if the data collection is not yet completed, then the accumulated information will be deleted, and the browser addition is disabled.
Studies can cover different directions, including studying behavior in WEB and collecting information to improve technology for processing a large amount of data and artificial intelligence systems.
For example, The first study is dedicated to the definition of how many people spend time in online, which sites are mainly used and how much Time spend on these sites. In most cases, the data will be collected in the background, but some studies can periodically display notifications. Access to Rally so far only open to users from the United States, which turned 19 years old. It is assumed that the platform will help teams of researchers to obtain data on users who do not break ethical norms, providing processes transparency and keeping confidentiality.
When collecting data, the concept of a careful attitude to the data is applied ( Lean Data ), The essence of which is that only the minimum of really necessary data is assembled, not more, and everything is possible to protect the collected data. Before sending data is encrypted, and on servers are stored in protected systems, access to which is limited. Platform related source texts are distributed under the Apache 2.0 license and available for audit.
Researchers get access only to information relating to their research, and undertake to comply with the procedures for safe operation with data. For participation, only well-proven groups of researchers who have trustworthy who have proper qualifications and a special agreement with Mozilla, which regulate the requirement for working with the data obtained are allowed. Public information is published only in aggregated and impersonal form that does not allow to compare information with specific users.