And what is the advertising industry doing to earn back the trust that they've eroded with their incessant, relentless abuse over the entire life of the Internet?
this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
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Creating ads that are even more targeted to you so you can forget about everything and buy that electric kitchen knife you just saw scrolling reddit
Adds so targeted they become your only friends.
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They're not supposed to have trust. That's why they're only allowed fully anonymised data under this scheme. They do pay the bills, though, so they can't be completely banished until there's an alternative source of money.
There is no such thing as "fully anonymised data". Data can be de-anonymised by anyone who aggregates it. It's been demonstrated over and over and over again.
And because of that, the advertisers are not the ones aggregating it
This is just false, there is a mathematical framework for aggregating data in a way that prevents de-anonymization https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy. This is what the US census department uses to release census statistics without impacting anyoneβs privacy.
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That does nothing to deal with malware distribution, which has been a problem in pretty much every ad network. It does nothing to address the standard practice of making ads as obtrusive and flashy as possible.
I do not accept the premise that advertising is the only possible business model for quality web sites. History suggests the opposite: that it is a toxic business model that creates backwards incentives.
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Completely facile argument, right there in the last sentence.
We can keep fighting for something better while still accepting this as an improvement over what we have now.
YOU BUILT THE FUCKING THING. Just turn it off and go away. Tada, we now have something better: no privacy-violating data at all.
Who's forcing you to make advertisers happy? Don't answer that, because I don't care. You can't pretend to be about privacy and then build things that help advertisers violate it.
This one's also pretty funny btw:
If at some point they discover theyβre doing insufficient aggregation or anonymization, then they can fix that all in one place.
Advertisers don't give a shit. They have zero motivation to fix anonymization. They're not going to HELP us get rid of privacy violations.
Just turn it off and go away. Tada, we now have something better: no privacy-violating data at all.
Well, yes. Except for the fact that advertisers now have an excuse to try more invasive things to get to their data
Advertisers don't give a shit. They have zero motivation to fix anonymization. They're not going to HELP us get rid of privacy violations.
That's why a trusted third party is handling this. They care a lot, because of they fumble it they are now an untrusted third party and someone else will take care of the anonymization part
Well, yes. Except for the fact that advertisers now have an excuse to try more invasive things to get to their data
They're going to do this anyway. As far as Firefox is concerned, it's the browser's job to stop them. That's what Firefox is selling: privacy
because of they fumble it they are now an untrusted third party
Assuming I take this for granted, they have already fumbled it by turning on an anti-privacy feature without consent. They can no longer be trusted. Not that you ever should have trusted them because whatever motivation they have for pure moral behavior now, that will change with the wind when more VC money gets involved, or there's been a change in management.
And firefox has ALREADY had a recent change in management, which is probably why THIS is happening NOW. They just bought an adtech firm for pete's sake. Don't trust other people with your data. At all.
Did you even read the article or are you just hating? There is a will known additional non profit that is well known and trusted by probably everyone that knows about it. This nonprofit is handling the anonymization.
Have you seen how many data breaches happen on DAILY BASIS?
There's a freaking community here for dta breaches, they happen so often.
Plus, Johnny boy wasn't exactly transparent about what they were doing, which is a huge part of the problem.
When people show you who they are, believe them.
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Man alive, I thought that Mozilla had been doing their own Personal Package Archives so that we didn't have to deal with Ubuntu packaging it as a Snap anymore. And this is doubly disappointing.
I think you are looking for this PPA: https://launchpad.net/~mozillateam/+archive/ubuntu/ppa
Alternatively, https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/install-firefox-linux#w_install-firefox-deb-package-for-debian-based-distributions
This is the exact same story the whole internet has used and every time the 3rd party or whoever it is eventually gets corrupted and it turns out that they kept the original data. The company gets bought by Amazon or who google and repeat
It's LetsEncrypt. If you don't trust them the open web has bigger problems than Firefox's new setting.
I wouldn't be surprised if most CAs are secretly compromised. I'm surprised nobody ever talks about it or wants to know how they operate securely if at all.
100% it's gets bought by Google, Amazon, Microsoft or Apple.
This is bullshit. The total amount of advertising I want is zero. The total amount I want of tracking is zero. The total amount of experiments I want run on my data without consent is, guess, zero.
Then you keep blocking ads and nothing changes for you.
The backlash here is wild and completely uninformed. This is only good for consumers, the ads that this will affect are already tracking you in more onerous ways.
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Well, this isn't about you. If you're blocking ads anyways, there's going to be no data to report.
But Firefox needs webpage owners to be able to make a buck off of supporting Firefox. Otherwise, we'll see even more webpages suggesting to switch to Chrome.
Do you donate to FOSS software you use?
Your options are ads or donations. As it costs money to develop and host a lot of FOSS, in our capitalist world, it's impossible to offer a service without somehow receiving money to continue to provide that service.
Yes, for example I donate to thunderbird since I find it useful. And I wouldn't mind donating to Firefox either provided they wouldn't do this sort of fuckery.
though in the long run we need to overturn capitalism of course, and that an economic model is viable doesn't mean we should sustain it or justify it.
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Then keep blocking ads and opt out of it. Not that hard isn't it?
It's hard when I don't get told about it and find by chance.
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Sow do you plan to pay sites for the resources you use?
It depends, but mostly no. And if that means some sites are not economically possible, so be it.
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Mozilla: We want to offer anonymised data so advertiser stop trying to track you with shady means. You can opt ou tho.
Privacy ultras: WHY YOU WANT DATA?!
Mozilla: ...
The problem for me is not that they implemented this. The problem is that they TURNED IT ON without my consent!
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The fact that mozilla does't understand what user consent is, is alarming about where they are heading.
That, and the point that ad blasters want to know the gory details of your private life in order to make their ads that one or two percent "more effective".
Does the Firefox really believe that sites will stop throwing a gazillion cookies and trackers just because they now also have PPA?
I, for my part, opt to block both the cookies and trackers as much as I can and the PPA, too.
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The data that the browser collects under PPA are sent to a third-party (in Firefoxβs case, the third party is the same organization that runs Letβs Encrypt; does anybody think theyβre not trustworthy?)
I wouldn't trust anyone with data this valuable, and even assuming they're trustworthy now, who knows if they'll be in a year; especially with how much "interest" they gain by now handling this data.
and aggregated and anonymized there.
I'm just supposed to believe and trust that they will do that?
Is there a potential for abuse? Sure, which is why the data need to be aggregated and anonymized by a trusted third party.
A "trusted third party" does not exist, and will never exist.
Is this a utopia? No. Would it be better than what we have now? Indisputably. Is there a clear path right now to anything better? Not that I can see. We can keep fighting for something better while still accepting this as an improvement over what we have now.
Or I can tell advertisers to eat shit and give them nothing, like I've been doing my whole life. Has been working well so far.
Yes, all great points. But you're comparing the wrong thing. The comparison isn't PPA vs no ads. It's PPA vs being personally targeted by ad companies. It's clearly a step in the right direction.
Or I can tell advertisers to eat shit and give them nothing, like I've been doing my whole life. Has been working well so far
Now your getting it! Yes, just keep using an ad blocker and tell advertisers to fuck off! That's exactly what we can all continue doing, and this PPA stuff will have 0 impact on us. But it will improve the lives of everyone not using ad blockers.
If you don't trust let's encrypt SSL certificates, then you probably should probably stop using the Internet to be safe, as probably more than half of all websites are using them.
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What the heck Mozilla? The people complaining are the ones who understand it. Anyone who thinks this is ok is either a die hard Mozilla fan or doesn't understand what it does. This is targeted advertising. You know how companies target vulnerable minorities? That's what this enables. It isn't just about "privacy" as targeted advertising is dark in many other ways.
I understand it perfectly fine thank you. This should not be a hidden opt-out option.
They keep saying many words waving hands frantically and people still donβt like it. I bet if they explain 10th time with colourful diagrams and 3 minute whiteboard explainer video people still wonβt like it. Such an ungrateful crowd
You need hands on workshops, we will organise them with foundation budget. That will surely explain things sufficiently. We will also give out informational flyers in small communities to foster local enlightenment.
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I'm not even buying the premise. Any business can look at its bottomline to see if their advertising works. If they can't, then its not working.
Why wouldn't you bring all this up before you shove it into the browser to be discovered later, and make it the default? Whoever thought this was a good idea should be shot with a ball of their own shit.
Mozilla has been working on anonymized advertising for quite some time now, there were news and job postings.
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It has come to my attention that many of the people complaining about #Firefox's #PPA experiment don't actually understand what PPA is, what it does, and what Firefox is trying to accomplish with it
The documentation under the "Learn more" link next to the "Allow websites to perform privacy-preserving ad measurement" checkbox in Firefox preferences explains very clearly what it is and how it works. Asserting that people who read that and are indignant about it being enabled by default just... "don't actually understand" it is absurdly insulting and basically gaslighting.
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