[kiriakasis]

> It was not a paid placement or advertisement.

I would like that people were more explicit in why they despise ads. For me it is because they are unsecure, often outside the control of the site owner and heavily rely on tracking.

For a long time my impression of Mozilla is that they are trying to "sanitize" ads on the web by experimenting on advertisements that are non-tracking by design.

(this does not cover cliqz, I never found a good reason for that and honestly think they should be more transparent about it or cancel it)

Clearly we see that Mozilla has no interest in being an holy warrior against advertisements, but as said above ads can work while respecting privacy.

> How do we take back user privacy when the world's computing window becomes poisoned by those impassioned for money? It is deplorable behavior.

non-profit or for-profit every company still needs money to keep existing

[gpm]

Reasons to despise ads?

> they are unsecure, often outside the control of the site owner and heavily rely on tracking.

- They attempt to influence me into buying things I do not want or need.

- They take up some of my attention, a resource that I consider very valuable.

- They create perverse incentives to create content that advertising buyers appreciate (particularly worrisome when we are talking about a browser, that I have to rely on to not sell out my privacy).

- The are often promoting things that are often objectively bad for me (e.g. energy drinks).

- They apply all sorts of psychological tricks, many with negative consequences (e.g. implying that I look bad).

The fact that Mozilla wasn't paid for this means very little. This is clearly Mozilla experimenting with a new channel of advertising that could be monetized in the future if successful.

[wadkar]

Thanks, I finally found in your reply what I couldn’t put in words to my family and friends. Is there any quantitative or qualitative evidence to improve (make stronger) point #2 ?

Edit: I am talking about attention when I said #2

[kiriakasis]

My point is that ads are essentially the only way to gain visibility for a lot of products.

The fact that internet ads are in such an harrowing situation is a consequence of perverse incentives on ads delivery and reliance on clickbait titles.

wouldn't it be nice if there was a culture of treating your own site or page as a place for "editor choices"? If there was a model of trust between page owners (or admin on social media) to choose quality advertisements in a model similar to television? (I do not live in the US, here television ads are mostly reasonable)

My point is that ads are not just a way to monetize your own page, they are also a way to allow easy product discovery. In may opinion, before you can call them purely evil it is right to also point out the beneficial effects they do have.

Also many of you point also apply to most modern journalism and articles online. They are strong negative point but they do not imply that a whole practice is irredeemably evil.

[mping]

Don't forget they track you in very ingenious ways, effectively eroding your privacy.

[stevenwliao]

> my attention, a resource that I consider very valuable

How much would you pay for a browser?

[b_b]

It's not the fact that Mozilla sanitizes or does not sanitize the ads to prevent user tracking. It's the fact that there was never any explicit knowledge that ads like this would even show up on the browser homepage, which violates further trust in Firefox and Mozilla.

[xg15]

> I would like that people were more explicit in why they despise ads.

Sorry, but no. Ads are not a good way to monetize software. Period. This has been discussed enough in countless articles during the last two years. The reasons are well-known by now. If you still managed to miss all that has been written about ads, I recommend Pinboard's talk about website obesity as a starting point.

[reitanqild]

> Ads are not a good way to monetize software. Period.

It certainly seems to have be an effective way to monetize software.

And TBH it didn't bother me much back when we were only talking context-based ads in search results or ads related to the blog posts I was reading.

I do agree though that todays 3rd party-tracking-megaton-js-web-ads needs to die just like the old punch-the-monkey-scams needed to die.

[kiriakasis]

Obviously a software should not be just a giant chum-box, there are no kind of upsides to that.

Still I do not understand why everyone should keep a mile away from them and be shamed for trying to ameliorate the bad sides of internet advertisements.

[asginio]

1. They're ugly. 2. They're insecure. 3. They spy on users. 4. They lie. 5. They are a form of psychological manipulation. 6. They encourage consumerism and wasteful spending. 7. They waste economic resources that could be better spent elsewhere. Customers are the ones who pay for a company's marketing budget. 8. They lead to centralization of power in large firms.

[kiriakasis]

I completely agree, but I also believe that it could be relevant to keep in mind the difference between what ads are right now and what they could be.

If Mozilla can grow a small but reliable advertisement space and impose significant restrictions on the style and taste of the ads this could actually improve the whole industry.