this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
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Privacy
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I haven’t looked into the technicals much further than the support page.
The way i read it, it sounds like the companies will get some general data if their ads work without a profile about you being created. I would be fine with that. What I don’t like is the lack of communication to users about it being enabled.
My question is why Mozilla is trying to help advertisers at all instead of telling them to fuck off.
Telling advertisers to fuck off works if your goal is to create a niche product tailored to people who care deeply about privacy already. But Mozilla is very much all about trying to make things better for everyone on the internet, regardless about their opinions (or lack thereof) on privacy and ads.
Mozilla has recognised that advertising isn't going anywhere, so there's two options:
What other major player would ever push for privacy preserving attribution? Hint: no one. While I get that many people here want 0 ads (myself included), PPA is a great step in the right direction, and could have a huge positive impact if it's shown to work and other companies start adopting it.
And guess what? You can still turn it off, or use adblockers. Unlike Chrome, Firefox won't restrict you in that regard.
Firefox has a long history of marketing itself as privacy-focused. This was not about privacy. This was not about "making things better for people on the Internet," it was about a few individuals enriching themselves.
The outcome of this scheme is less privacy for the consumer. It doesn't matter that Firefox doesn't include exact identifying information. It still identifies demographics and other specifiers that can be used to target groups and their habits otherwise it would be as useful as an impression counter. This whole scheme is contradictory to how Mozilla has been portraying itself and the opted-in default is a 'fuck you' to anyone who cares about this. Putting the word privacy in the name does not mean it's private. PPA changes nothing with regards to the advertising industry.
Saying ads are here to stay so you have to accept them or die, is an absurd false dichotomy.
Mozilla Corp is fully owned by a non profit, so there's no owners getting rich off of any excess profits.
I'd love for nothing more than for there to be a viable alternative!
The last Mozilla executive had a salary of over 6 million before they replaced her with the new CEO making these changes. The owners of Anonym (previously Meta executives) made money when Mozilla bought them. There is still money to be made in non-profits.
They didn't sell your data before, they didn't die before. The idea that they suddenly have to start doing it now or else is incorrect.
Firefox has been funded by ads from the beginning, and has had sponsored tiles (aka ads) since around 2014 I think?
I personally think there's a difference between selling ads and selling your data too. I'm going to go on a limb and say you see no distinction.
Absolute nonsense. How does rejecting ads or even including a default adblocker make Firefox any less relevant? I would hope most people would be more than happy to use a platform free from ads.
Have you used the Internet before? Or used it without a clue how services are usually paid for? You sound a bit clueless. The day they do that, a lot of websites stop working and nagging the user to turn off adblock, which I see all the time (as an advanced user who expects it). If I was a normie who didn't understand this it might be quite confusing. This is obviously the reason basically no mainstream browser has done this or would do it.
Oh come on now everyone knows what an adblocker is. It's right in the goddamn name: ad blocker, the thing that blocks ads.
Even if they don't know how to disable it they can just google it. And if they lack the skill to do that too, they couldn't have succeeded installing Firefox in the first place.
Stop trying to justify clearly unethical decisions because you used to like the entity who made the decision
Understanding something doesn't mean you support it. Sad so many people can't understand this or how normal people operate.
Always love people who think you support bad things if you point them out.
I give zero fucks about "the way things are" or how they "have to work", that's propaganda to support inaction. I've lived my whole life blocking ads and giving the finger to advertisers, and telling me that ads make the world go round and that's just the way it is regardless of personal opinion on the matter doesn't jive well with me. Ads provide nothing useful to society, and fall in the same category as predatory CEOs and anticonsumer practices that generate a lot of revenue, but make the world over all a worse place to live. It's not something to tolerate and put up with as a "necessary evil", it's something to target and eliminate.
An easy revenue stream for independent, free website hosters? Without this we wouldn't have free versions of Cookie Clicker, Universal Paperclips, A Dark Room, etc..
There is limited ad-time slots and that means only groups with the most capital are going to occupy those slots.
Well, duh. I don’t see what’s wrong with that, and it doesn’t make any difference to people who put ads on their site.
If a revenue stream breaks just with one browser, deny access of this browser.
This obv. would render firefox impractical over time and therefore irrelevant.
Yes, there are free websites and apps. But you may have to ask yourself why or how these sites keep going.
So while yes - ads can be shown - the user decides if he wants to engage further with the site at hand.
There are ad blockers as plugins for firefox.
My point is: We shouldnt point at mozilla and blame them. They try to align interests I suppose. And I trust them with the anonymous data - I could even check it within its sources if I wanted.
More nonsense. If you've ever used a text browser, or a browser without javascript enabled, the vast majority of websites still work fine (Basically just mainstream social media garbage / fascist platforms that aren't worth your time anyways breaks). If advertisers want to break their sites on non-compliant browsers, it's as simple as changing your useragent and they have no way of knowing, assuming javascript is disabled. This is pointless hypothetical FUD with little existing precedence (Only thing I can think of is Apple blocking linux useragents that one time) so you can find a way to not hold Mozilla accountable for being a shit platform that's supporting ad culture again.
Good luck getting the average user to bother with that. But oh wait, the average user would not turn off javascript either, because dealing with that all day is very bothersome. How do I know? Been driving umatrix in whitelisting mode for years. I've got used to it, but every time someone sees that I need to reload sites multiple times to unbreak them they are visibly and audibly disgusted. What's even worse is that they connect this with the fact that I use firefox, even after I tell them this is a fucking addon, and they think Firefox is like that by default.
Is everything you put up to address my comment.
I did use a text browser. But you apparently fail their purpose. I pipe
<html/>into it so that I can't be fooled by such propaganda-spitting guys.. (...).You implied bad about me, so I reason this post with that.
Sounds harder than triggering a flag for a feature which aims at serving you, the user.
Your next sentence, minus the next propaganda, makes me wonder:
By "This" you mean the topic? I already prompted you my point of view; You didn't address it. You falsely accuse Mozilla of pushing advertisements down ones throat. Obv. wrong. This undermines my point which I made in order to aid your shortcomings I saw.
Not at all. I was referring to Xshitter and Facebook. I wasn't trying to imply you were a fascist. Sorry if it seemed that way.
Clarify?
My argument in this thread was that Mozilla is supporting ad culture, though I suppose serving targeted ads regardless of anonymity can still be considered "pushing advertisements down ones throat". Regardless, pocket already exists to push ads down my throat, should I wish it to ;)
You suggested that one can change user agents, once (and here is room for debate) firefox is not working properly. At least this is what I carry around from our convo!
Yeah, because you still managed to propagate assumptions which may be hard to reason about objectively.
That's about available sources. But I agree that just 5% of articles within their topics do not force cookies. If Mozilla would reside in the EU Pocket would have much higher quality (since I think to recall these sources are hand picked).
Because Firefox is funded by ads, whether it's the PPA ads outlined in this post, or search referrals from Google. Default adblocking would kill the revenue stream. Maybe Firefox could continue on with volunteers and donations, but not anywhere near its current staffing level. Eventually the engine would fall further and further behind and fewer and fewer people would use it.
To clarify.. Making a browser is relatively easy and there's lots of successful projects that do so without significant revenue. But making a rendering engine is really fucking hard and requires a ton of money to maintain.
They are one of them. June 2024: Mozilla has acquired Anonym, [...]. This strategic acquisition enables Mozilla [...] deliver effective advertising solutions.
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-the-bar-for-privacy-preserving-digital-advertising/
Thank you for a thoughtful post with citations and quotes. After reading the whole page by Mozilla, it seems like they're taking steps to show advertisers how they can get what they want while preserving people's privacy. I can live with that. They're trying to build a win-win scenario.
I'll still block ads. I'll still reject cookies, but I feel like it's a reasonable feature THAT I CAN SHUT OFF. I'm still in control of my browser! Great!
Agreed, just frustrating to find out about this here and not an obvious pop up alert somewhere
It appears in the release notes, though. Previously you would have been tracked. Now they try to anonymously return data to the tracker. So I do not see a reason to uncheck that flag.
Admittedly I am interpreting this feature from my gut. And you provide the sources I would have asked for. Appreciated.
The vast majority of people do not read release notes or even know they exist.
There is nothing positive about what has been done here.
It looks it it would be fun to mock the report generation API, and returns tons of garbage data (possibly negative numbers).
At that point why not just mock google's various data mining services' APIs?
Which is useless if you're not informed about it.
Given that it collects no additional user data, and the API in question is a new standard that will require sites to opt in, I think making it an opt-out is sensible. I guess they could make a popup about it, but I really think this concern is baseless FUD from people who haven't read the details.
Why? I'm not in the business of making ad companies' jobs easier.
Let's be real, there's no way PPA is going to be as valuable as the data that can be gathered by state of the art ad tech. So the ad companies that adopt this will be making a compromise to do so. How is this tech making their lives easier?
Also they have no incentive to develop this tech, so why would they? It's not like Mozilla is doing work for them that they would have done anyway. If anything they're probably worried that the tech will take off and then legislation will follow to force them to use it.
I personally am fine with making it opt-out, but I think it should be handled differently. This technology requires users trust, to have any chance of being successful. Enabling it without informing the user is not the way to gain it.
I would have put a little pop up explaining that they are trying to create a privacy preserving technology to measure ads with the goal of replacing privacy invasive technology. If the user doesn’t like it, it can be disabled in the settings afterwards.
The GDPR does not think so, does it?
No, I'm pretty sure this doesn't trip GDPR because it's not collecting any additional personal data.
I agree with this. I understand that the majority of users also don't read release notes and some don't even install add-ons, with this being enabled by default this would provide them with a more anonymous ad experience.