• slazer2au@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    251
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    5 months ago

    … I don’t know of this is satire or not.

    • There is now a feature labeled “Privacy-preserving ad measurement” near the bottom of your Firefox Privacy settings. I recommend turning it off, or switching to a more privacy-conscious browser such as Google Chrome.
    • azdle@news.idlestate.orgOP
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      103
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      5 months ago

      Definitely satire, the context from earlier:

      1. Firefox is worse than Chrome in their implementation of ad snitching, because Chrome enables it only after user consent.
      • jabathekek@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        53
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        I mean, have you met people? They could be completely serious when posting that lol.

        • azdle@news.idlestate.orgOP
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          edit-2
          5 months ago

          [edit: To be clear, I assume the part that OP is not sure if it’s satire or not is “or switching to a more privacy-conscious browser such as Google Chrome.”] The emphasis in

          Firefox is worse than Chrome

          is in the original. To me that clearly implies that they are of the opinion that in general Google & Chrome are worse on privacy than Mozilla & Firefox. The comment at the end is just tongue in cheek snark alluding to the fact that in this particular case google did better for privacy in Chrome than Mozilla in Firefox.

          or switching to a more privacy-conscious browser such as Google Chrome.

  • unskilled5117@feddit.org
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    141
    arrow-down
    4
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    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.

    PPA does not involve websites tracking you. Instead, your browser is in control. This means strong privacy safeguards, including the option to not participate.

    Privacy-preserving attribution works as follows:

    1. Websites that show you ads can ask Firefox to remember these ads. When this happens, Firefox stores an “impression” which contains a little bit of information about the ad, including a destination website.
    2. If you visit the destination website and do something that the website considers to be important enough to count (a “conversion”), that website can ask Firefox to generate a report. The destination website specifies what ads it is interested in.
    3. Firefox creates a report based on what the website asks, but does not give the result to the website. Instead, Firefox encrypts the report and anonymously submits it using the Distributed Aggregation Protocol (DAP) to an “aggregation service”.
    4. Your results are combined with many similar reports by the aggregation service. The destination website periodically receives a summary of the reports. The summary includes noise that provides differential privacy.

    This approach has a lot of advantages over legacy attribution methods, which involve many companies learning a lot about what you do online.

    PPA does not involve sending information about your browsing activities to anyone. This includes Mozilla and our DAP partner (ISRG). Advertisers only receive aggregate information that answers basic questions about the effectiveness of their advertising.

    This all gets very technical, but we have additional reading for anyone interested in the details about how this works, like our announcement from February 2022 and this technical explainer.

    • ssm@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      55
      arrow-down
      15
      ·
      5 months ago

      My question is why Mozilla is trying to help advertisers at all instead of telling them to fuck off.

      • ahal
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        116
        arrow-down
        8
        ·
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        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:

        1. Reject ads wholesale and become irrelevant.
        2. Push for a better alternative that can improve privacy while still keeping the engine that drives the internet intact.

        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.

        • ssm@lemmy.sdf.org
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          16
          arrow-down
          23
          ·
          edit-2
          5 months ago

          Telling advertisers to fuck off works if your goal is to create a niche product tailored to people who care deeply about privacy already.

          Reject ads wholesale and become irrelevant.

          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.

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            35
            arrow-down
            9
            ·
            5 months ago

            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.

            • yogurtwrong@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              5 months ago

              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

              • TrickDacy@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                5 months ago

                Understanding something doesn’t mean you support it. Sad so many people can’t understand this or how normal people operate.

                • ssm@lemmy.sdf.org
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  13
                  arrow-down
                  7
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  5 months ago

                  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.

          • mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            13
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            edit-2
            5 months ago

            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.

            • ssm@lemmy.sdf.org
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              7
              arrow-down
              15
              ·
              edit-2
              5 months ago

              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.

              • ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                3
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                5 months ago

                it’s as simple as changing your useragent and

                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.

              • mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                3
                ·
                5 months ago

                More nonsense.

                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… (…).

                … fascist platforms that aren’t …

                You implied bad about me, so I reason this post with that.

                … changing your useragent …

                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:

                This is pointless hypothetical FUD with little existing precedence (…) so you can find a way to not hold Mozilla accountable for being a shit platform that’s supporting ad culture again.

                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.

                • ssm@lemmy.sdf.org
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  arrow-down
                  3
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  5 months ago

                  You implied bad about me, so I reason this post with that.

                  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.

                  Sounds harder than triggering a flag for a feature which aims at serving you, the user.

                  Clarify?

                  You falsely accuse Mozilla of pushing advertisements down ones throat.

                  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 ;)

          • ahal
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            6
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            5 months ago

            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.

        • ran90dom
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          15
          arrow-down
          22
          ·
          edit-2
          5 months ago

          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.

          • ahal
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            10
            arrow-down
            8
            ·
            5 months ago

            This was not about “making things better for people on the Internet,” it was about a few individuals enriching themselves.

            Mozilla Corp is fully owned by a non profit, so there’s no owners getting rich off of any excess profits.

            Saying ads are here to stay so you have to accept them or die, is an absurd false dichotomy

            I’d love for nothing more than for there to be a viable alternative!

            • ran90dom
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              12
              arrow-down
              5
              ·
              edit-2
              5 months ago

              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.

              I’d love for nothing more than for there to be a viable alternative!

              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.

              • ahal
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                12
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                5 months ago

                They didn’t sell your data before

                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.

    • Anonymouse@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      39
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      5 months ago

      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!

    • mryessir@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      26
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      5 months ago

      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.

      • refalo@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        5 months ago

        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.

    • umami_wasabi@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      5 months ago

      It looks it it would be fun to mock the report generation API, and returns tons of garbage data (possibly negative numbers).

    • verdigris@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      15
      ·
      5 months ago

      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.

      • sanpo@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        28
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        I think making it an opt-out is sensible

        Why? I’m not in the business of making ad companies’ jobs easier.

        • ahal
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          10
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          5 months ago

          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.

      • unskilled5117@feddit.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        5
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        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.

        • verdigris@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          5 months ago

          No, I’m pretty sure this doesn’t trip GDPR because it’s not collecting any additional personal data.

      • A Mouse@midwest.social
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        5 months ago

        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.

    • kbal@fedia.io
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      68
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      5 months ago

      Mozilla has been ad funded since 2005

      It was funded through a deal with an ad company. It did not become an ad company itself until much more recently. jwz had a succinct and memorable response to the the absurd idea that really it’s been ad-funded all along and that this makes things okay:

      You are just another of those so-predictable people saying, “The animal shelter has always had a kitten-meat deli, why are you surprised?”

      Yes, Mozilla started making absolutely horrific funding and management decisions many years ago. Today, they have taken this subtext and turned it into the actual text.

    • fernlike3923@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      17
      arrow-down
      2
      ·
      5 months ago

      Browser development might not be sustainable with user donations, but it sure as hell is sustainable when you get 400 million bucks by Google every year.

      • Auzy@beehaw.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        15
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        5 months ago

        You’re actually wrong. They did when they started.

        I know because I donated

        The funny thing is that the people who complain most about stuff like this, tend to be the people who contribute the least.

        If you don’t like them making money to support development, you’re more than welcome to work full time on developing it for free

          • SunDevil@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            edit-2
            5 months ago

            I could be mistaken, but I’m pretty sure all donations go to The Mozilla Foundation. I believe the foundation is the decision-making power for the corporation.

            Either way, yes, Mozilla sold their soul to Google (specifically, giving preference to Google Search) in exchange for sustainability (read: survival). Rather difficult to compete in a market where Google and Apple collectively hold upwards of 85% market share for something they provide “free.”

            https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share

          • Auzy@beehaw.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            5 months ago

            Rich guy?

            Presumably that is about Mitchell Baker… A woman… who was there since the beginning when the company was failing…

            The new CEO is also a woman and a temp CEO, who I’m guessing will again be replaced by an existing employee. Which guy are you referring to?

            What browser projects are you assisting with or donating to?

            Are you assisting with any open source projects at all?

            The biggest problem with the oss community is that as a developer, you need to accept always that you’ll get treated like absolute dirt by the community.

            One of my projects went FrontPage on many major Linux sites, and I ended up dropping it because I got tired of the abuse.

            You’ll get plenty of people contributing nothing to your project or competing ones, but they’ll tell you the 50 different ways you suck

            I donated back when Firefox was in beta. They were a dying company back then.

            Are you saying open source developers shouldn’t be rewarded at all?

          • barsoap@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            5 months ago

            Donations are a tiny fraction of Mozilla’s income. Firefox and related projects are their money earners for their actually charitable projects, pulling in at least half a billion or so a year.

            Not saying that the CEO pay is adequate or something, but your take is literally ignoring the article you yourself quoted.

          • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            5
            ·
            5 months ago

            Non-profits of the scale that Mozilla is need good talent to continue to exist. Good talent needs to be paid close to market rates to work for non-profits, and retaining good talent requires even better pay and benefits than just what will get good talent in the door

            No matter how much or how little the talent at a nonprofit is paid people will go “why are they paying the CEO a $1 million dollar salary? They could hire 6-8 developers for that much!” “Why are they paying developers 100k/year? Can’t they accept 80k for the privilege of working for such an important bastion of the open internet?”

            15 million a year is a lot but it’s also 1/3 the median CEO pay rate. They have to pay the CEO at least semi-competitively to retain them

        • bionicjoey
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          7
          ·
          5 months ago

          The funny thing is that the people who complain most about stuff like this, tend to be the people who contribute the least.

          Why would I donate to them if they are going to advertise at me either way?

        • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          5 months ago

          Ah interesting. I didn’t know. I started using Firefox as a kid around version 2.

          I totally want Firefox to make money, but I wonder if donations couldn’t be a significant part of that pie today. It seems a lot more people would prefer to donate to Firefox than Mozilla.

          • Auzy@beehaw.org
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            4
            ·
            edit-2
            5 months ago

            Yeah. Maybe I’m just old (I’m 40).

            I would be happy to donate. But, the reality is… donations don’t work in my experience. One of my projects went FrontPage on all the major tech sites (and even was mentioned in Linux format magazine).

            I got $300 in donations.

            $250 was from a person I knew…

            Backend projects often get screwed more, and I guess you probably need to hope you get supported by companies like Redhat ultimately. This may be why in my case. But backend projects always have people dissing them (frontend projects just need to look good and markety)

            I think what’s more important is that it’s open source to be honest. We’re actually lucky we still have Mozilla honestly.

            In Mozilla browser days (after Netscape), id imagine it would have been a struggle to get a good pay. The people still there I suspect took a massive risk, and could have moved to lots of other companies like Google instead quite easily

            I think they deserve to get rewarded…

            • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              5 months ago

              I feel like Mozilla could have been what NextCloud is today. Totally free, open source, and offering a vast offering of office apps, with paid hosted versions. It could be all neatly integrated into Firefox, and you would pay a premium to use them without self hosting. The only thing they did was create Firefox VPN, and the only reason most people use VPNs is because of scammy marketing.

              • Auzy@beehaw.org
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                ·
                5 months ago

                Yes… Similarly, there are lots of browsers that failed too… KHTML for instance is what Chrome and safari was based off…

                They have a huge number of projects they tried… Including their own mobile phone OS which they were actively shipping (it’s a pity it didn’t survive, would have been nice to have a 3rd OS)

                It’s really a risk / time payoff here. The reality is, when you see projects like this, there are 20 more which fail.

                When you have limited resources, things like Firefox VPN actually make sense, because its low risk (there’s a lot of competitors, but its fast to implement).

                An office suite takes a huge amount of resources, and is a lot of work.

                VPN’s do have their uses. But, I agree… 99% of it is scum marketing

              • Trainguyrom@reddthat.com
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                edit-2
                5 months ago

                Totally free, open source, and offering a vast offering of office apps, with paid hosted versions.

                When Mozilla was founded the idea of hosted webapps didn’t exist. Quite the frankly web standards didn’t yet exist to allow such a thing to exist. Those were the days when you’d use Flash, Shockwave or Silverlight just to view media content on the web.

                But I do agree, they could be investing right now into feature rich hosted services, but they’ve only half-assed any paid services they’ve tried to integrate and then dropped them because they couldn’t get enough users to make it worth continuing the effort (mostly due to the half-assed effort they put in to start with)

                • jol@discuss.tchncs.de
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  5 months ago

                  Exactly because Mozilla was around to see the Internet grow and mature they should have been fit to create such a suite.

      • Iceblade@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        5 months ago

        Yeah. I want to donate directly towards the development of FF, but I can’t. I know several other people who of a similar disposition.

  • mtchristo@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    62
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 months ago

    Oh shit. Now that I have checked, it was turned on by default on mine too.

    What’s wrong with you mozilla ?? Firefox was supposed to be the alternative

  • ooterness@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    53
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 months ago

    You can disable this “feature”:

    1. Visit about:config

    2. Set “dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled” to false

  • Fat Tony@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    49
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    “It’s okay, we can enshitify a little.” - the board at Mozilla probably.

    • Junkernaught@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      14
      arrow-down
      4
      ·
      5 months ago

      This sounds fine, I’ve no problem emitting telemetry as long as it is 100% anonymous and can’t be traced to individuals

      • reversebananimals@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        13
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        Well I do have a problem with that. Since we don’t see eye to eye, dont you agree then that it should have been opt in instead of a hidden opt out?

        • Jako301@feddit.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          6
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          5 months ago

          Let’s be honest, opt in telemetry features will collect so little data they might es well not exist.

          Considering that ot is supposed to reduce user tracking by tracking ads directly, it’s a net gain for everyone.

      • jabathekek@sopuli.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        5 months ago

        Same, although I have lingering paranoia that any data recorded by this might be traced back to me by making inferences when combined with other data; however, unlike the OOP, I will say I don’t really know what I’m talking about.

      • kersplomp@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        arrow-down
        7
        ·
        5 months ago

        Yes. The problem with cookies was that they could be used to track and identify you. If this can’t do that, then what’s the issue?

        • Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          13
          ·
          edit-2
          5 months ago

          Most data can be de-anonymized with some clever tricks. I don’t know about Mozilla but the others definitely try to keep it just anonymous enough to later be correlated with the rest of your profile.

          Edit: typos

          • tuhriel@infosec.pub
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            5 months ago

            Also, it might be annonymized for this dataset, by adding more ‘annonymized’ datasets stuff can be correlated

        • minoscopede@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          13
          ·
          edit-2
          4 months ago

          The problem is supporting ad networks.

          Edit: /s because apparently it wasn’t obvious. Anonymous is obviously better.

          • OR3X@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            7
            ·
            5 months ago

            Mozilla has to generate enough revenue to continue developing their products somehow. It would be nice if donations were enough to cover those development costs but that simply isn’t the case. Because of this the ad networks are a necessary “evil”.

            • Dave@lemmy.nz
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              edit-2
              5 months ago

              The setting from the original post is for sites in general, it’s not specifically about Mozilla sites. I’m not sure how having this option relates to their revenue, unless Google put it in their search contract with them?

              Edit: Wait, I see people mentioning Mozilla acquired an ad company?

            • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              4
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              5 months ago

              Supporting ad networks is not a ‘necessary’ evil. There are many not-for-profit organisations that do not use ads for revenue raising.

              • OR3X@lemm.ee
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                5 months ago

                What would you suggest then? They’ve been unable to sustain themselves via donations alone.

                • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  2
                  arrow-down
                  1
                  ·
                  5 months ago

                  When writing my previous post I had started writing a list of suggested strategies; but I changed my mind about posting that. I’m not a member of Mozilla. I don’t know what particular challenges they face, and my expertise are not in not-for-profit fundraising. So although I do have ideas, I don’t really want to get into a trap of trying to defend my half-arse ideas against people picking them apart. It’s beside the point. The point is just that it is achievable, as evidenced by other organisations achieving it.

                  I will say though that they could at least just mention on the Firefox ‘successful update’ page that Firefox is supported by donations, and give a link. A lot of people really like Firefox; and I think that if Firefox asked for donations, they would get more donations.

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          5 months ago

          Anonymous data collection at scale is a myth.

          Anonymous data collection on me when assembled will say that I’m a 40-49yo unmarried college-educated male working in one area in a certain industry and living in another area.

          Only one person meets all those criteria, and it’s me.

        • laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          ·
          5 months ago

          The issue is that I already knew about cookies. I don’t want my browser to phone home (or anywhere else) without my consent.

        • Contravariant@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          5 months ago

          Cookies are a non-issue. They store data only locally and can be edited and removed at will. With third party isolation on by default there’s really no reason to worry about them much anymore. And if you do just install cookie auto-delete to clean things up.

          This variant is definitely worse because the data is no longer just local.

  • Jolteon@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    38
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    5 months ago

    I mean, it doesn’t look like it’s personally identifiable at all, just aggregate.

    • BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      13
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      5 months ago

      IMO, that’s splitting a hair.

      For a browser that supposedly respects user privacy, the fact that this is opt-out rather than opt-in really leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

      I’m going to reconsider my monthly recurring donation to Mozilla, especially if they keep this up.

      • homicidalrobot@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        5 months ago

        Adjust isn’t google adservices. The difference is staggering, actually, and way more than a hair’s split on identifying information not being included.

        • BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          5 months ago

          I can’t help but see it as the foot in the door.

          I understand that Mozilla needs money, but I can’t make everyone who uses Firefox commit to donating money to keep them from having to do things like this to stay afloat. But them going down this path makes me not want to donate at all.

      • Possibly linux@lemmy.zip
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        3
        ·
        5 months ago

        I hate to break it to you but you aren’t a significant source of income for Mozilla. You are the product not the customer.

        • BluescreenOfDeath@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          4
          ·
          5 months ago

          I never said I was, just that I wanted to support the browser that respects my privacy, and this move is making me reconsider it.

          As long as it’s open source someone will be able to find a way to turn it off, either by an addon or by patching and compiling the source code.

  • wuphysics87@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    30
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 months ago

    Is it tracking you or tracking ads? If it was the latter and it is made public, that is information I’m sure we would all be interested in

  • Fugtig Fisk@feddit.dk
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    28
    arrow-down
    5
    ·
    5 months ago

    WTF… i thought this was just click bait but went to check on my phone as i am not at my PC right now

  • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    28
    arrow-down
    6
    ·
    5 months ago

    I see this as them giving companies a more privacy-preserving alternative to tracking. And just another privacy setting to opt out for us.

    Instead of a reactive social media post, here’s how it works.

    The only real alternative to this conflict of interest between companies and customers is an independent browser.

  • slug@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    22
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    5 months ago

    weirdly if you search “website advertising preferences” in the firefox setting search bar nothing comes up, you have to manually scroll to find it

    • MrShankles@reddthat.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      5 months ago

      For everyone trying to find the setting— On my android phone, there’s a setting called “data collection”. Mine were already all off, so idk who it affects