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Add context on MARS data collection to streamline data reviews#14

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mashalifshin merged 9 commits intomainfrom
chore/update-readme-ads-context
Mar 23, 2026
Merged

Add context on MARS data collection to streamline data reviews#14
mashalifshin merged 9 commits intomainfrom
chore/update-readme-ads-context

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@abedef
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@abedef abedef commented Feb 24, 2026

Abed and I added a few additional sections to our README outlining MARS data collection practices to give background and context for data reviewers. This is part of an effort to make data reviews easier and faster for data reviewers and ads engineers.

The idea would be to share a link to this README whenever requesting a data review, so if a reviewer is new to MARS's use of Glean, they can read it first before engaging with the review. I added a note to the data review request instructions for that bit.

@abedef abedef requested a review from a team as a code owner February 24, 2026 17:40
Comment thread README.md Outdated
@mashalifshin mashalifshin force-pushed the chore/update-readme-ads-context branch from 6f8ccba to 3d41c97 Compare March 12, 2026 01:02
@mashalifshin mashalifshin force-pushed the chore/update-readme-ads-context branch from 3d41c97 to 4045b9a Compare March 12, 2026 01:15
@mashalifshin mashalifshin changed the title Clarify README for Data Stewards Add context on MARS data collection to streamline data reviews Mar 12, 2026
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@abedef abedef left a comment

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Thanks for writing this up, Masha! Looks quite clear to me now. Hopefully it does the trick for our future data reviews 👍

(Leaving unapproved so someone else can have a look to make sure everything is accurate and that this isn't mentioning any non-public info)

Comment thread README.md Outdated

MARS is a backend API service that functions as a privacy-preserving proxy bewteen Firefox and third party ad providers.

MARS handles requests for ads from the Firefox browser, processes them to redact or anonymize our users' information, forwards along these anonymized requests to third party ad providers, and returns privacy-respecting, tracker-free ads to Firefox.
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processes them to redact or anonymize our users' information

This implies that user information is being sent from the firefox browser to Mars. Maybe list out all the PII sent from the firefox request so people don't assume emails are also part of the request.

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Ooh yes I see how it could read that way, thanks for pointing it out. Could you take a look at my updates and lmk what you think?

(I wanted to avoid getting into listing specific things, since in our case it's not really about the info explicitly being passed, so even implying that was part of the problem you identified -- its more about what is fingerprintable from the standard http request info, so I tried to reword around that ...)

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💥

@mashalifshin mashalifshin force-pushed the chore/update-readme-ads-context branch from 6a13272 to c1de9b2 Compare March 23, 2026 20:12
@mashalifshin mashalifshin merged commit 91a2b0a into main Mar 23, 2026
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@mashalifshin mashalifshin deleted the chore/update-readme-ads-context branch March 23, 2026 20:22
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4 participants