HYDERABAD: CITY-based Free Software Movement of India (FSMI) on Wednesday launched new software that would restrict Reliance Jio from tracking web user activity on the Mozilla Firefox browser. When asked why Reliance Jio alone was being targeted, Ranjeeth Raj, an hactivist with FSMI, said, “The point is about ratio. In the global scenario Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft (GAFAM) do most of the tracking surveillance activities. In the Indian scenario, the same holds true for Reliance.” The software is in the form of an ‘add on’, which are extensions that one can install on browsers to customise user experience. So if one has Mozilla Firefox browser, they can install this add on named ‘Reliance Jio Container’ from addons.mozilla.org website.
Raj explained, “Cookies are installed whenever we visit websites. They keep a track of all web activity. For instance, if one logs into Facebook, Google or Reliance for five minutes and then closes the browser, the cookies would still be there and would be tracking your web activity. The same thing is done by Reliance. The Reliance Jio Container would alienate the cookies from Reliance websites in one single space. “It alienates Reliance activity from other activities. These cookies will return only Reliance activities to Reliance, not other activities,” he said.