Firefox removes "do not track" feature support • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#191

Post by pessimizer » Tue, Dec 10, 2024, 9:29 PM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #63

n144q wrote: post #22

About time. It has never achieved anything meaningful for protecting your privacy, if not helping the opposite by providing yet another signal to help uniquely identify a user and improve tracking. Although, anti-tracking in general is basically fighting a losing battle. Go to https://amiunique.org/ and you'll see why. I use Firefox with all possible protection mechanics -- "strict" tracking protection mode, uBlock o…

> Although, anti-tracking in general is basically fighting a losing battle. Go to https://amiunique.org/ and you'll see why. The goal shouldn't be to appear non-unique. There are too many little things that will out you. Even if you somehow account for every single one of them today your next browser update could enable more and you can't trust that amiunique.org is looking at every identifying data point either. It'…

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Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#192

Post by atoav » Tue, Dec 10, 2024, 9:29 PM UTC

pptr wrote: post #137

atoav wrote: post #98

I think they should leave it in and the EU should legally make it an abuse to ignore it. Then we would also not need these good damn cookie banners.

Ignoring it means you need to get explicit consent, which is what the websites are already doing.

Legally they are required as of now to gather informed consent that is given freely.

Contrary to popular believe the EU has somewhat defined what that means (just read the law) and surprise: The way many datahogs wish it to be, isn't how the law was written.

E.g. if you trick or extort users into agreeing, consent was neither given informed nor freely. In front of the law it is as if you haven't asked for consent at all and GDPR fines can be up to 4% of the global turnover of the previous fiscal year. But yeah.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#193

Post by kuschku » Tue, Dec 10, 2024, 9:30 PM UTC

n144q wrote: post #43

registeredcorn wrote: post #23

> However, as we approach 2025, with growing concerns about online privacy and data protection, Mozilla believes that DNT is no longer an effective privacy measure. Many websites ignore the DNT signal. Therefore, Mozilla has removed the DNT signal from Firefox version 135. This is spurious reasoning. "Many" is neither a percentage, or a basis for justification. Many people ignore speed limits - so what? >The company…

Websites don't just "ignore" DNT, they actively use DNT to improve tracking. From a product perspective, this is an additional option in their settings page that is confusing and marginally useless. I work on creating user facing products as my job, and I 100% support this decision. I'll be honest: nobody is going to stop Firefox because of this, because it does not affect their life in any way or manner.

> I'll be honest: nobody is going to stop Firefox because of this, because it does not affect their life in any way or manner.

I will stop using Firefox because of this.

Many German sites actually follow DNT, because German courts only recently ruled DNT to be legally binding.

Mozilla removing a feature that has even gotten legal support has to be an absolute clown take.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#194

Post by pessimizer » Tue, Dec 10, 2024, 9:33 PM UTC

aucisson_masque wrote: post #145

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, inte…

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Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#195

Post by ForHackernews » Tue, Dec 10, 2024, 9:37 PM UTC

DennisP wrote: post #115

darkhorse222 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I agree that 40 different subscriptions is unreasonable. I use adblockers because I think user-hostile advertising is also unreasonable. I would happily pay a subscription that gets divided among whatever sites I visit. In the absence of that option, I pay for a subset of sites and freeload the rest. My solution seems ethical to me since if everybody picked a random subset, most sites would get their revenue.

Scroll tried this but they failed: https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/24/21192048/firefox-better-w...

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#196

Post by ganzuul » Tue, Dec 10, 2024, 9:39 PM UTC

PittleyDunkin wrote: post #113

ganzuul wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt it? Stuff only works because we can't punch each other over the internet.

That's a grim view of humanity, I think. The internet is arguably the most collaborative project in the history of mankind especially outside of extractive and invasive motives. Hopefully not all of us will die before seeing serious legislation protecting that kind of social investment.

It's not a very human medium, so it is not man who is implicated.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#197

Post by recursive » Tue, Dec 10, 2024, 9:39 PM UTC

registeredcorn wrote: post #172

recursive wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> poorly enforced The problem is that there is no, and can be no enforcement mechanism. Unless you live behind a great firewall of [country] or are only accessing the web through your employer's corporate network. Operating a motor vehicle on public roads requires a license and vehicle registration in most jurisdictions. These rules are not always observed, but there are enforcement mechanisms in place. There is no w…

You raise some good points! I was going back and fourth about the speed limit analogy since cops do pull people over for speeding. I was trying to think of some thing that is supposed to be followed, but is commonly ignored without consequence. Perhaps the 6' social distancing recommendations during lockdown would work better? There was an expectation that people follow it, but actually adhering to it differed wildly…

Personally, and this is not backed up by any legal framework or anything, I think it is and should be the user agent's responsibility not to leak any info to any parties that the user doesn't want. And that's why I think having the dominant browser being maintained by the operator of the largest advertising network is kind of a problem.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#198

Post by dns_snek » Tue, Dec 10, 2024, 9:40 PM UTC

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.

> As long as someone who does this is prepared to pay for every site they do it on

I've got not problem paying 1/10th of a 1 cent as a microtransaction to read the page and I'll happily do so when that sort of system is available.

> I am unwilling to have 40 different subscriptions to 40 different websites all because every user disabled targeting.

And that's a false dichotomy. The natural alternative to a system where publishers are paid per view by advertisers is a system where publishers are paid per view by users (either directly or via some intermediary), in the same amount as before.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#199

Post by DennisP » Tue, Dec 10, 2024, 9:41 PM UTC

darkhorse222 wrote: post #124

DennisP wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that 40 different subscriptions is unreasonable. I use adblockers because I think user-hostile advertising is also unreasonable. I would happily pay a subscription that gets divided among whatever sites I visit. In the absence of that option, I pay for a subset of sites and freeload the rest. My solution seems ethical to me since if everybody picked a random subset, most sites would get their revenue.

I think your approach is reasonably ethical. I'm not all that concerned with ethics; rather the continued funding of the websites we like. One important element of your first hypothetical is that a donation model probably won't suffice, websites will need to be able to set their price based on their costs, so it can't be evenly split between the sites you visit. So I think the experience would be like you add $5 to y…

> websites will need to be able to set their price based on their costs

Most businesses don't really get to do that. They set their price based on what customers are willing to pay. Then they try to keep their variable costs low enough to be profitable, and get enough sales to cover their fixed costs.

> tying someone's economic status to what they can access

An option there is subscriptions for those willing to pay, ads for the rest. Youtube does that, for example (and it's one of the sites I pay).

I don't really want "helpful" ads. I just want to be left alone. I don't want corporations trying to manipulate me, and I don't want distractions from whatever I'm trying to read, because I'm distractible enough as it is. If I want to buy something, I can search for it, and when I do, I don't want to see it everywhere I go for the next month.

Re: Firefox removes "do not track" feature support

#200

Post by tehjoker » Tue, Dec 10, 2024, 9:42 PM UTC

registeredcorn wrote: post #175

tehjoker wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more like class action or regulatory step in. in theory market transactions are based on mutual consent. if consent isn't respected, then that's a problem.

I actually ended up expanding on this a bit in a different comment thread, if you're interested. :) [1] It's a tough position to be in because the thing that really gets heads turning is regulation, licensing, and fines, but...when it comes to website design (assuming we're not talking about illicit material) I get queasy at the idea of (the/any) government saying, "You're not running your website the right way! Pay…

I don't think there's much support for specifying a specific font. I do think there is support for making companies do things that don't exploit users.