[autoexec]

Firefox should have just focused on privacy, security, and customization/personalization. It's a niche that isn't filled by anyone else. That wasn't going to make them rich the way selling out their userbase to advertisers will, but it would have made them loved and successful. Right now, people who want their privacy violated are better off using chrome.

Every time firefox pulls shit like this they piss off and alienate their users. What do they think is going to happen? If I were a Mozilla employee and my goal was to destroy firefox, this is exactly the sort of thing I'd be pushing for. I have no idea what firefox thinks it's doing, or if it's thinking about anything other than how to get more money from advertisers, but it shouldn't be hard see what exploiting users will lead to. Maybe they've already given up and their plan is to sell their users until they don't have any left.

Personally, I'll be exploring alternatives and forks and I'm looking to jump ship as soon as I can.

[illiac786]

They are focussing on privacy. They just didn’t communicate their approach very well.

https://andrewmoore.ca/blog/post/mozilla-ppa/

[autoexec]

> They are focussing on privacy.

They're literally tracking the ads you see and the websites you go to and sending that data to at least one third party. That's the opposite of privacy. I could not care less if the third party collecting my data is Google, Mozilla, or the ISRG, none of them have any business collecting my personal browsing history just so that they can send reports back to advertisers.

> That said, as much as I hate advertising, I also understand that it is fundamental in providing funding for services (such as YouTube, or most news organizations) that enables the free flow of information online. For democracy to function, for humanity to keep getting better, information must be accessible to all, not just to those who have the means to pay for it.

The internet was here before ads came in. The lie here is that for "democracy" and "humanity" we must accept ads and being tracked. It just isn't true. You could make the same argument for putting ads/tracking in linux (operating systems must be accessible, not just for those with the means to pay for them!) but it would still be a terrible argument.

> You have to remember that the alternative is NOT the absence of tracking, but invasive personalized tracking done by ad networks

This is another lie. Firstly because currently my browser isn't sending reports of what websites I visit to third parties so that ad companies can collect more data and that's still an option, but also because this will do nothing to stop personalized advertising.

[JohnFen]

He's just saying what Mozilla said about it. Perhaps there are people who didn't understand Mozilla's statements, so this is a useful thing.

Regardless, I won't be participating in this effort. The advertising world has been so incredibly hostile for so long that I simply can't trust anything related to it.

[illiac786]

What’s the alternative for funding all the services we use for free? Paywall everything?

[JohnFen]

That's a different issue entirely. I don't see why advertising couldn't work without the tracking it brings (the tracking just makes advertising more profitable). If we have to go ad-funded, that would be the more acceptable way.

However, I don't think that advertising is critical to providing free services. It's only important if you want to build a huge business doing it, or have something extremely fancy. In those cases, I don't see what's wrong (and I see plenty right) with doing in exchange for money.

Also, there were plenty of free services before advertising wormed its way into the web, and there still are ad-free free services now.

The ad world wants you to think that they're an essential online component, of course, but I am far from convinced that's actually true.

All that said, ignoring whether or not online advertising is a positive, the online ad industry itself is an extreme negative. We'd be much better off if it ceased to exist and was replaced by companies that don't treat people in such a contemptible way.

[illiac786]

Ok, non-tracking ads. So, until tracking ads stop existing, these will continue to bring in significantly less money.

It is extremely valuable to know which users are interested in your product. Advertisers want this.

This product from Mozilla can be seen as a step in this direction, leveling the field at a “less tracking” level…

At the moment, non-tracking ads bring much less money in hence much more content must be paywalled, it’s mechanical. It’s not like everyone with a site is putting up advertisements for fun.

[autoexec]

> Ok, non-tracking ads. So, until tracking ads stop existing, these will continue to bring in significantly less money.

That's fine by me.

> It is extremely valuable to know which users are interested in your product. Advertisers want this.

Advertisers aren't entitled to everything they want. While they've been getting away with it, they're certainly not entitled to cause harm just because it will make them more wealthy than they would be otherwise.

> This product from Mozilla can be seen as a step in this direction,

I agree, this product from Mozilla is a step in the direction of giving Advertisers what they want: higher profits through the invasive tracking of users.

The fact that it allows advertisers to outsource the user tracking to yet another third party does not make it "less tracking". It may not even keep our data out of the hands of advertisers if they're able to use the information they're given along with additional data to re-identify individuals. Differential privacy may reduce the odds of that happening, but there are no guarantees.

> It’s not like everyone with a site is putting up advertisements for fun.

No, they mostly do it for profit. It's not like everyone with a site full of ads needs those ads to keep the site running, or that those ads couldn't be profitable without invasive tracking. It's not mechanical, it's usually just greed, selfishness, and laziness.

If someone wants ads on their website it's very easy to sign up with an ad network that is harmful to the people visiting your website. It's easy to not bother making sure those ads aren't pushing malware, or spreading harmful lies, or promoting scams. It's easy to just collect your money and not worry about who is being hurt by your choices. It's easy to say "everyone else is doing it!", but the fact that it's easy doesn't stop it from being wrong. Ads aren't going away, but we should insist on them being less harmful.

[JohnFen]

Yes, I fully understand the reason for tracking: profit maximization. Isn't it interesting, though, that enormous swaths of the advertising world manage to be profitable without engaging in tracking (because it's not possible, but that's beside the point)?

> This product from Mozilla can be seen as a step in this direction, leveling the field at a “less tracking” level…

Sure, that's a reasonable view. It's certainly Mozilla's. My view, though, is that it instantly transforms the browser away from being a "user agent". It means that instead of an ad company tracking me, my browser is, which means that the browser itself has become an agent for others rather than for me.

It's just moving the tracking out of the hands of ad companies directly and into the browser. You could argue that's better, but it's still tracking me. It puts the browser into a position where it is adversarial.

That, at heart, is why I will be sure this stays disabled. To do otherwise means that I can't really trust the browser and will make the web even smaller for me than it has already become.

[autoexec]

> However, I don't think that advertising is critical to providing free services.

This is certainly the case for open source software, including internet browsers. In the case of Firefox in particular, people have long been asking for the ability to help support development directly through donations and Mozilla has refused.

> the online ad industry itself is an extreme negative. We'd be much better off if it ceased to exist and was replaced by companies that don't treat people in such a contemptible way.

I fully agree here too. Surveillance capitalism especially causes a lot of harms that persist long after an ad is shown or a product is purchased. The ad industry will never stop wanting more data, more control, and more money. It's up to us to say that enough is enough.