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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

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Firefox enables user tracking (mstdn.social)

submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

114 comments fedilink hide all child comments

... I mean, WTF. Mozilla, you had one job ...

Edit:

Just to add a few remarks from the discussions below:

As long as Firefox is sponsored by 'we are not a monopoly' Google, they can provide good things for users. Once advertisement becomes a real revenue stream for Mozilla, the Enshittification will start.
For me it is crossing the line when your browser is spying on you and if 'we' accept it, Mozilla will walk down this path.
This will only be an additional data point for companies spying on you, it will replace none of the existing methodologies. Learn about fingerprinting for example
Mozilla needs to make money/find a business model, agreed. Selling you out to advertisement companies cannot be it.
This is a very transparent attempt of Mozilla to be the man in the middle selling ads, despite the story they tell. At that point I can just use Chrome, Edge or Safari, at least Google has expertise and the money to protect my data and sadly Chrome is the most compatible browser (no fault of Mozilla/Firefox of course).
Mozilla massively acts against the interests of their little remaining user base, which is another dumb move made by a leadership team earning millions while kicking out developers and makes me wonder what will be next.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

advertising isn’t going to go away

That is certainly true for the moment, but IMHO that is not really an argument in this case:

Advertisement can simply show me me some advertisement w/o spying on me. (Effectiveness of targeted advertisement is AFAIK highly controversial anyway.)
My operating system does not have to spy on me and my browser certainly not.
Mozillas BS arguments are just the 'story told', obviously they want to make money via advertisement and be the man-in-the-middle. I assume it is their legal right to do so and they can pursue the business model they like, but I do not have to like it.
Again, advertisers will simply use this as an additional source of information about users for real time bidding, and not wind down other methods of information gathering, so this is only bad for me w/o any upsides.
Mozilla is showing it is willing to sell it's user data out this way (and silently do so), what are the next steps, what will happen with the next updates?

... 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.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Concerning advertisement: I want the option to pay for content for myself, I do not want or intent to force this on other users. Although Netflix is moving in a bad direction, in the past I could pay their service and watch a movie/show w/o advertisement. I totally would not mind if Netflix lets me pay a reasonable amount and give other users the option to have a free, advertisement based plan.
One related fact: Even payed newspapers etc. since the start of the industries always relied on money from advertisement, there was AFAIK never an outlet which could survive on subscriptions/payed readers alone
Fair point about Mozilla not selling your data. But when you phrase it like this, Alphabet/Meta etc. are also not really selling your data (which is their golden goose, after all). I'll still correct this.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

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.