Mozilla will launch data removal service Firefox Monitor Premium soon

[harlan4096]

Mozilla plans to launch Firefox Monitor Premium, a commercial service to remove personal information from the Internet, soon in the United States.

Firefox Monitor Premium is an extension of Firefox Monitor, a free service that informs users if their email addresses are affected by data breaches. Firefox Monitor checks if the user's email address is found in publicly available data breaches.



Information about a data removal option appeared on the Internet in late 2021. Users could join a waitlist back then to get invited to test the new data removal functionality.

Mozilla worked on Firefox Monitor in the meantime. It relaunched the service in April with a new design.

Firefox Monitor Premium uses the API of Onerep to power its data searching and removal operations. Onerep is a commercial service that operates in the United States only. It allows subscribers to monitor more than 190 different data brokers, including several search engines, for records of their information.

Removal requests may be submitted to these brokers using the service. Another key feature of Onerep is monitoring. It is a monthly report that highlights removal requests, statistics and other information related to the service's operations.

Firefox Premium Monitor works similarly. Subscribers of the service need to add their information to it, as it is used to scan the Web for the data. Mozilla reveals the number of sites that are selling the information.

The service will also reveal if credit card numbers, social security IDs, email addresses or passwords were found in leaks or exposed.

Mozilla has yet to reveal a launch date for the service. The mockups, which Sören Hentzschel posted on his blog, list a price of $4.99 per month or $50 per year. These may change, as the price is cheaper than the price that Onerep charges on its website.

Firefox Monitor Free users may use the scan of the Premium service once to find out about data leaks. They can't use the automatic removal request feature of the data removal service, but they may use the information to request manual removals of their data from broker sites.

Closing Words

Firefox Monitor Premium extends Mozilla's portfolio of commercial web services. Mozilla VPN was launched in 2020 officially in some countries. There is also Firefox Relay, which protects email addresses through forwarding.

These services help Mozilla diversify its revenue and reduce the reliance on revenue from search engine deals. It is probably only a matter of time before a Mozilla 365 subscription service is launched that gives subscribers access to all of these services.

The official Firefox Monitor website provides no information yet on the Premium version of the service. Whether it will be launched in other countries and regions is unclear at this point.

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