Removal of NortonIS add-on from Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is a lovely product whose extensible nature is a great boon to users worldwide. Though such extensions are written by outside developers, the Mozilla Foundation has in the past enacted restrictions on such 3rd party enhancements for reasons of security or abuse it deems detrimental to Firefox's overall function.

We ask you to take similar action now to bar Symantec Corporation's Norton Internet Security suite from integrating with Firefox.

Norton installs several add-on for Firefox without asking the user for permission.
These add-ons violate basic usability on many levels including; non-removability, spontaneous re-activation of disabled features, deceptive installation practices, obfuscated files and integration with 3rd party software to covertly reinstall the add-ons-- even if forcibly deleted from the system.
Any one of these criteria would be grounds for an automatic rejection if they had been submitted via Mozilla's open-source add-on index. This non-inclusion is be sufficient to limit their damage most bad add-ons can cause, but the NIS add-ons are silently distributed as part of one of the most widely pre-installed programs on the planet, affecting tens of millions of users.

We believe that the Norton add-ons embody a *removal* of user control that is fundamentally antithetical to the Modilla Foundation's mission, damaging to your product experience and damaging to your brand. In addition we believe that by bypassing the "Install add-ons only from authors whom you trust" confirmation dialog, the Norton add-ons may actually be illegal.
Despite operating outside your network, their abuse of the extensible features has a widespread impact that is very much "your business."


We ask that the Mozilla Foundation to:
1 - Legally or technically bar the Symantec Corporation from integrating any add-ons with Mozilla products until they are able to meet a bare-minimum threshold of acceptable practice; to be uninstallable and stay uninstalled.

2 - Permanently bar Symantec Corporation from engaging in 'excessive branding' of the Firefox UI through add-ons whose primary 'value' lies not with the functionality they offer but in creating a permanent ad displaying the Norton logo.

3 - Create a general non-binding policy of bare-minimum ethical and human experience expectations that will guide similar out-network developers in the future and discourage such industry-specific common practice and poor conduct from leaking over into Mozilla products.

May God uphold the right.