"Historically, data-hoarding digital companies such as Google, Facebook and Amazon have made it difficult for academic researchers to access that data to study how people behave on the internet," said Max Willens for Digiday. Mozilla's new Firefox browser extension Rally hopes to change that. Internet users can "donate their data" for research studies "that are designed to build new resources, tools, and potentially even policies that empower people just like you to build a better internet and fight back against exploitative tech," according to the Rally website. With consumer privacy top of mind and both advertisers and consumers worried about the "black box" of Google's FLoC, many internet users may be willing to use the data that others collect for research purposes. The goal is also to help understand how big players exploit user data for their own gain. Currently, Rally is used by hundreds of people, but the goal is to expand those numbers to collect even more data. The data collected from the extension varies based on the research you're participating in, and Mozilla says it will not sell any data. It's purely for academic research. To join you set up a profile, find a study to join, and then browse away. "Before you enroll, we'll tell you exactly who we're working with, which data is being collected, where it's going, and how it's being used," says Mozilla. | 
