Firefox maker Mozilla is halting all of its advertising activities on Facebook over the social media giant’s privacy scandal that’s been dominating the media headlines since Sunday, the Mountain View-based organization said Wednesday. “Mozilla is pressing pause on our Facebook advertising,” a company spokesperson wrote, adding that the decision is a direct result of its closer inspection of the platform’s default privacy settings which yielded what it deems worrisome findings. The existing setup allows access to “a lot of data,” Mozilla concluded, highlighting third-party app access as the primary concern of the default privacy options.
The non-profit acknowledged the recent statement issued by Facebook co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg who vowed the company will take extra steps in order to protect the privacy of its users, having said it looks forward to seeing Facebook making good on the promise. For the time being, Mozilla is ceasing its support of the world’s largest social media platform which so far manifested through its advertising spending. The organization didn’t clarify whether it will be refocusing some of its marketing resources to other platforms while it’s not advertising on Facebook or whether the move will see its promotional spending decline in the interim period.
The controversy involving data mining company Cambridge Analytica already erased tens of billions of dollars from Facebook’s market capitalization and prompted lawsuits, widespread criticism, and speculation of increased regulatory scrutiny of the Menlo Park-based Internet giant. Mozilla is one of the first major names in the industry to pull its advertising resources from Facebook in response to the scandal, saying it will only “consider returning” once the firm makes a concentrated effort to strengthen its default privacy settings and not leave its users as exposed to third-party data harvesting as they currently are unless they manually regulate the options which many are unaware of. Facebook hasn’t reacted to the development in any capacity and currently appears to be focused on general damage control activities amid global calls for heavy-handed regulations to be imposed on its business.