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Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

windowsreport.com

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Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#141

Post by necubi »

gkoberger wrote: post #67

I was at Mozilla when this was implemented. It was completely optional for websites to support this. A few did at first. A lot of people internally wanted it to be on-by-default, but the argument was that if it was, nobody would respect it – after all, what tracking platform would willingly only track the 0.1% of people who went into the settings to enable it? (Internet Explorer did eventually enable it by default, w…

I worked at one of the big adtech companies at the time. DNT was a carefully negotiated compromise between the ad industry (and by proxy, the sites that depended on it for their income), the browser vendors, and privacy advocates. We implemented DNT it in our edge infrastructure and were ready to deploy it.

But then Microsoft broke the agreement by enabling it by default, as part of their war with Google (and after their own adtech ambitions ended in a 6 billion dollar write down on their acquisition of aQuantive). This killed it for everyone.

The ad industry was never going to go for an opt-out version of DNT. It worked while only a minority that cared about it opted-in, but not when the (then) dominant web browser made that choice for all of its users.

I fully understand why people hate tracking and targeted advertising (which has if anything gotten more invasive in the past decade), but at least at the time it was essential to the commercial web.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#142

Post by nonrandomstring »

ganzuul wrote: post #77
gkoberger wrote: post #67

I was at Mozilla when this was implemented. It was completely optional for websites to support this. A few did at first. A lot of people internally wanted it to be on-by-default, but the argument was that if it was, nobody would respect it – after all, what tracking platform would willingly only track the 0.1% of people who went into the settings to enable it? (Internet Explorer did eventually enable it by default, w…

There are lots of entities out there that assume consent.

In the words of Jonah Aragon [0] "Mozilla constantly fails to understand the basic concept of consent" [1].

[0] https://blog.privacyguides.org/2024/07/14/mozilla-disappoint...

[1] https://cybershow.uk/blog/posts/you-are-too-dumb-for-tech

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#143

Post by cardanome »

darkhorse222 wrote: post #112
darkhorse222 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it. In my experience those that block ads feel entitled to the content without payment of any kind. They see ads as an intrusion rather than a fair exchange. No, I don't see you turning it back on regardless of how things go. The average user doesn't even recognize that running a website literally cost electricity that must be paid for. Who pays for it? Who will carry the boats?

I'm glad you are willing to pay hundreds for that, at least you're consistent. But I think you are out of touch with how most people who use ad blockers think. People want free stuff. They are entitled. And when they have successfully suppressed the much less painful ad experience (no sign up, no credit card, works across all sites) they will be upset when they encounter sign up blocks and ask "why does every website…

I have used adblock since forever and I am absolutely willing to pay for quality content. I do actively support content creators by buying merch or funding their Patreon/Github.

Subscriptions suck because it is another thing to keep track off and many business models rely on you forgetting about them.

I think micropayments would be great but the problem is that you need to consume the content before knowing if it was really worth paying for.

My dream would be some kind of general internet subscription network set up as a non-profit public service where I pay a fixed sum every month and where all kinds of content creators, news sites, basically anyone could be in. The network would pay their members a split of my monthly fee based on the sites I visited by default but offer me up and downvote buttons on every page. Downvotes means the site is excluded from getting payments from me, upvote means double payment. (Of course I can't downvote all of them, the sum I pay is always fixed.)

So I have only one single monthly payment, I don't have to think about it much while still having a way to encourage high-quality content.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#145

Post by aucisson_masque »

The web is the equivalent of a far west, for the better and the worst.

You can't expect people to willingly support a feature that diminish their revenue, it was doomed from the start.

I think everyone with a brain cell could predict that, in my opinion mozilla would have better allocated resources on feature that are client side, not server side.

For instance the containerization of cookies, the support of mv2, integrating ublock origin by default, and so on.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#146

Post by 1vuio0pswjnm7 »

This is one of those changes that is so small anyone could reverse it when compiling Firefox themselves. At the same time I would rather add the DNT HTTP header via a localhost-bound forward proxy (one line in a configuration file) than edit and recompile the Firefox source code. I believe the term for this is "convenience".

As Mozilla likes to tell everyone, Firefox is open source. Wonderful. But making it easy for more users to edit the source code and compile it is not on their list of important things to do.

Removing or adding an HTTP header is a trivial change anyone can make in the source code of any browser. Perhaps all the Firefox forks will keep the DNT header. They certainly could if they wanted to.

NB. I am not suggesting whether anyone should or should not use DNT. I have no comment about DNT. Rather, I am making a point about the lack of user control over inclusion or exclusion of (open source) browser "features", specifically HTTP headers.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#147

Post by tremon »

darkhorse222 wrote: post #102
coldpie wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would love if the cookie modals on each site became browser-level They are, in a roundabout way. Hop into your uBlock Origin settings and enable the Cookie Banners and Annoyances filters. The modal gets silently nuked in the background and you can carry on with your browsing. Since you never consented, this ought to be functionally the same as Declining the banner. The Kill Sticky bookmark works similarly, for cr…

As long as someone who does this is prepared to pay for every site they do it on (or forgo the site in the future), since targeted advertising often pays for the site they're visiting. Personally I would like to see ads improved, not removed, as I am unwilling to have 40 different subscriptions to 40 different websites all because every user disabled targeting.

My browser is happy to load images from a third-party site, i.e. advertising. My browser also blocks javascript from third-party sites, i.e. stalkerware. As long as you keep conflating ads and user profiling, you will never convince me with your arguments.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#148

Post by spookie »

darkhorse222 wrote: post #107
coldpie wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Personally I would like to see ads improved Sure, sounds good. When you win that fight, let me know and I'll reconsider the ad blocker.

I doubt it. In my experience those that block ads feel entitled to the content without payment of any kind. They see ads as an intrusion rather than a fair exchange. No, I don't see you turning it back on regardless of how things go. The average user doesn't even recognize that running a website literally cost electricity that must be paid for. Who pays for it? Who will carry the boats?

I pay for a couple that I usually do visit, but I wouldn't be able to do the same for others.

Also, ads got ridiculous real fast, and started doing a lot more than just show a picture. This was really the breaking point for me. I happily pay for the couple mentuomed earlier, and donate to OSS projects even but more than that is unfeasible.

There are lists one can use for filtering out only the "bad" ads, mostly community driven. What we really need is a standard way of doing this, one that is enforced. But no ad company wants this, at least from what I gather.

Blaming ad blockers is the same as blaming video game piracy, you aren't tackling the real issue. The issue is that ad blockers provide a better service than not having one (i.e. not filling your screen and preventing you from seeing the content, not being a security nightmare, etc...), even if you need to go through the trouble of getting one. Alas, in this case it generates a perpetual cycle, which further puts people over their breaking point.

I guess what I'm really saying is that ad companies, and websites filling their pages with them, did this to themselves. The public tolerates it to a certain point, but I wouldn't see it it's their fault if normal web usage continues to deteriorate.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#149

Post by recursive »

dudus wrote: post #80
gkoberger wrote: post #67

I was at Mozilla when this was implemented. It was completely optional for websites to support this. A few did at first. A lot of people internally wanted it to be on-by-default, but the argument was that if it was, nobody would respect it – after all, what tracking platform would willingly only track the 0.1% of people who went into the settings to enable it? (Internet Explorer did eventually enable it by default, w…

I fully agree and have said it for years. Microsoft is the main culprit of DNT failures.

DNT was always doomed to fail. MS just forced the issue.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#150

Post by miki123211 »

gkoberger wrote: post #67

I was at Mozilla when this was implemented. It was completely optional for websites to support this. A few did at first. A lot of people internally wanted it to be on-by-default, but the argument was that if it was, nobody would respect it – after all, what tracking platform would willingly only track the 0.1% of people who went into the settings to enable it? (Internet Explorer did eventually enable it by default, w…

I think a new browser could genuinely gain massive popularity if it was really good at this, and advertised the feature heavily, particularly in the EU.

Google will never touch it with a hundred-foot pole due to antitrust concerns, they're effectively banned from making any significant, user-experience-affecting changes to Chrome at this point.

Many people would immediately switch to a browser with 1) reliable Youtube ad blocking, 2) no cookie modals, and possibly 3) no other "distractors", like subscription pop-ups or "related articles" widgets.

Yes, ad blockers and reader mode can sort-of do all three, mostly, ish, but they're not easy to set up for non-techies, particularly on smartphones, even more particularly on iPhones, so a simple marketing pitch of "get this app, have these features" would probably work.

One would have to default to accepting cookies, though. Most users don't care either way, while website owners do. If you defaulted to refusing, they'd try to fight you and make their popups harder to auto dismiss, while auto-accepting would do the opposite.

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