this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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That is certainly true for the moment, but IMHO that is not really an argument in this case:
... and I happily have donated and will donate/pay money to/for websites and software I like/use and will happily accept business models dying which depend on selling my data out.
One of the main points of using Open Source operating systems and software is, that I have the freedom to use my own hardware the way I like w/o being up-sold or harassed by advertisement.
Advertisers aren't going to take your word that you've been shown an ad. They need to know that you did actually load the ad, and that you're not part of a bot network. Advertising fraud is crazy common.
Various websites I visit actually switched over to context based advertising (rather than personal tracking) but the one I visit most is moving back towards tracking, because advertisers just aren't willing to keep the context based system alive. They're not getting the feedback they need so they're not spending money on ads, and the website is running a deficit.
The system Mozilla proposes has a chance of fixing that problem.
You may like to donate money, but the vast majority of users don't. I wouldn't want to pay a monthly 8 euro subscription to a tech news site, because that's what they need to continue paying their staff. I'd rather have ads. The ads are annoying, the tracking is a huge problem.
I don't particularly trust Mozilla enough to enable this system by default, but I can see where they're coming from. The web is run by Google and Microsoft, and Google isn't allowed to restrict ads by watchdogs because they may drive competing advertisers out of business. That's why they're moving to local processing (FLoC), but local processing comes with business risks that are offset by invasive bullshit. I'd rather have the Mozilla option. The protocol uses random noise to maintain privacy.
Just like with Chrome, you can patch out any parts you don't like, of course. For now that'll work. Once this system is shut down and FLoC + client attestation become the norm, it won't.
As for a lot of the rest of your comment: you don't seem to understand how the protocol works if you think Mozilla is selling data. I may have to give it to the tech lead, maybe he was right about informed consent not working on a system this complex.
Netflix pricing is quite reasonable already. The industry sucks, splitting subscription services into silos instead of taking on the music streaming model, but shows and movies are terribly expensive to make. People who get ads on Netflix are the ones without the income to pay the full amount, or who don't care about ads I suppose.
I think the Meta/Google comparison doesn't hold water. The protocol in use here intentionally hides information about you specifically, whereas Google and Facebook will let advertisers gather information about specific users (based on some filters, like age and market demographic) once the advertisement has been shown.
Good points, but again: I would assume advertisers track/fingerprint you anyway, so we are not speaking about getting anonymized information from Mozilla but IMHO we are speaking about getting one more data point about you, which is easy to de-anonymize in combination with the rest of the information known about you.
The whole point of this system is that you're not being tracked by advertisers. They don't get any additional information on you specifically through this system. Their existing tracking infrastructure and the data they receive from Mozilla cannot be linked together.