Mozilla explains their recent foray into advertising - A free and open internet shouldn’t come at the expense of privacy
Mozilla explains their recent foray into advertising - A free and open internet shouldn’t come at the expense of privacy
MARK SURMAN, PRESIDENT, MOZILLA Keeping the internet, and the content that makes it a vital and vibrant part of our global society, free and accessible has
MARK SURMAN, PRESIDENT, MOZILLA Keeping the internet, and the content that makes it a vital and vibrant part of our global society, free and accessible has
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This will be easy to hate on, but let's be careful not to get carried away.
Maintaining a web browser is basically the toughest mission in software. LibreWolf and PaleMoon and IceWhatsit and all the rest are small-time amateur projects that are dependent on Firefox. They do not solve the problem we have. To keep a modicum of privacy and openness, the web is de-facto dependent on Firefox continuing to exist in the medium term. And it has to be paid for somehow.
This reminds me of the furore about EME, the DRM sandbox that makes Netflix work. I was against it at the time but I see now that the alternative would have been worse. It would have been the end of Firefox. Sometimes there's no good option and you have to accept the least bad.
I would love to give Firefox money, as long as they slash their CEO's ridiculous salary
And slash the CEO as well. Not literally of course.
In Minecraft
Nah, suits don't deserve the dignity of a painless existence. They made their choice to be a soulless husk, and that's how they should be treated.
That’s certainly cathartic, and I can appreciate that, but it’s not helpful.
I'm in the same boat. Mozilla can't be trusted with donations until they can prove they spend money responsibly. Money, like trust, should not be given by default.
Also, if firefox does better it'll forward the benefits of a better browser with more usage, more funding, faster features, and more on to the forks for those who want to use them. There is basically no downside for librewolf users here and its to their benefit to encourage for normie's to use firefox anyway
Getting angry at Mozilla for finding a way to survive by trying to offer something less evil won't solve the privacy problem in advertising. That has to be solved at the government level, and if anything, what Mozilla is working towards here is probably the best case scenario for a legislated solution in the US's economy.
what Mozilla is working towards here is probably the best case scenario for a legislated solution in the US's economy.
No thank you, I don't want an ad company dictating legislation. Even if it wasn't in bed with Facebook, I wouldn't want that.
If it were up to me, ads wouldn't be legal but we live in this society and it has an economy that won't ever get there without sweeping change.
Ad companies do and will continue dictating legislation in the US, so I'm not sure why Mozilla now being an ad company and the parent foundation historically being involved in privacy law and lobbying for privacy measures matters to you so much. Its not like the Mozilla foundation has been that radical historically anyway.
All this mozilla hate just further divides the people wanting something better. We domt all have to agree on what better vs best vs perfect is if were all pushing in the direction of better for now.
I can't believe I need to explain this (and I kind of already have), but you should never put any corporation on a pedestal just because they are proffering the second worst option instead of the very worst.
Ad companies do and will continue dictating legislation in the US
And we shouldn't normalize it.
Normally, I would mention Facebook driving the way Firefox ads function, but you seem to have no issue with Facebook or even Google being in an incestuous relationship to various degrees with Mozilla, I guess that's not even a point you'll care about.
All this mozilla hate just further divides the people wanting something better.
People say this about Mr. Beast and his repulsive children's snacks and chocolate bars, which he says are a healthy alternative to the very worst options. Or Elon Musk and his electric atrocities. I would be aghast if the government handed monopoly political power over to either of those people.
And yet here you are, insinuating the government should legislate monopoly power over advertisements and simply hand the reigns over to the corporate interests that want to maximize profits at any cost.
what, concretely, do you believe they are offering that is less evil? Their proposed ad tech is no more private than Google's or Apple's.
And they can't afford the army Google and Apple employ to prevent data leaks.
What concrete parts of the Mozilla proposal do you believe is an improvement over Chrome and Safari?
Anonym isnt built into firefox, so idk why you'd think any of this has to do with other browsers.
From a privacy perspective, Anonym is only providing its customers anonymized data which has no direct reference to individual users. That's way better than say, a site using Facebook pixel being able to learn a hell of a lot about other sites you've visited and ads you've seen that are served by facebook.
Web platform security isn't about having an army of people. That's a gross oversimplification. And Mozilla already operates some massive online services that are juicy targets for hackers anyway, so it's not like they're new at this or something.
So by your silence, do you concede that Anonym provides no privacy not already provided by Chrome and Safari? Why are you comparing it to Facebook pixels?
> Anonym isnt built into firefox, so idk why you’d think any of this has to do with other browsers.
Google ads is not built into Chrome either. And yet for some reason Chrome takes more and more control away from the user.
The only reason people use Firefox currently is that people used to trust Mozilla. If Mozilla decides to throw away that trust the obvious decision is for people to switch from #Mozilla #Firefox to a more mainstream browser like Chrome or Safari.
Since you can't name any reason Anonym is more private than Google Ads, people might as well go with a company that has vastly more expertise in cryptography and security.
> Web platform security isn’t about having an army of people.
Google physically secures data centers across the globe. Both they and Apple have world class expertise in cryptography and hardware, including discovering the family of speculative execution bugs that plague processors. They thoroughly understand the limitations of SGX and related technologies and have designed custom ways to mitigate them. They have world class cryptographers working at the edge of what's possible with things like homomorphic encryption and MPC.
Let's be realistic, Anonym is going to run on AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud. The security will be backed by one of the tech monopolies, and Anonym/Mozilla are now the weak point in the chain.
If I'm choosing between two implementations of the same ad spyware, why would I go with the upstart with less experience and who just did a 180 on their mission?
Dunno why you're being so aggressive about this.
My first comment that you replied to was primarily about how firefox getting more money through Mozilla being more successful would only serve to benefit forks like librewolf. Its a win-win for Firefox forks for firefox to be more popular and have more resources.
And I also commented about considering what Mozilla is stating their goal as to be a possible better state than the current situation and likely representing the best case, realistic scenario out of the US government in regards to ads and privacy. At rhe end of tje day, the default state of privacy is based on the US laws , bit that doesnt mean that more countries doing better on preivscu legislation otherwise won't help.
Instead, you are demanding answers from me. I wasn't here to argue. You could, idk, maybe do some of this leg work yourself rather than demand it from people? If this truly upsets you so much, maybe do something to more productively understand the situation rather than punch people around you who generally also want a more private future with less ads.
So by your silence, do you concede that Anonym provides no privacy not already provided...
What part about my description of Anonym was silence? You could maybe... Go to their site? Read some of the other Mozilla blog posts about it? I'd love more openness from them about how exactly their tools work, and I hope more is shared over time.
Why are you comparing it to Facebook pixels?
Maybe you dont know as much about advertising and tracking on the web as you think. Facebook sells a lot of ads through their sites and apps, but also hosted through clients sites. the data they track to know which ads to serve to eyeballs is gained through Facebook Pixel, which lots of people install on their web sites to gain analytics data from, which both tells facebook who you are when you are on one of their products and also tells other sites using pixel who you are to then target you while present from facebooks dataatores about your activity elsewhere. Putting it on your site also gives you some advantages for selling ads through Facebook, since it gives you targeted data about customers to your site so you can advertise to them where they are anywhere else on the internet. It's a self-sustaining network of ads > data > ads. Facebook pixel, by its ubiquitous nature, is everywhere which allows facebook to track people across websites to a high degree of accuracy. It's a big reason you may still feel targeted by ads despite being extremely privacy conscious and blocking ads nearly everywhere. Its just that level of ever-present.
Google analytics provides similar benefits to google for their ad network, it's just not as blatantly insidious since google doesnt really have a social network to drive more addictive advertising.
This is how targeted ads function. The ads dont have the data, its the other stuff that gets rhe data back to the ad network.
The only reason people use Firefox currently is that people used to trust Mozilla.
Don't let your bias color your opinion. That may be true of people on the privacy side of the fediverse but its certinally not the only reason people use firefox.
Since you can't name any reason Anonym is more private than Google Ads, people might as well go with a company that has vastly more expertise in cryptography and security.
See thats the thing: web users aren't the customers of facebook ads, google ads, anonym, and other ad companies. Businesses are. Businesses either care about being more private, or they care about the appearance of privacy, or they don't care at all. We as web users have no say in those decisions or priorities in most cases other than to make it such that advertising via trackers is unpopular, ineffective, or pushing to make it illegal.
If you spent some time reading about anonym instead of punching other people in the community, you might have noticed thay Anonym is looking to bypass tracking via tools like facebook pixel and instead using the data that a company has based on user registration, use of the product, etc. Then, they use ML to make assumptions without needing to resort to the level of data collection things like Facebook Pixel do. Plenty of information used to determine what ads to show to someone through detailed tracking can be just as effective as some educated guesses from context in data the company looking to sell ads already has from you being a customer or having provided some intentional information for sales and marketing use, which is exactly what ML is good at. If they truly can provide as good a value to people as Facebook Pixel + Facebook Ads or google analytics + google ads and other competotors without resorting ro invasive tracking, and especially if they can do it cheaper and give companies a marketing win to say they dont use trackers, then there is a chance the future of ads doesnt include tracking. Products being out in rhe market that work well without invading privacy also decreases rhe likliehood of lobbyists blowing up any bills thay would increase privacy. Or at least has way less of it. Its literally the goal of Anonym to provide ads without gaining targeted leads via trackers, but if you didn't already know that from easy, intentional research, then you aren't here to get answers, are you?
I'm not here to say Anonym is perfect or that no concerns are valid, but i am here to say that flipping tables and fragmenting the community further isnt going to help anyone. If firefox dies, so too do the forks, so theres reason to hope for the best here and not tilt at windmills.
Don't let your bias color your opinion.
In another comment, you endorsed the AdTech industry lobbying to create an advertisement monopoly. Charitably interpreted, you could only have meant one of two things:
- Mozilla is uniquely positioned to lobby on behalf of this
- All AdTech companies, even Google and Brave, should get a crack at lobbying their products
But since you don't seem to be very pro Google, I believe it's the former... And based on Mozilla providing nothing more substantial than any other company engaged in the incestuous and corporate PATCG, it sure does seem you are the one engaging while wearing rose tinted glasses.
To keep a modicum of privacy and openness, the web is de-facto dependent on Firefox continuing to exist in the medium term. And it has to be paid for somehow.
The web today has no privacy or openness. It has gmail accounts, russian propaganda bots, and AI SEO article spam. Does it matter which rose tinted browser you care to view or interact with this shit through? I'm approaching 40 and the web has been a fundamental part of my life to the point that I am sometimes bewildered about what I'd do without it. It is a sinking ship though, and at this point I'm much more interested in seeing alternatives to HTTP rather than trying to save the mess we built on-top of it.
This analysis strikes me as a nice mix of cynicism and revolutionary thinking. In my own analysis of history, cynicism has never achieved anything except worsen what it claims to hate. As for revolutions, they mostly never even happen, and when they do happen they achieve nothing except heartache and backlash. The only way forward that actually works is slowly, one step at a time, building on what you have.
Ok, let's try to narrow this down so our exchanges aren't vague. To me going from propellers to jet engines would have been "revolutionary", but to you it may have just been incrementally expanding on the concept of a wing that keeps aircraft afloat.
So for clarity, I'm not suggesting a complete replacement to HTTP. I don't envision a world where the web as we know gets fully "replaced". But, I do think that it has out lived its purpose and ultimately we should be seeking a better protocol for information exchange. Or, in other words, I don't think formulating a solution that can provide privacy, integrity, etc should be restricted to being built on HTTP just because that is what we essentially consider the web to be today.
Fair points. Talking of revolution was indeed a bit vague.
Perhaps I am just more conservative in temperament. I focus on the value in keeping things and improving them. Software lends itself to iterative development where the result can still end up being revolutionary. So my intuition is that if there's a problem with HTTP then let's solve that problem rather than throwing the whole thing out and losing all its accrued value. In this case 3 decades of web archives and the skills capital of all the people who make it work.
Sure, HTTP is suboptimal, and as a sometime web developer I can see that HTML is verbose and ugly and was only chosen because XML was fashionable back then. Even the domain name system suffers from original sin: the TLDs should come first, not last!
Human culture is messy. Throwing things out is risky and even reckless given that the alternative is all but certain not to work out as imagined. Much safer to build upon and improve things than to destroy them.