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Firefox Offers Recommendations with Latest Test Pilot Experiment: Advance

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Re: Firefox Offers Recommendations with Latest Test Pilot Experiment: Advance

#71

Post by [deleted] »

callahad wrote: post #50
kodablah wrote: post #7

I'm confused about a couple of things. First, the tech. So my browsing history is sent over the internet to a third party who comes up with recommendations via some magic opaque system? Can some recommendations be prioritized by how much you pay this third party? I have all sorts of questions about Laserlike's use of the data, but I guess I can dig for myself. Sure, you can say "well, don't use it" but this is more a…

Nick Nguyen's post on Context Graph¹ touches on the motivation, but in short, we think the health of the Web is threatened by existing players building experiences that, like a casino, you can link into easily, but which are deliberately difficult to navigate away from. For example, Instagram has historically restricted² which users are allowed to include external links in their posts. That harms the Open Web and con…

[deleted]

Re: Firefox Offers Recommendations with Latest Test Pilot Experiment: Advance

#72

Post by tunap »

newscracker wrote: post #18

When I started reading the article I thought this was an enhancement to Pocket and that somehow, external data (context from other sites) downloaded periodically combined with local browser history, would help the extension to provide options on where to go next. But later I understood that the browser history is sent to a machine learning startup called Laserlike: “At Mozilla, we believe browser history is sensitive…

"I do commend Mozilla for being transparent..."

I too commend Google for the same reasons set forth in plain-speak in the 1st two paragraphs of their EULAs. I also choose to forgo their services for those same reasons. Mozilla has forgotten their purpose & been over-taken by the data miners. Full stop.

Re: Firefox Offers Recommendations with Latest Test Pilot Experiment: Advance

#73

Post by sgc »

callahad wrote: post #50
kodablah wrote: post #7

I'm confused about a couple of things. First, the tech. So my browsing history is sent over the internet to a third party who comes up with recommendations via some magic opaque system? Can some recommendations be prioritized by how much you pay this third party? I have all sorts of questions about Laserlike's use of the data, but I guess I can dig for myself. Sure, you can say "well, don't use it" but this is more a…

Nick Nguyen's post on Context Graph¹ touches on the motivation, but in short, we think the health of the Web is threatened by existing players building experiences that, like a casino, you can link into easily, but which are deliberately difficult to navigate away from. For example, Instagram has historically restricted² which users are allowed to include external links in their posts. That harms the Open Web and con…

Aren't deep hooks into the browser just making it worse? There are billions of websites and myriad search and sharing sites, and only a few browsers.

Re: Firefox Offers Recommendations with Latest Test Pilot Experiment: Advance

#74

Post by Skunkleton »

htor wrote: post #68
Skunkleton wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of forks of mozilla products. The real value that mozilla brings is their engineering organization.

i'm talking about the entire org, not their products. the org is not bringing in any value by making their engineers research and develop a website recommendation tool in their browser. it should be forked and re-booted by a community with new values and focuses.

You can't really fork concrete assets? Are you suggesting that someone starts a new org and tries to hire up as much mozilla staff as possible? If so, how would starting a new organization with all the same people change anything?

Re: Firefox Offers Recommendations with Latest Test Pilot Experiment: Advance

#75

Post by pbhjpbhj »

O2F2 wrote: post #62

This can not realistically end up as a addon and also will not gain any traction as opt-in option, it needs to be opt-out. So it's either going to be abandoned or end up baked in. So, unless a considerable part of the userbase is "throwing a tantrum", this will be yet another thing I have to remember to turn off on fresh installs. Not fighting this kind of erosion tooth and nail at every step endangers the only viabl…

The next question that follows is "who at Mozilla instigated this and why?". The mindset at Mozilla seems to have changed somewhat.

Re: Firefox Offers Recommendations with Latest Test Pilot Experiment: Advance

#76

Post by clairity »

kodablah wrote: post #51
clairity wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is the market working as intended. search is overridden with advertising, corporate messaging, politics and other moneyed interests. in contrast, users are looking for authentic content and information. those two things are increasingly misaligned. mozilla is experimenting with a new way for users to find what they want, rather than deferring to google et al. to deliver subpar user experiences. it may work, it m…

> this is the market working as intended Is it? I would love for a transparent market-driven motivation to be presented. But in its absence, we can only guess. > mozilla is experimenting with a new way for users to find what they want Why? Because they don't like the existing ways? Because they believe it fits their mission? Because there is money on the line? My TV vendor also experiments with new ways to host apps…

you seem disillusioned by mozilla's actions. i can't help with that, other than to say that based on past actions, i believe mozilla will course-correct if necessary here.

i'm not defending this new "advance" experiment/feature (i'm reserving judgement until i know more about it). i'm only expressing appreciation for them trying to address a user pain point (that search is crappy), while also responding to the general question "why?" posited by the GP post.

Re: Firefox Offers Recommendations with Latest Test Pilot Experiment: Advance

#77

Post by baq »

clairity wrote: post #48
kodablah wrote: post #7

I'm confused about a couple of things. First, the tech. So my browsing history is sent over the internet to a third party who comes up with recommendations via some magic opaque system? Can some recommendations be prioritized by how much you pay this third party? I have all sorts of questions about Laserlike's use of the data, but I guess I can dig for myself. Sure, you can say "well, don't use it" but this is more a…

this is the market working as intended. search is overridden with advertising, corporate messaging, politics and other moneyed interests. in contrast, users are looking for authentic content and information. those two things are increasingly misaligned. mozilla is experimenting with a new way for users to find what they want, rather than deferring to google et al. to deliver subpar user experiences. it may work, it m…

i'll bite just a bit: you're concerned with sending your browser history to a third party but i assume are happy to send your search requests, hence search history, to a third party? i kinda understand the want to minimize the amount of third parties that know anything at all but otherwise don't see much of a difference in principal and history tells us that the search history may actually be worse.

Re: Firefox Offers Recommendations with Latest Test Pilot Experiment: Advance

#78

Post by Vinnl »

kodablah wrote: post #55
callahad wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nick Nguyen's post on Context Graph¹ touches on the motivation, but in short, we think the health of the Web is threatened by existing players building experiences that, like a casino, you can link into easily, but which are deliberately difficult to navigate away from. For example, Instagram has historically restricted² which users are allowed to include external links in their posts. That harms the Open Web and con…

Thanks for the response. I think by your phrasing that this experiment is not testing revenue generation you are also saying there is no revenue relation at all, correct? (well, maybe for Laserlike, heh) Disclosure of monetization of data in any form IMO should be a requirement, so I hope that its lack of disclosure means it is not occurring. While I agree in general that alternative web traversal techniques could be…

My prediction if the experiment is a success would be: Mozilla acquiring Laserlike and trying to find out how to implement their technology client-side as best as possible.

Re: Firefox Offers Recommendations with Latest Test Pilot Experiment: Advance

#79

Post by basch »

callahad wrote: post #50
kodablah wrote: post #7

I'm confused about a couple of things. First, the tech. So my browsing history is sent over the internet to a third party who comes up with recommendations via some magic opaque system? Can some recommendations be prioritized by how much you pay this third party? I have all sorts of questions about Laserlike's use of the data, but I guess I can dig for myself. Sure, you can say "well, don't use it" but this is more a…

Nick Nguyen's post on Context Graph¹ touches on the motivation, but in short, we think the health of the Web is threatened by existing players building experiences that, like a casino, you can link into easily, but which are deliberately difficult to navigate away from. For example, Instagram has historically restricted² which users are allowed to include external links in their posts. That harms the Open Web and con…

It just seems like something that can happen client side. Say there are deemed 100 new interesting articles in a day, send those 100 links to the client, and let the client rank them.

Thats how the recommendation by pocket works, right? Whenever I see these types of systems, I worry they try to hard to show us things more like our past, and dont try hard enough to shape our future. A recommendation engine should be more focused on "this is interesting, this is good for you to learn about" in a healthy way, compared to "this is more of the same but we know itll keep your attention better than facebook."

These AI recommendation engines ALWAYS fall too close to clickbait, like a drug dealer, and never close to a medical healer, currated lists like techmeme/mediagazer/longform/longreads/redef/aldaily. Prismatic and Trove come to mind. I bet one could get better results just parsing those 6 sites for new daily links.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/adamcurtis/entries/78691781-c9b7-...

Re: Firefox Offers Recommendations with Latest Test Pilot Experiment: Advance

#80

Post by Karunamon »

cujo wrote: post #3
dgllghr wrote: post #2

If the privacy settings are right for this, I'm very excited. This is exactly the kind of feature I would like to use but don't because it involves sharing so much of my browsing.

Looks like there is no privacy. They either get everything and you get the service, or you disable it. I know it says you can "request" info get deleted, but I'm not going to bet a quarter on that working.

Won't this explicitly fall afoul of GDPR? My completely lay understanding is that you no longer can offer give-us-your-data-take-it-or-leave-it services in the EU.
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