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For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

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Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#91

Post by se0 »

jeltz wrote: post #81
dpwm wrote: post #22

The article links to Mozilla’s press release / blog entry about the acquisition of Anonym [0]. It’s pretty dystopian reading. The last three paragraphs and the summary of Anonym are more worrying than anything else I’ve read on this so far: > This acquisition marks a significant step in addressing the urgent need for privacy-preserving advertising solutions. By combining Mozilla’s scale and trusted reputation with An…

> Mozilla has been down this road before. It was not good for them. Yes, this is Cliqz all over again and that scandal cost them most of their German userbase.

And which browser are using the German now ?

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#92

Post by qwertox »

Firefox should integrate a tracker-blocker which blocks all ads which rely on executing Javascript as well as profiling-related 3rd-party code snippets, but leaves ad images which are integrated into the page, served exclusively by the owner of the page, and are based on the content offered by the page. Like magazine ads.

Everything else is just agreeing with the advertising industry on their idea that profile-building is fine.

These advertisers nowadays think they have they are entitled to everything, and Firefox just helped them.

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#93

Post by alex_duf »

qwertox wrote: post #92

Firefox should integrate a tracker-blocker which blocks all ads which rely on executing Javascript as well as profiling-related 3rd-party code snippets, but leaves ad images which are integrated into the page, served exclusively by the owner of the page, and are based on the content offered by the page. Like magazine ads. Everything else is just agreeing with the advertising industry on their idea that profile-buildi…

By this logic wikipedia wouldn't be able to load any image

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#95

Post by jeltz »

latexr wrote: post #87
eco wrote: post #17

The CTO of Mozilla just posted on /r/firefox about this: https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1e43w7v/a_word_abo...

> It’s clear in retrospect that we should have communicated more on this one What isn’t clear, in retrospect or otherwise, is why companies/apps/services need to keep learning this lesson. The user outcry was utterly predictable from even before the first web article was out. The fact that no one with decision power at Mozilla saw it coming is worrying: either they have zero understanding of people’s concerns for pri…

Especially since this is very similar to what happened with Cliqz and that there likely are many at Mozilla who were around when that happened too. And the Cliqz scandal hurt Mozilla's market share a lot in Germany.

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#96

Post by qwertox »

alex_duf wrote: post #93
qwertox wrote: post #92

Firefox should integrate a tracker-blocker which blocks all ads which rely on executing Javascript as well as profiling-related 3rd-party code snippets, but leaves ad images which are integrated into the page, served exclusively by the owner of the page, and are based on the content offered by the page. Like magazine ads. Everything else is just agreeing with the advertising industry on their idea that profile-buildi…

By this logic wikipedia wouldn't be able to load any image

They could offer a deal to Toyota and tell them they're offering image-only ad space on all car-related pages. For example images with deals. Toyota would know from the referrer that the click came from Wikipedia.

All the other images are hosted by Wikipedia themselves and are not ad-related, so I don't see where's the issue here.

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#97

Post by [deleted] »

jeltz wrote: post #85
lopis wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an attempt to try. You don't win my being an immovable wall going against the biggest corporations. If the W3C manages to create a system that satisfies advertisers while preserving our privacy, that's how you win. There isn't a future where advertising will just disappear. I'm just being pragmatic here, as a user of ad blockers for 15 years.

Most advertisers will not be satisfied with that. The real question is if regulators will be and therefore can use this as a reason to clamp down on advertisers. If so this might work, but I am skeptical. And either way it was wrong of Mozilla to sneak this in as opt-out.

[deleted]

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#98

Post by jeltz »

se0 wrote: post #91
jeltz wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mozilla has been down this road before. It was not good for them. Yes, this is Cliqz all over again and that scandal cost them most of their German userbase.

And which browser are using the German now ?

Chrome, which meant Mozilla managed to scare people away from their own browser into a using a browser which respects user privacy even less. Great job there Mozilla!

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#99

Post by stebalien »

This works by adding noise. Can't an attacker bypass it by boosting the signal? Assuming the attacker can create sybil advertisers/browsers, this should be totally doable:

1. Define some baseline set of M impressions with various ad identifiers and from various sybil advertisers.

2. For each target user, define some set of M marker impressions, also with various ad identifiers and from various and sybil advertisers.

3. Save all impressions (marker + baseline) on a bunch of sybil browsers to get above the reporting baseline with some probability.

4. If/when a target user visits a target website, request a conversion report for each ad/advertiser.

You now have a baseline signal (from the baseline ads/advertisers) and a marker signal (from the marker ads/advertisers). If this is one of your target users, you'd expect their "marker" signal signal to be stronger than the baseline.

Re: For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

#100

Post by [deleted] »

alex_duf wrote: post #93
qwertox wrote: post #92

Firefox should integrate a tracker-blocker which blocks all ads which rely on executing Javascript as well as profiling-related 3rd-party code snippets, but leaves ad images which are integrated into the page, served exclusively by the owner of the page, and are based on the content offered by the page. Like magazine ads. Everything else is just agreeing with the advertising industry on their idea that profile-buildi…

By this logic wikipedia wouldn't be able to load any image

[deleted]
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