Quick look at Mozilla Rally
Tags: mozilla, firefox, datascience
Published: 2021-05-27 16:41:12



# Homepage:
 https://rally.mozilla.org/

# What is it ? 
**An Firefox extension** let you to share your **personal data** to help Firefox conduct their research.

One of on-going research: [Your Time Online and "Doomscrolling"](https://rally.mozilla.org/current-studies/your-time-online-and-doomscrolling/)

# What data is being collect: 

## In short
It is already said on their study page [Your Time Online and "Doomscrolling"](https://rally.mozilla.org/current-studies/your-time-online-and-doomscrolling/).

The data is: 
- Your answer to the survey 
- Your browsing activity

## Long 
I want to know actually what is being collect, the actually data. 



There are two part of the data: The automate collected data, and survey data. 

### Auto Collect data 
First, I make an [issue](https://github.com/mozilla-rally/rally-study-01/issues/107) on Github

I follow the instruction: 
- Open about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox 
- We click the "inspect" of Mozilla Rally extension.
- Switch to tab console. 
- Then Try to browsing some news outlet, like https://www.theguardian.com 
- Check "Console" tab for some log 
(check [gist](https://gist.github.com/ttpro1995/882ab0f74542a4954156fb98e7edd3bb)
![theguardian.jpg](https://draftin.com:443/images/78811?token=OjrxUq5RcpmZyB_JDFCLrxkN_KkkmTxhYJ9a2gpBQFVy3r94fgvbW3UHDiF3R6wXMR0f7VcVQjd3D8tK57NQOL8) 

There are many `eventType`. However, it is difficult to track all event in the console log where most of the line is error. And it spiting out fast. Here is the json contain my activity on TheGuardian page: 
```
{
  "pageId": "49bc224e482815248b8eaa5f3b51e5b5",
  "origin": "https://www.theguardian.com",
  "referrerOrigin": "https://www.theguardian.com",
  "pageVisitStartTime": 1622132572402,
  "pageVisitStopTime": 1622132578956,
  "duration": 6434,
  "maxRelativeScrollDepth": 0.8231418571134446,
  "maxPixelScrollDepth": 4406,
  "scrollHeight": 5500,
  "eventTerminationReason": "page-visit-stop",
  "title": "Astronomers create largest map of the universe’s dark matter  | Astronomy | The Guardian",
  "ogType": "article",
  "description": "International team reveal vast cosmic voids over the Earth’s skies that could challenge Einstein",
  "eventStartTime": 1622132572522,
  "eventStopTime": 1622132578956,
  "eventType": "attention"
}
```
The data record your URL, page title with description. It is very well show what you are reading. And how you interact (scrollHeight, eventStartTime, pageVisitStartTime, ...) 

### Survey data 

You did submit the survey at the beginning of the event. Now you wonder where is it ? 

It is in the "storage" tab, check "Extension Storage". See the screenshot here: 
![extension_storage.jpg](https://draftin.com:443/images/78812?token=rJqJ_Jm_rUbh4qbelsyDIh5suSwFZ45iR70JLsv9UZkg1-vMavI2_qoLQnFFfGUn6DZVYgUrplr0WePTIs9UAhs) 

The key 'demographicsData' seem to be your survey result. Everything else is auto-generated.
Mine is 
```
{
  "age": "25_34",
  "gender": "male",
  "hispanicLatinxSpanishOrigin": "other",
  "race": [
    "vietnamese"
  ],
  "school": "graduate_degree",
  "income": "25000_49999",
  "zipcode": "70000"
}
```