Mozilla blasts at Android and iOS for lack of openness

Mozilla has accused Google and Apple of not being transparent with their mobile technologies and misusing their dominant positions.

Google's Android and Apple's iOS make up for the majority marketshare in smartphone OSes globally and Mozilla has shown concern over the irresponsible behavior of the companies by not being transparent about the utilization of user data.

In a report from the Guardian, Mozilla's chief technology officer, Andreas Gal, has revealed that the current mobile situation is not favorable for users' privacy and believes Firefox OS can change the scenario.

According to Gal, neither Android nor iOS is transparent and users are kept in the dark about what happens with their data. Although, Android is based on open source software, Google has kept large portions of its integrated services proprietary and iOS has been closed since the very beginning. Gal feels that, "right now the user has a choice between one phone where you can’t tell what goes on inside it and another phone where you can’t tell what goes on inside it."

Both Apple and Google have in the past banned or removed privacy-centric applications from their respective app stores, which can be termed as misuse of their dominant positions and Mozilla hopes that people realize this and choose open platforms in the future.

Source: The Guardian