| | | | | | Dear Mozilla Supporter,
I’m going to thank you for reading this email before you even read it. I also really hope you will read it for two reasons. One, because I’m going to ask if you could make a donation to support our work here at Mozilla. Two, because I want to let you know what we accomplished thanks to donations from you and people like you with our *Privacy Not Included work this Mental Health Awareness Month. We have a lot more to do in order to improve mental health apps so your support will help us keep up the pressure. If you read these emails, you know I lead Mozilla’s *Privacy Not Included work with my partner Misha. We work to help consumers like you find ways to bring more privacy into your life while also holding companies accountable to do better at protecting the privacy of their users.
For May’s Mental Health Awareness Month, Misha and I reviewed the privacy and security of 32 mental health and prayer apps. Overall, we found abysmal privacy and security practices from these companies, including practices that suggest they target vulnerable people and their most sensitive personal information for profit. So we called them out, publically and loudly. That’s our job. And we’re proud to do it.
It’s also extremely hard some days. I joked as we were doing the mental health app research that researching mental health apps wasn’t good for my mental health. Turns out, many companies get very angry when you call out their terrible privacy practices - and take it out on me, which also isn’t good for my mental health.
However, a number of those same companies did end up making changes to their policies in the end. In fact, based on our work, companies updated their password requirements to require strong passwords. Companies updated (or say they are working to) their privacy policies to give their users more clarity and hopefully strong privacy protections. And companies who offer their employees wellness benefits through these apps have reached out to ask if we can help them do a better job protecting their employees' privacy.
We made the world a little better for consumers expecting privacy when they seek mental health help through these apps - but there’s a lot more to do. Unfortunately, too many of the companies who earned our *Privacy Not Included warning label still haven’t made the changes we think will protect people who use their products. This is where public pressure comes in - soon we’ll launch a campaign to urge companies to make these changes.
Making change in the world is never easy. Some days it brings me to tears or leaves me raging at the way things are. But that’s what Misha and I and the rest of us here at Mozilla will continue to do. And that is why I’m asking for your support today. If you could help us continue to do this work with a donation of $25 or even $35 or more if you are able, well, that would mean the world to me. May hasn’t been easy for my mental health. Knowing we made the world a little bit better for people’s privacy makes it worth it though. Thank you for supporting our work. And thank you for reading this email. It was nice to get to share a little of my story with you. Have a wonderful day.
Jen Caltrider
*Privacy Not Included Mozilla | |
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