My question is why Mozilla is trying to help advertisers at all instead of telling them to fuck off.
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:
- Reject ads wholesale and become irrelevant.
- 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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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.
They are one of them. June 2024: Mozilla has acquired Anonym, […]. This strategic acquisition enables Mozilla […] deliver effective advertising solutions.
