Mozilla wants you to love Firefox again
www.fastcompany.com
Mozilla is reinvesting in Firefox after letting it languish for years. But some of those investments may upset their community of die-hards.

Mozilla’s system only measures the success rate of ads—it doesn’t help companies target those ads—and it’s less susceptible to abuse, EFF’s Lena Cohen told @FastCompany@flipboard.com. “It’s much more privacy-preserving than Google’s version of the same feature.”

https://mastodon.social/@eff/112922761259324925

Privacy experts say the new toggle is mostly harmless, but Firefox users saw it as a betrayal.

“They made this technology for advertisers, specifically,” says Jonah Aragon, founder of the Privacy Guides website. “There’s no direct benefit to the user in creating this. It’s software that only serves a party other than the user.”

    • Vincent@feddit.nl
      1·
      11 months ago

      Mozilla doesn’t monetise this; the whole point is to change the ecosystem to enable more privacy. It’s not a moneygrab.

        • Vincent@feddit.nl
          11·
          11 months ago

          Tell me, what data about you does anyone get? And why is there no benefit to legitimate advertisers who will be able to know which of their ads have resulted in sales, even if they don’t know anything about you specifically?

          The draw for privacy-invasive ones indeed needs a couple of extra steps, which requires being able to see the long-term vision: having a privacy-friendly alternative available enables both legislators to enact stricter legislation, as well as decrease the incentive to keep engaging in the cat-and-mouse game with browsers, trying to find new way to violate people’s privacy.

            • Vincent@feddit.nl
              1·
              11 months ago

              Sorry, I meant: what data does anyone get through this new capability? Mozilla could always get your IP address and other connection data when e.g. Firefox checks for updates, or add-ons, or safebrowsing lists, etc. Could you name one or two things that are part of “all the advertisement telemetry” that is new?

              Because advertisers already have better options.

              Better in the sense that they provide the same information with privacy guarantees that are just as good?

              Also, why do you need a guaranteed privacy increase? Why would we want to miss “opportunity to get us a future with improved privacy for everyone”?

                • Vincent@feddit.nl
                  1·
                  10 months ago

                  If your argument is that nothing new is being collected, then there is no reason for Mozilla Corp to collect it and you agree with me that they should roll these changes back.

                  I’ll also argue that no new data is being collected for vertical tabs, but I don’t see why that should mean that vertical tabs should be rolled back.

                  Here’s a question for you: in what universe do corporations somehow implement Mozilla’s proprietary technology and actually increase privacy?

                  Hopefully in this universe, a couple of years down the road, when legislators have become confident that they can legislate away the most invasive practices without putting lots of potential voters out of a job.