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Firefox shows ads for Booking.com in New Tab page

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Re: Firefox shows ads for Booking.com in New Tab page

#41

Post by Signez »

coffekaesque wrote: post #32

Honestly I don't care how harsh this sounds but they should fire their entire marketing department. Or the people who are approving the bullshit we've been seeing for the past what, 2~3 years? They're either completely clueless, don't care about damaging the brand or are just malicious. And in the process, accordingly to themselves, they aren't even making money just partners and good feels, right? We can't afford to…

Is Mozilla in any way a democratic organization? I understand that the Corp is 100% owned by the Foundation, but how does it work?

Can we do anything, as users, to stop these people from hurting Mozilla, without stopping to use Firefox everyday?

Are they, in any way, accountable to their bad performance for all those recent years?

Re: Firefox shows ads for Booking.com in New Tab page

#42

Post by reitanqild »

xg15 wrote: post #23
kiriakasis wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was not a paid placement or advertisement. I would like that people were more explicit in why they despise ads. For me it is because they are unsecure, often outside the control of the site owner and heavily rely on tracking. For a long time my impression of Mozilla is that they are trying to "sanitize" ads on the web by experimenting on advertisements that are non-tracking by design. (this does not cover cliqz,…

> I would like that people were more explicit in why they despise ads. Sorry, but no. Ads are not a good way to monetize software. Period. This has been discussed enough in countless articles during the last two years. The reasons are well-known by now. If you still managed to miss all that has been written about ads, I recommend Pinboard's talk about website obesity as a starting point.

> Ads are not a good way to monetize software. Period.

It certainly seems to have be an effective way to monetize software.

And TBH it didn't bother me much back when we were only talking context-based ads in search results or ads related to the blog posts I was reading.

I do agree though that todays 3rd party-tracking-megaton-js-web-ads needs to die just like the old punch-the-monkey-scams needed to die.

Re: Firefox shows ads for Booking.com in New Tab page

#43

Post by john_moscow »

Unfortunately that's inevitable given that the public expects a browser to be a free product. The money to pay software developers for keeping the product up-to-date has to come from somewhere: so it's either selling the users' data, or having a paid subscription, or something similar to what Wikipedia does.

Re: Firefox shows ads for Booking.com in New Tab page

#44

Post by pseudalopex »

coffekaesque wrote: post #32

Honestly I don't care how harsh this sounds but they should fire their entire marketing department. Or the people who are approving the bullshit we've been seeing for the past what, 2~3 years? They're either completely clueless, don't care about damaging the brand or are just malicious. And in the process, accordingly to themselves, they aren't even making money just partners and good feels, right? We can't afford to…

Mozilla denied taking money to integrate Pocket but admitted much later to getting money for referrals. "It was not a paid placement" may not mean "we did this for free".

Re: Firefox shows ads for Booking.com in New Tab page

#45

Post by reitanqild »

amaccuish wrote: post #6

Don't actually have a problem with this, even though I have an ad blocker installed, since in Mozilla's statement they said they don't share any data to display the ad, and I have far more trust in Mozilla than other organisations. As long as there is a way to switch it off, it's all good with me.

Upvoted you as well as a number of the more sceptical replies.

I can understand a number of the things Mozilla does, but they have been so clumsy lately :-/

Re: Firefox shows ads for Booking.com in New Tab page

#46

Post by dominotw »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #20
zzzcpan wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are definitely enough users who would donate money to support a fork of a browser that pursues their interests. Not enough who would support Mozilla though.

You'd find that there are enough users who'd say they'd donate but would do no such thing once you pass the wicker basket around.

doesn't it work for wikipedia though?

Re: Firefox shows ads for Booking.com in New Tab page

#48

Post by zzzcpan »

Xylakant wrote: post #29
Tharkun wrote: post #18

The more they pull stunts like these, the more i realize it's time to fork FF and get rid of all their garbage. Make Pocket optional, remove the (paid?) list of URLs that's apparently preloaded, remove all of the phone home shit.

Go ahead. Really. You’ll quickly find that even just forking and building and distributing your releases for every FF-Release (not to speak of keeping your patches up-to-date) will consume a substantial amount of resources. Just consider the case that a 0day drops, FF gets an urgent maintenance release at what’s midnight in your TZ and your patch doesn’t apply cleanly. That’s why every time something controversial ha…

> Just consider the case that a 0day drops, FF gets an urgent maintenance release

It's only urgent if the browser is adtech optimized and delivers tons of random third party js, html on every page visit by default. Otherwise with sensible defaults that block all that the risk of exploitation of any 0day is too small to make it urgent.

Re: Firefox shows ads for Booking.com in New Tab page

#49

Post by wadkar »

gpm wrote: post #5
kiriakasis wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It was not a paid placement or advertisement. I would like that people were more explicit in why they despise ads. For me it is because they are unsecure, often outside the control of the site owner and heavily rely on tracking. For a long time my impression of Mozilla is that they are trying to "sanitize" ads on the web by experimenting on advertisements that are non-tracking by design. (this does not cover cliqz,…

Reasons to despise ads? > they are unsecure, often outside the control of the site owner and heavily rely on tracking. - They attempt to influence me into buying things I do not want or need. - They take up some of my attention, a resource that I consider very valuable. - They create perverse incentives to create content that advertising buyers appreciate (particularly worrisome when we are talking about a browser, t…

Thanks, I finally found in your reply what I couldn’t put in words to my family and friends. Is there any quantitative or qualitative evidence to improve (make stronger) point #2 ?

Edit: I am talking about attention when I said #2

Re: Firefox shows ads for Booking.com in New Tab page

#50

Post by vesak »

A big dilemma for them. They need money, but they cannot demand it from their users, nor will they get enough (I guess?) by asking. Not sure what they should do. Perhaps dismantle the corporation, stick with the non-profit. I know I would pay them a monthly sub if it was just the non-profit.

Or perhaps just go for Apple and Safari, whose bottom line depends on respecting privacy.

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