Killing The Fox

Mozilla makes the popular Firefox web browser.

Mozilla has a warning for web users: the push by some companies to squeeze ever more internet consumption into apps risks undermining the neutral, public internet.

The urge to caution comes amid a widening debate over the way clunky advertisements and behavioural trackers have slowed down the web and introduced security risks for unsuspecting users.

Companies including Apple and Facebook have rolled out their own ways of coping with the problem, from introducing support for ad-blocking in iOS to a special feature in Facebook's mobile app, called instant articles, which hosts web content on Facebook's servers to speed loading times.

Though well-intention, moves such as these could create new gatekeepers and silos of information access online, said Mozilla, which produces the popular Firefox web browser.

Apple, Facebook strategies could kill the open internet, Mozilla says

"I would definitely say that's something we'd be concerned about," Chris Riley, Mozilla's head of public policy, said in an interview. "We are strong believers in the power of the web as a generative and pro-innovation environment."

"So it's Apple vs Google vs Facebook, all with their own revenue platforms," said Patel. "Google has the web, Facebook has its app, and Apple has the iPhone. This is the newest and biggest war in tech going today."

It's a war that Mozilla is trying to stop.

"If we can't figure out how to improve consumer trust, our industry is in for a very, very difficult future," Riley said. "We're at sort of the precipice of a broad understanding of the threats to consumer trust going forward, and content blocking is one major piece of that."

He added, "I do think there are going to be opportunities to work within the tech industry to build a better path together."

AP