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For advertising, Firefox now collects user data by default

heise.de

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

#471

Post by _heimdall »

SebastianKra wrote: post #417
_heimdall wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If someone's paying you to say something, it's a conflict of interest and illegal. That already misses a huge problem though, I don't pay Mozilla for Firefox and I don't pay most online sites and services that gobble up my data and sell it off.

That's what my third paragraph was for.

Is the concern you want fixed only that paid products still collect and sell data?

I may have misunderstood you, but my read on the third paragraph was mainly that Firefox, in this case, could still have a free browser that collects and sells data. That rule would just add one more fsctor for them to consider if they ever want a paid browser, they both need a viable market and be willing to give up the option to sell data.

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

#474

Post by _heimdall »

throw10920 wrote: post #396
_heimdall wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anyone bothered enough by advertising can stop using whatever product has been ruined by ads, or find ways to remove the advertising. More laws and larger governments doesn't have to be the answer to all problems. If consumers care enough they'll change their usage, if they don't change their usage they likely don't care enough.

> More laws and larger governments doesn't have to be the answer to all problems More laws and larger governments are generally undesirable (for obvious reasons) but saying that we shouldn't make any laws at all is throwing the baby out of the bathwater. If you're thoughtful and deliberate about how you write your legislation, you can have a disproportionately positive impact with a very small amount of additional we…

I wasn't arguing for no laws though, only that we don't need to resch for them as quickly as we often do or want to do. I thought the topic here was about banning advertising as a whole, if we want to zoom into privacy concerns relates to the retention of PII data that is more doable and we already have a framework to start with based on the EU.

> If you're thoughtful and deliberate about how you write your legislation, you can have a disproportionately positive impact with a very small amount of additional weight.

Unfortunately that really is a non-starter in the US today. I have very little faith that Congress is interested in carefully considering and clarifying. I have even less faith that any bill with thousands of pages of text, which is how they appear to do business these days, could ever be clearly defined and scoped to avoid obvious unintended consequences or misplaced boundaries.

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

#475

Post by joquarky »

exe34 wrote: post #128
latexr wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

it's a classic abuse tactic: if you ask first, people will cry out and if you then do it, it'll be considered escalation on your part. so instead you do it first, and if possible, do something worse to begin with, and then when there's outcry, you take a small step back, claim to be the reasonable one, and then later on push the rest of the way.

Sounds like

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anchoring_effect

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

#476

Post by beej71 »

LunaSea wrote: post #467
account42 wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You get faster and better news coverage from random people on social media than news corporations these days.

Although I agree that news media quality is not always great (really depends from one publisher to another), I would not really qualify random people on Twitter as "news coverage".

Especially given how likely it is that bots are or will soon be rampant.

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

#477

Post by lofaszvanitt »

carlosjobim wrote: post #257
lofaszvanitt wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Yes, yes! Excellent! Then that system can also be improved, so that important websites get more money from a visit because they need the support more. For example the Arch Linux wiki. And also the system should have a blocklist so that dangerous and undemocratic websites do not get any money from the visitors. Also, individuals who are richer should have more of their salary deducted, since they can afford it, and pe…

Nah, there should be a max upper limit. So if you have a cooking site and you run it as one person you couldn't get more than, let's say 3k eur monthly. Arch linux wiki needs love, I agree.

There are nuances that need to be ironed out with this approach, but at least we can guarantee that if someone works for the common good, that individual also gets something back, can keep a straight backbone and not beg for money.

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

#479

Post by kuschku »

dgb23 wrote: post #412
remedan wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was already tried with the Do Not Track header. Websites simply ignore it. They don't want an easy way to get the user's preference. Because they know that most users would set it to decline tracking. Sites would rather annoy every visitor for the chance that they click 'accept'.

This could easily be enforced now. I don't get how it isn't.

It is enforced, courts just work very slowly. Courts have already started interpreting the DNT header as GDPR-compliant opt-out that websites must follow.

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

#480

Post by bawolff »

thoroughburro wrote: post #306
bawolff wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Once you start assuming that every apology is fake and in bad faith, the world quickly goes to shit. I'm not saying its impossible for apologies to be in bad faith, just that if it becomes impossible to apologize and move on after making a mistake, it becomes impossible to do anything productive.

Not real apologies, like from people — just corporate apologies, like from paid-for stooges. Society will not collapse if we start holding these monsters to account; the opposite.

Holding corporations (or anyone) to account requires having some way for them to rectify their past sins.

Otherwise this is just vengence. If you never forgive there is no rational reason for corporations (or anyone) to stop doing whatever objectionable things they are doing, since it would already be a sunk cost.

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