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Firefox 128 enables "privacy-preserving" ad measurements by default

mstdn.social

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Re: Firefox 128 enables "privacy-preserving" ad measurements by default

#161

Post by GeoAtreides »

hagbard_c wrote: post #25
wkat4242 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty much yes though this one is far more privacy-minded, where FLoC was just a thinly-veiled attempt at business as usual. I turned it off immediately nonetheless. One thing to note though is that the switch doesn't exist in mobile Firefox. And it's not clear to me whether that means the feature doesn't exist at all or that I just can't turn it off?

Use Firefox Nightly on Android and you get access to about:config and with that this switch.

A word of caution: Nightly is not equivalent with Stable. Using a non-stable build, especially one built every day, means there's a substantial risk of bugs and data loss.

Re: Firefox 128 enables "privacy-preserving" ad measurements by default

#162

Post by eesmith »

pasc1878 wrote: post #103
prepend wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox is open source. I do pay for it as a tool. Toolmakers also work out of desire to practice their craft. Many projects are written, not to “earn a living.”

True but Firefox is mainly written by people who want to earn a living. Much FOSS is actually written by people who are being paid to do it, How do you fund the producers of Firefox and the infrastructure needed to get it built and released. Currently the only way is that the sellers of the adverts you read give money to fund Firefox. Now if you paid for Firefox then they don't need to get money from advertisers. Sim…

As I understand it, it is impossible for me to fund specifically Firefox development. I can donate to the Mozilla Foundation, which means a portion will go to, for example, "$30M to build Mozilla.ai", which I emphatically do not want to fund.

Given the firehose of money from Google, how much contributor money from people like me would be needed before Mozilla changes their mind? From my viewpoint, they've built their foundation to expect that firehose, and they don't think user funding is enough - they really want that juicy advertising money instead.

Of the $220M spent in software development in 2023, how much specifically went to Firefox development, vs. the other projects they have?

How much did they pay for Anonym, and how much to integrate Anonym into their systems?

If 5% of my funding goes to 'the producers of Firefox and the infrastructure needed to get it built and released' and 95% goes to crap that make things worse for me, then I'm better off funding something like the Tor browser or variants like the Mullvad browser, where my funding is more directed toward improving my personal privacy.

I'll let them figure out what things to disable so I don't have to watch the release notes with a keen eye every time I update.

Re: Firefox 128 enables "privacy-preserving" ad measurements by default

#163

Post by ndriscoll »

barnacs wrote: post #153
doe_eyes wrote: post #30

The scare quotes here are uncalled for: it is privacy-preserving. The approach allows measurement without disclosing who, specifically, did what with the ad. The best objection to these proposals isn't privacy, it's that a browser vendor is lifting a finger for advertisers. I guess the fundamental question there is if we prefer to outright shut down online advertising, or give it the tools it needs to be less bad. Op…

> if we prefer to outright shut down online advertising Yes, please. Both online and offline. Advertising is probably the most useless, annoying and wasteful industry out there. We could have pull-only databases of businesses, products and services instead. Ideally, with independently verified, fact-checked information and authentic reviews. Realistically though, this kind of objectivity would probably be infeasible…

Ideally governments would provide an index of registered businesses with some basic filtering (e.g. location or category of services provided) with a name, address, phone number, and url. Present in random order to be fair.

My state seems to have a search tool, but no list. It also only has name/address (so presumably it's more for serving legal papers or whatever).

If I want to find a plumber, I should be able to ask my government for a list of the licensed plumbers in my area.

Re: Firefox 128 enables "privacy-preserving" ad measurements by default

#164

Post by eesmith »

einpoklum wrote: post #102
tjoff wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only IF it is correctly implemented. And only if you trust all relevant parties involved in this feature. And honestly, whenever I see that something has been anonymized I assume it isn't. Mostly because the industry has a terrible track record, secondly because the incentives are almost always misaligned to begin with. I'd trust mozilla more than most, but not enough to give them free rein and opt in things for me.…

> I'd trust mozilla more than most More than Google or Microsoft does not say much. And - judging by how hard it is to fully disable telemetry and call-home on, say, Mozilla Thunderbird: https://superuser.com/q/1672309/122798 I wouldn't trust them very much. (Yes, I know it's a different project and not the same team but Mozilla is still the parent entity etc. etc.)

Gahh! I'm planning a move from macOS to some Linux-based OS once this laptop dies. I've had 20+ years of using Mail.app and thought that Thunderbird would be the appropriate replacement.

But that link, and the comments at https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/thunderbird-should-by-d... ('Given that significant parts of Thunderbirds user interface (addons manager details, welcome page, whats new on updates etc) are essentially served as web pages into Thunderbird, perhaps your expectations are becoming unreasonable.') tell me that Thunderbird does not respect my desire to minimize my info leakage to the outside world.

Re: Firefox 128 enables "privacy-preserving" ad measurements by default

#165

Post by ndriscoll »

eesmith wrote: post #162
pasc1878 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but Firefox is mainly written by people who want to earn a living. Much FOSS is actually written by people who are being paid to do it, How do you fund the producers of Firefox and the infrastructure needed to get it built and released. Currently the only way is that the sellers of the adverts you read give money to fund Firefox. Now if you paid for Firefox then they don't need to get money from advertisers. Sim…

As I understand it, it is impossible for me to fund specifically Firefox development. I can donate to the Mozilla Foundation, which means a portion will go to, for example, "$30M to build Mozilla.ai", which I emphatically do not want to fund. Given the firehose of money from Google, how much contributor money from people like me would be needed before Mozilla changes their mind? From my viewpoint, they've built their…

It's not just impossible for you to specifically fund Firefox. From what I understand, Mozilla Foundation money does not go to Mozilla Corporation/Firefox at all. You cannot donate to it at all, and your donations only go to those things you don't want to fund.

Re: Firefox 128 enables "privacy-preserving" ad measurements by default

#166

Post by throwawa14223 »

pietervdvn wrote: post #95
JW_00000 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A major difference is that the data is stored in your browser, and aggregated anonymously by Mozilla (also using differential privacy). Using the techniques you refer to, the ad platforms both store the data and then aggregate it, possibly promising to add differential privacy. The advantages I see are: (1) you can verify which data is collected by the browser and when/how it is sent to Mozilla, because this code is…

According to their blog post, Let's Encrypt will run the aggregator service - which is even better.

That’s bad because it could make it difficult to block.

Re: Firefox 128 enables "privacy-preserving" ad measurements by default

#167

Post by einpoklum »

eesmith wrote: post #164
einpoklum wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd trust mozilla more than most More than Google or Microsoft does not say much. And - judging by how hard it is to fully disable telemetry and call-home on, say, Mozilla Thunderbird: https://superuser.com/q/1672309/122798 I wouldn't trust them very much. (Yes, I know it's a different project and not the same team but Mozilla is still the parent entity etc. etc.)

Gahh! I'm planning a move from macOS to some Linux-based OS once this laptop dies. I've had 20+ years of using Mail.app and thought that Thunderbird would be the appropriate replacement. But that link, and the comments at https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/ideas/thunderbird-should-by-d... ('Given that significant parts of Thunderbirds user interface (addons manager details, welcome page, whats new on updates etc) are ess…

The "served as web pages" is a bit misleading. It just means that the UI layout engine takes HTML or XML, not that information is passed through a web server.

Re: Firefox 128 enables "privacy-preserving" ad measurements by default

#169

Post by karmakaze »

illiac786 wrote: post #168

[flagged]

It would have been less alarming if the Firefox 128 release had shared more of that info. All I see is this:

> Firefox now supports the experimental Privacy Preserving Attribution API, which provides an alternative to user tracking for ad attribution. This experiment is only enabled via origin trial and can be disabled in the new Website Advertising Preferences section in the Privacy and Security settings.

Which (1) isn't clear if my installation is opted-in or out (what exactly does 'supports' mean? am I in the 'origin trial'?), (2) how to check or disable it--what/where are the configuration settings? Opaqueness doesn't go well with privacy-preserving. It gives a sense of bias which erodes trust.

Re: Firefox 128 enables "privacy-preserving" ad measurements by default

#170

Post by illiac786 »

karmakaze wrote: post #169
illiac786 wrote: post #168

[flagged]

It would have been less alarming if the Firefox 128 release had shared more of that info. All I see is this: > Firefox now supports the experimental Privacy Preserving Attribution API, which provides an alternative to user tracking for ad attribution. This experiment is only enabled via origin trial and can be disabled in the new Website Advertising Preferences section in the Privacy and Security settings. Which (1)…

100% agree. Very poor communication. Very frustrating, considering how little effort it would have been, compared to the amount of work that went into this feature…
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