May 11, 2009

Firefox "block reported attack sites" privacy?

attack
 
Have you tested new Firefox 3.5? It has a new feature built-in that should protect users from bad or hacked web sites. If you go to Preferences you will see option called "block reported attack sites". It looks like this feature is giving all your web surfing info to Google!
 

One senior expert told me that this new functionality is a real privacy issue because in order for this function to work when you click on a link Firefox sends than link to Google and asks if this site is suspicious or not. That way Google knows what you are surfing.
 
I googled for it but couldn't find any info regarding this on Google or Mozilla sites, if you have some links or some insight on how this feature works please share it.
 
I'm really interested if Firefox has made such a blunder and has given Google this surfing information (which should be private) or not.
 
UPDATE:
I found some additional info regarding this issue. Firefox Phishing and Malware Protection page has lots of info on this subject and also does the Google page.
 
From info I have gathered it looks likeFirefox as a client only downloads blacklists and whitelists from Google with suspicious links so no privacy info is leaked to Google. Right?
 
After some more reading I see that there are some cookies sent from Firefox to Google... can somebody make sense of all of this and say should we be concerned regarding our privacy and this feature or not?