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The sequence of characters "9e112725- REMAINDER REDACTED BY ME "is an example of a Universally Unique Identifier (UUID), also known as a Globally Unique Identifier (GUID). UUIDs are 128-bit numbers represented as a 36-character alphanumeric string, including hyphens, designed to be unique across all systems and networks. They are widely used in computing for various purposes, including: Identifying data records: Like a database table might assign a unique UUID to each row, helping to distinguish one record from another, according to Cockroach Labs and PlanetScale. Tracking user behavior: In product and web analytics, UUIDs are used to track user activity...

In a story published yesterday your humble Reg writer wrongly confused Mozilla's Telemetry project with the open-source outfit's so-called Metrics Data Ping proposal. Mozilla has been in touch to clear things up. The org's global privacy and policy boss Alex Fowler kindly explained the differences between the two systems to us. "The Metrica Data Ping proposal is not Telemetry. Telemetry is a component of Firefox that collects anonymous browser performance data for around 200 data points. It's voluntary, doesn't include a universally unique identifier (UUID), and is under the user's control," he said. As we noted in our earlier piece,...