this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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Firefox enables user tracking (mstdn.social)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by wolf@lemmy.zip to c/linux@lemmy.ml
105 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

... I mean, WTF. Mozilla, you had one job ...

Edit:

Just to add a few remarks from the discussions below:

  1. As long as Firefox is sponsored by 'we are not a monopoly' Google, they can provide good things for users. Once advertisement becomes a real revenue stream for Mozilla, the Enshittification will start.
  2. For me it is crossing the line when your browser is spying on you and if 'we' accept it, Mozilla will walk down this path.
  3. This will only be an additional data point for companies spying on you, it will replace none of the existing methodologies. Learn about fingerprinting for example
  4. Mozilla needs to make money/find a business model, agreed. Selling you out to advertisement companies cannot be it.
  5. This is a very transparent attempt of Mozilla to be the man in the middle selling ads, despite the story they tell. At that point I can just use Chrome, Edge or Safari, at least Google has expertise and the money to protect my data and sadly Chrome is the most compatible browser (no fault of Mozilla/Firefox of course).
  6. Mozilla massively acts against the interests of their little remaining user base, which is another dumb move made by a leadership team earning millions while kicking out developers and makes me wonder what will be next.
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[–] verdigris@lemmy.ml 40 points 4 months ago (49 children)

This is misinformation. The setting in question is not a "privacy breach setting," it's to use a new API which, for sites that use it, sends advertisers anonymized data about related ad clicks instead of the much more privacy-breaching tracking data that they normally collect. This is only a good thing for users, which is why the setting is automatically checked.

[–] gnuhaut@lemmy.ml 44 points 4 months ago (20 children)

This does not prevent regular ad tracking, this provides additional data to advertisers. It also means Mozilla is now tracking me, and then Mozilla does this "anonymizing" on their servers. I do not trust Mozilla with this data, and I don't trust that no way can be found de-anonymize or combine this data with other data ad networks already collect.

This is not in my interest at all. This data should not be collected. The ad networks can suck it, why should I help them?

https://blog.privacyguides.org/2024/07/14/mozilla-disappoints-us-yet-again-2/

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 8 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (4 children)

Advertisers can already easily get this data without this setting, and any measures you take to block ads also by definition affect this setting.

Meanwhile, if this works and becomes widely available, regulators will be able to take measures against user surveillance without having to succumb to the ad industry's argument that they won't know whether their ads work.

And yes, this provides data to advertisers, but it's data about their ads, not about users.

[–] gnuhaut@lemmy.ml 12 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Ah yes, the hypothetical second step, in which tracking is going to be outlawed (I'm not holding my breath), except, of course, for the third party services that do the aggregating, which will "sell" (literal quote) the aggregate data, so I guess these are by semantic sophistry not adtech companies but something else.

I'm so glad this genius "plan" can be used to justify Mozilla funneling data to adtech firms right now, because in some hypothetical future timeline this somehow can be construed with a bunch of hand-waving and misdirection to be in my interest.

How about instead we have a browser that only cares about the users, and not give a fuck about adtech? Its number one goal should be to treat adtech as hostile, and fight to ruin that whole industry.

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 9 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

for the third party services that do the aggregating, which will "sell" (literal quote) the aggregate data

You're saying you're literally quoting the ISRG as planning to sell the data? Because that goes directly against what I've read about this, which I believe says that they wouldn't even be able to because they can't see the data.

[–] gnuhaut@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Ok, I misremembered it says "pay" for the aggregate results, not sell.

Our DAP deployment is jointly run by Mozilla and ISRG. Privacy is lost if the two organizations collude to reveal individual values. We safeguard against this in several ways: trust in both organizations, joint agreements, and operational practices.

A full solution will require that advertisers — or their delegated measurement provider — receive reports from browsers, select a service, submit a batch of reports, and pay for the aggregation results, choosing from a list of approved operators.

For the trial, the results for each task will be sent to Mozilla’s telemetry systems, which will be used to access aggregated statistics.

So it doesn't say ISRG is going sell data, but the "full solution" will have other operators that get payed, i.e. they're going to sell the aggregate data. Also, they envision multiple such operators, all of which it seems need to be "trusted".

https://github.com/mozilla/explainers/tree/main/ppa-experiment#end-user-benefit

[–] Vincent@feddit.nl 3 points 4 months ago

Ah gotcha, thanks for bringing in the source - that does come down to the ISRG selling it. The thing I'd missed in your quote is that it's referring to aggregate data. So yeah, how that meshes with what I've read is that the ISRG won't be able to view user data, but indeed the ad performance data would be sold to advertisers.

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