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Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

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Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#31

Post by PaulHoule »

TAForObvReasons wrote: post #13
MiddleEndian wrote: post #11

It's an experiment in hurting the good will of their brand. I still use Firefox but it's painful sometimes. Not as painful as Chrome, but Mozilla seems determined to come up with unexpected new ways to fuck up Firefox for some reason.

It's simple: $$$$$. Every one of these actions is a short-term cash grab. The real amazing part is how privacy advocates let these transgressions, or what Mozilla calls "experiments", slide.

Well there is "privacy" in the sense of people not accumulating dossiers on you and then there is "privacy" as the "right to be left alone".

I see pop up messages that have to be dismissed as harassment, pure and simple.

Firefox has a chance to show it is different from Google but it harasses me just like Google and refuses to hire developers in the same 99% of the world that Google won't hire developers, why should I expect Firefox to be any different from Chrome?

Long-term the answer for us is a migration away from "The Google Platform" and towards Gopher, telnet BBSes, and anything else where hipsters fear to tread.

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#32

Post by jchw »

clairity wrote: post #29
jchw wrote: post #16

Wow. They keep using that word 'experiment' to mean 'I can run whatever code I want on an end user's computer' which is not right. It's an ad. You're pushing ads. It's not the worst thing in the world if you just call it what it is, but using the 'experiments' mechanism to push ads is scummy and to me a violation of trust. I've been running Firefox inside of Firejail, a sandbox, lately, primarily as a light form of e…

the difference may not matter to you but it's not an ad because it's not a paid placement. no personal info is shared up front either. obviously you'd share info once you click on it. i don't like ads either, but this seems better than the standard track-you-out-the-wazoo ad.

Which definition of ad requires it to be a paid placement? As far as I understand it the word advertisement is a pretty broad term. You could advertise for someone for free, perhaps because you have an existing relationship, or perhaps you could advertise for something other than monetary payment. It's an advertisement.

Worse, it's an advertisement, for a commercial service, in a place that I didn't want it to be. The last place I wanted something like that to be, really.

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#34

Post by kbenson »

mprev wrote: post #27
x0x0 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's reality, though: The minimum annual cash burn to have a high quality browser engine, js runtime, and UI seems to be several hundred million dollars. FF is now utterly dependent on google for cash (and to be fair, google really needs FF to exist to pretend chrome isn't close to a monopoly). But who knows how long that will last and if/when google will exert control. One of the best things for Mozilla to do as a…

Yes but Mozilla does a lot more now than produce and maintain software. For example, in 2017 it spent $24m on its internet health project [1]. I’m making no judgement about that but there are two sides to fiscal longevity: getting more money is one, the other is to focus spending. 1. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/foundation/annualreport/2017/

If Firefox proved they could survive with less money, they would likely be given less money. What's their incentive to do that?

Firefox exists partially outside the regular market, so normal strategies may not apply quite the same way.

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#35

Post by clairity »

zzzcpan wrote: post #30
clairity wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's not quite right. newspaper ads are paid placement, while these are not. being paid for placement is an essential feature of advertising. so to differentiate from that, mozilla uses the term "offer" here.

Paid placement is just one model of advertisement. Other well known ones are paid per impression, per click, per action. This is obviously the last one. I guess Mozilla is confident enough not many people understand what CPA ads are to claim they are not ads.

that's a fair point, but it still doesn't help the newspaper analogy i was responding to.

i don't like ads either, but i'm ok with mozilla experimenting to find more privacy-respecting revenue streams and lessen their reliance on google.

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#36

Post by naner »

ddtaylor wrote: post #28

While I'm not thrilled Mozilla ran an experiment placing ads in the browser, I am confident that anything they release will be easy to disable via about:config or some other configuration. However, looking closer at this situation there is a bit of a troubling fact that `experiments.enabled` - the configuration directive used here - doesn't appear in about:config but certainly is being used: https://dxr.mozilla.org/m…

Mozilla's in a weird spot. I understand they need to be profitable but springing these types of "experiments" on users is eroding trust and is damaging long-term. There's got to be a better way to manage these changes so that it doesn't feel like adware is being surreptitiously injected into your web browser.

The Wikipedia method of getting in your face begging for money seems unpleasant as well but at least that doesn't leave you questioning their motives and judgement.

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#37

Post by csande17 »

apiraino wrote: post #33

to those complaining about Mozilla trying to monetize: did you (ever) make a donation to the foundation? Now it is a good time to show your support to the project.

If you disagree with what Mozilla just did, now is a terrible time to show your support for them; given their data-driven philosophy, they'll conclude that running ads on the New Tab page led to an X% increase in donations and do it again in the future.

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#38

Post by aaaaaaaaaab »

“This snippet was an experiment to provide more value to Firefox users through offers provided by a partner,” a Mozilla spokesperson told VentureBeat. “It was not a paid placement or advertisement. We are continually looking for more ways to say thanks for using Firefox.

Yuck, what a slimey piece of PR babble. I guess all those IE toolbars weren’t spyware after all - they were trying to provide value to their users! I guess all those unwanted flyers tucked in my mailbox aren’t ads either, they just want to provide me value...

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#39

Post by darkpuma »

jchw wrote: post #16

Wow. They keep using that word 'experiment' to mean 'I can run whatever code I want on an end user's computer' which is not right. It's an ad. You're pushing ads. It's not the worst thing in the world if you just call it what it is, but using the 'experiments' mechanism to push ads is scummy and to me a violation of trust. I've been running Firefox inside of Firejail, a sandbox, lately, primarily as a light form of e…

Agreed, it has become clear that this has become Mozilla's version of shouting "it's just a social experiment bro!" after fucking with somebody. It's not cute, it's antisocial.

Re: Mozilla: Ad on Firefox’s new tab page was just another experiment

#40

Post by clairity »

jchw wrote: post #32
clairity wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the difference may not matter to you but it's not an ad because it's not a paid placement. no personal info is shared up front either. obviously you'd share info once you click on it. i don't like ads either, but this seems better than the standard track-you-out-the-wazoo ad.

Which definition of ad requires it to be a paid placement? As far as I understand it the word advertisement is a pretty broad term. You could advertise for someone for free, perhaps because you have an existing relationship, or perhaps you could advertise for something other than monetary payment. It's an advertisement. Worse, it's an advertisement, for a commercial service, in a place that I didn't want it to be. Th…

we can debate the semantics but i don't think it's a stretch to consider monetary exchange as a feature of advertising (perhaps a more narrow version of your general exchange of value definition). with that said, another commenter noted that this could be paid per action after the fact (CPA), so it could very well be called an ad by any definition.

i agree that we shouldn't place ads everywhere, especially in "safe" places. but i'm also concerned with the viability and longevity of firefox.

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