this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024

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Mozilla faces a privacy complaint over Firefox's tracking (www.engadget.com)

submitted 1 month ago by realcaseyrollins@thelemmy.club to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world 93 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Copy/pasting my comment from the earlier thread on this that got deleted for misinformation

After reading about the actual feature (more), this seems like an absolutely gigantic non-issue. Like most anti-Mozilla stories end up being.

The whole thing is an experimental feature intended to replace the current privacy nightmare that is cross-site tracking cookies. As-implemented it's a way for advertisers to figure out things like "How many people who went to our site and purchased this product saw this ad we placed on another site?", but done in such a way that neither the website with the ad, nor the website with the product, nor Mozilla itself knows what any one specific user was doing.

The only thing I looked for but could not find an answer on one way or the other is if Mozilla is making any sort of profit from this system. I would guess no but actually have no idea.

There are definitely things that can be said about this feature, like "Fuck ad companies, it should be off by default" (my personal take), or "It's a pointless feature that's doomed to failure because it'll never provide ad companies with information as valuable as tracking cookies, so it'll never succeed in its goal to replace tracking cookies" (also my take). But the feature itself has virtually no privacy consequences whatsoever for anybody.

I'm absolutely convinced there's a coordinated anti-Firefox astroturfing campaign going on lately.

[–] Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 45 points 1 month ago (6 children)

I genuinely cannot understand why people hate mozilla so much, it boggles the mind.

[–] ysjet@lemmy.world 23 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Google is spending a lot of cash to make Firefox look bad so people are unmotivated to change away from Chrome when manifest v3 is fully rolled out.

[–] A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world 18 points 1 month ago

ding ding ding ding ding

This is why theres an uptick in anti-firefox stuff.

[–] Corvid@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

There’s so many anti-Mozilla people on Lemmy it’s crazy. I’m getting downvotes in other threads in this community for pointing out that all the anti-Mozilla FUD has amounted to nothing of substance.

[–] devfuuu@lemmy.world 10 points 1 month ago

There are many interests playing to make sure it is destroyed. Any little non issue explodes big. Or people just don't know how to read.

[–] sensiblepuffin@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Because it makes it harder for advertisers to mine and sell your data. That's it.

[–] vonxylofon@lemmy.world 0 points 1 month ago

It's not like it's not been rolling out features and opting people in without telling them...

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz -1 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I love Firefox, I’ve even spent money to support it in the past. The Mozilla organization seems at best incompetent and at worst willfully corrupt. There’s no love lost here.

[–] yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Mozilla is corrupt? How so?

[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 2 points 1 month ago

When your mission is to create a safe and private web and you squandered your organization’s money to give huge payouts to your executives for not achieving their stated goals, that’s a form of corruption. Their relationship with Google was always viewed with skeptic eyes too. There are more. Nothing people can prove, but looks suspicious. Like I said, at best incompetence.

[–] MigratingtoLemmy@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I'm all for this. All of this will be blocked on my devices anyway but for the greater good, this would be a great step to take

[–] zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

Yeah - I've actually softened my own stance since I wrote that paragraph near the end, too, I just didn't feel like editing a message that I claimed to have copy/pasted. While I still have no intention of enabling the feature in my install, that's out of pure spite for anything that could conceivably help an advertiser somewhere, even if it isn't at my expense. I do see value in the feature itself existing. While I think the industry is unlikely to abandon tracking cookies and swap to this system voluntarily, I could see certain governments eventually mandating such a change, if the feature proves robust enough.

I might even go as far as to agree that on-by-default is the better option for the feature's chances of success - but for new installs. When new features are added to existing installs in updates, particularly if those features are in the "Privacy & Security" section of the settings page, it would probably be better practice to ask the user to pick an option on the first boot after updating.

[–] BelatedPeacock@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

Edit: I did a stupid. Anonym made PPA and that was part of the acquisition.

The only thing I looked for but could not find an answer on one way or the other is if Mozilla is making any sort of profit from this system. I would guess no but actually have no idea.

Fuck ad companies...

Mozilla bought an ad company (Anonym) shortly after implementing PPA. Their goal appears to be to pivot their revenue plan to (in part) being an ad company.

I'm absolutely convinced there's a coordinated anti-Firefox astroturfing campaign going on lately.

I cannot know for sure whether that's true or not, but a lot of very bad decisions have happened at Mozilla over the last six months and I think they've been the straw that's broken the camel's back.

[–] zkfcfbzr@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Their acquisition of Anonym was all about acquiring the feature this article is about, PPA. Anonym created PPA. In fact Anonym seems to have been created for the explicit purpose of creating this privacy-respecting system as an alternative to cross-site tracking cookies. I see no reason to doubt Mozilla's intentions here.

[–] BelatedPeacock@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Sorry I thought they were a separate thing. Thanks for bringing it up.

[–] treadful@lemmy.zip 12 points 1 month ago

More information about the privacy preserving ad measurement feature and how to disable it if you wanted. Mixed feelings.

[–] Boozilla@lemmy.world 11 points 1 month ago

The article which was removed for misinformation got me curious. So I finally downloaded and installed LibreWolf (which is Firefox under the hood). After using it for full day I really like it so far. Another user (thanks, @RustyNova@lemmy.world ) gave me some good tips to pay attention to the two icons to the left of the URL bar, which was very helpful.

[–] Aarrodri@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Wait what?