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Firefox enables user tracking
(mstdn.social)
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this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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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.
It's illegal in Europe to have an opt-out checked by default, must be an opt-in unchecked by default. This is one of the reason that Microsoft has always troubles in Europe about privacy and opt-out services.
That only applies to personally-identifiable information.
In the EU*
Sorry to be pedantic, but the UK, Swiss etc. are all in Europe but not in the legislative region where this law applies.
This even gets some people confused thinking those countries “aren't in Europe”, which is why I wanted to correct this.
If it is truly anonymized then it isn't protected under GDPR.
Which should tell you a lot; if Mozilla wasn’t confident about their anonymisation efforts their lawyers would not have allowed checked-by-default.
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/
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.
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.
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.
Ok, I misremembered it says "pay" for the aggregate results, not sell.
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
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.
What do you want? A Mozilla with no income? Because then there is no libre browser.
Can you imagine a world where Linux wasn't directly getting paid by Amazon to hook all your machines up to AWS? You can't! And how could vim possibly be developed without dropbox integration and sponsorship, that would never work. There is no way a world exists where Krita doesn't sell all your drawings to OpenAI, how are they going to make any money?
None of these nice things could exist if they weren't selling out their users, that's just reality.
Yes I get your point. Some software can run without a large income stream, on a volunteer basis.
You’re using that fact to say that Firefox also can. And if you care to look at my profile you’ll see I’ve argued time and time again that Mozilla is an overblown organisation and should be slimmed down to a couple of hundred, working solely on the browser.
I doubt, however, that you can build a modern, up-to-date browser on a volunteer basis.
How many full-time people do you think it takes?
Linux has full time developers. Blender has full time developers. Lots of other projects have full time developers. They still don't sell my data to Google.
A web browser is a very visible piece of software, relied upon by end users, businesses and governments alike. I'm sure enough people and organizations would donate their time and money to fund this, if it existed.
... No, it does not. The ads are currently already tracking clicks and conversions, on top of a whole boatload of other personal data. This API instead provides them with just the click and conversion data, divorced from the personal data and then aggregated with all the other site visitors.
Being against this proposal basically means you trust random websites and ad companies more with your data then you do Mozilla and LetsEncrypt.
Instead of what? As I said, this is in addition to existing tracking, with some vague promise that if current tracking methods were banned or abandoned, this could be used instead. Except it's not getting banned (Mozilla is not going to out-lobby Google) or abandoned (market forces prevent that), and why oh why would I want some alternative way for ad companies to get my data in that situation anyway? Let them die.
Now if another person is going to repeat this nonsense talking point, which you have picked up strait from Mozilla's corporate PR, I'm going to lose my mind. Have some critical thinking skills. They are giving away your data right now and they give you nothing in return except a nonsense promise of a fairytale future.
Please I just want a browser that acts in the user's interest only, does not work with Meta on adtech, and does not think it's their duty to save the ad industry from itself.
Again, no, that's not true. This API is only used by sites that opt into it, and in so doing, they are disabling the normal tracking which is far more invasive.
Sorry but where does it say they will disable "normal tracking" if they use this API?
In the entire pitch, the announcement, this clarification, and all the technical data? Read literally any of it again and you'll see that this is the whole point of the API.
You are missing the point. websites WILL NOT STOP TRACKING YOU! Nothing in this API can do that.
Where does it say that? How would this be enforced?
It's enforced by the websites, they opt into this API. It says that everywhere you can read about this.
I can't find this in the announcements and stuff. Where does it say that exactly?
https://github.com/mozilla/explainers/tree/main/ppa-experiment
Check out the second and third paragraphs in particular.
This initial implementation is just to test the actual API, so I don't believe sites using it will be blocking the other tracking yet, but once this API is tested and starts to see adoption, the goal is replacing tracking with this anonymized attribution.
You said:
OK, your source for this:
Nowhere does it say websites are disabling other tracking methods.
It says that browsers could (maybe, in the future) restrict other methods of tracking, if this gets widespread mainstream adoption. Why are these things related exactly? Mozilla could presumably implement these tracking restrictions right now. The reason they are related in the minds and PR of Mozilla drones is that they don't dare do this without providing an alternative for the ad industry. Their corporate overlords won't "allow" it.
But right now, this restricts and replaces nothing, they literally are giving you vague promises about future improvements, while already collecting your data, like I said.
I will remind you that you accused others of spreading misinformation in this thread. I will accept your little mea culpa song and dance now. Gimme!
... first of all, providing a new API to give out information about me is not a good thing in my mind.
Second, this would be the first time in human history, the advertisers would not simply add that APIs information to everything else they aggregate including fingerprinting of your browser.
So, serious question: How is this good for me?
Edit: typo
I get the sentiment, but no. No way. No way in hell I'm allowing advertisers to get a bit of data or a penny out of me in any way, shape, or form. Not the way they've been treating us for the last decade. They can eat dung for all I care. Total war.
That is certainly true for the moment, but IMHO that is not really an argument in this case:
... and I happily have donated and will donate/pay money to/for websites and software I like/use and will happily accept business models dying which depend on selling my data out.
One of the main points of using Open Source operating systems and software is, that I have the freedom to use my own hardware the way I like w/o being up-sold or harassed by advertisement.
Good points, but again: I would assume advertisers track/fingerprint you anyway, so we are not speaking about getting anonymized information from Mozilla but IMHO we are speaking about getting one more data point about you, which is easy to de-anonymize in combination with the rest of the information known about you.
Crowdfunding.
Do you donate to Mozilla?
Nope. Do you?
It does not collect any more information about you. It provides far less information than pretty much every ad is already collecting, and that information is anonymized. It does not affect ad blocking solutions.
So, serious question: what are you not understanding here?
... as already mentioned above:
Ask yourself this: Would you rather trust this data with Google or with Mozilla? Because if Mozilla needs income to maintain a libre alternative, they need to have a measured audience. Doing it in an anonymous way we can verify is better than letting Google and ad agencies do their level best to deanonymize you.
Ask yourself: Has Firefox even the expertise/man power to pull this off in a secure way or not? I'd rather have Google collect data, because they know how to protect their crown jewels and have a track record.
Mozilla demonstrated in the last decade that most of their projects are failures and they have neither the expertise nor manpower to pull something like this off.
Each to their own; may I suggest our friend and saviour Google Chrome? 🤣
Are you trying to tell me that the host server is showing the ad, because last I checked, with my whitelist firewall, I never see ads because all ads are links to the ad server you are actually visiting. It is no different than opening up the webpage and connection to them. They get all the same fingerprinting info.
I'm not saying one way or another here, but there is no such thing as anonymous data collection. It only takes 2-3 unique identifiers to connect a person between a known and anonymous data set and there are almost always quite a few more unique identifiers than this in any given dataset. When I hear anyone say stalkerware is anonymous, I assume they are no longer just a privateer of a foreign drug cartel level state, instead they are full blown slave trader pirates fit for the gallows or worse.
... No, I'm saying that a given site hosts the specific instance of an ad. That site has control over what the ad can harvest, and if they're opting in to this PPA API, that information will be anonymized and much more limited than it currently is.