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An Open Letter To Mozilla Corporation

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Re: An Open Letter To Mozilla Corporation

#31

Post by nollidge »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #26
elehack wrote: post #7

It doesn't speak well that the first item of their FAQ is patently false. > Q. What is Mozilla doing that is causing concern? > A. On February 25, 2013, Mozilla announced intentions to block all third-party cookies by default in upcoming releases of its Firefox browser. Only first-party cookies would be allowed. No, they are not blocking all third-party cookies by default. They are blocking all third-party cookies fr…

That FAQ is full of misinformation and poor writing. The second point ("What is a cookie?") includes: "To personalize your web browsing experience and to make the Internet work operationally," Make it work 'operationally' as opposed to ...? Anyway, as we all know, cookies aren't a requirement for the Web to work, let alone the Internet. "websites you visit" Correction: some websites ... "place (or allow their approve…

Not to mention that yes, cookies tell a website you're a repeat visitor, but that'd definitely be a first-party cookie, not a nonvisited third-party one.

Re: An Open Letter To Mozilla Corporation

#32

Post by gluxon »

I fail to understand how blocking cookies on websites you have never visited before is harmful to "innovation", "education", "entertainment", "entrepreneurship", and "millions of consumers". Cookies exist as a mechanism for websites to store data. They're used to keep you logged into your Facebook, Google, Twitter accounts. They've have gotten bad reputation over the years due to the ability for arbitrary websites to set them as tracking information. Mozilla's decision here helps retain the original purpose of cookies. Sites you have never visited before have no business leaving session data on your computer. It is just illogical.

Additionally, blocking arbitrary cookies doesn't hinder advertising at all. Nothing in iab's entire letter even made the slightest bit of sense. The entire thing is filled with awkward phrases and confusing reasons that don't tie together. It wouldn't be a stretch to say the entire thing is written to confuse the reader. I'm disappointing this is on the front page. :(

Re: An Open Letter To Mozilla Corporation

#33

Post by thirdstation »

amitparikh wrote: post #22
thirdstation wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did include you: > and the millions of consumers who enjoy the diversity of content and services the internet provides (Ignore the small-i internet typo). Do they mean to suggest that millions of consumers enjoy advertising? Thank you for thinking of me IAB!

I don't think they mean to suggest that all users "enjoy" advertising, but it IS a reality of the current state of Internet monetization economics that advertising plays a large role in allowing, in IAB's words, the "long tail" of the web to operate in the near-term and grow in the long-term.

> I don't think they mean to suggest that all users "enjoy" advertising,

I don't think so either :-) I was merely poking fun at the way they co-opted the entire Internet in an attempt to make Mozilla seem like they are on the wrong side of the issue.

They would be more genuine if they wrote an open letter to the Internet instructing how to re-enable third-party cookies in Mozilla and why they are good (according to the IAB).

Re: An Open Letter To Mozilla Corporation

#34

Post by cpeterso »

orillian wrote: post #11

Out of curiosity, the company that I work for uses a cookie inside an iframe as part of an embedded version of our web application that users can drop into their website. Our Safari users is less than half of one percent and we had not received any feedback about this until just recently. In our searching we came across this change to third party cookies from Mozilla. We have a much higher 15% of our user base that u…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_ETag#Tracking_using_ETags

Re: An Open Letter To Mozilla Corporation

#37

Post by mmv »

babarock wrote: post #9

It seems to me that this letter seems to care about everyone ("ad-supported small businesses", "advertisers", "website owners", "Ad networks", "small publishers") except for the one who matters the most: The User. I'm not going to say what Mozilla should or shouldn't do in this case. They know better, and more importantly, they are free to do what they want. I just want to point out to IAB, whoever they are, that if…

Many times the user is interested in what "ad-supported small businesses" and "small publishers" (or even ad-supported big business and publishers) have to offer, so if those can't keep themselves running, there's a chance that the user will not be happy.

Besides disabling cookies doesn't mean blocking ads, so if the lack of tracking makes ads less attractive, other (possibly more intrusive) techniques must be used. I, for one, surely wouldn't want that.

That said, I think IAB has a very reasonable point there.

Re: An Open Letter To Mozilla Corporation

#38

Post by cpeterso »

elehack wrote: post #7

It doesn't speak well that the first item of their FAQ is patently false. > Q. What is Mozilla doing that is causing concern? > A. On February 25, 2013, Mozilla announced intentions to block all third-party cookies by default in upcoming releases of its Firefox browser. Only first-party cookies would be allowed. No, they are not blocking all third-party cookies by default. They are blocking all third-party cookies fr…

An interesting side effect of this third-party cookie policy is that the online advertising industry will probably consolidate to the big name players like Google, Facebook, and Yahoo that have popular destination websites. So more personal information will be held in fewer hands. I hope it is easier for regulators to watch a few big players. Also, the big players (excluding Facebook?) are probably more well-behaved than the shady small-time ad networks.

Re: An Open Letter To Mozilla Corporation

#40

Post by subpixel »

oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #26
elehack wrote: post #7

It doesn't speak well that the first item of their FAQ is patently false. > Q. What is Mozilla doing that is causing concern? > A. On February 25, 2013, Mozilla announced intentions to block all third-party cookies by default in upcoming releases of its Firefox browser. Only first-party cookies would be allowed. No, they are not blocking all third-party cookies by default. They are blocking all third-party cookies fr…

That FAQ is full of misinformation and poor writing. The second point ("What is a cookie?") includes: "To personalize your web browsing experience and to make the Internet work operationally," Make it work 'operationally' as opposed to ...? Anyway, as we all know, cookies aren't a requirement for the Web to work, let alone the Internet. "websites you visit" Correction: some websites ... "place (or allow their approve…

"The fact that these people obviously have very little understanding of the issues they're talking about just convinces me we need responsible organisations like Mozilla to help prevent them from exposing us to privacy and security risks."

Amen.

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