Before you get really upset about this thread, you should read this other one: https://federate.social/@jik/112779924411100427
I’m not thrilled about this by any means, but what Firefox is doing is not what chrome is doing (which is what the op posted thread is claiming). Conflating them serves no one.
Can we please stop linking mastodon threads? Mozilla literally has an explainer article. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution
People pissed at Firefox might not be as receptive of an article straight from Mozilla. Know your audience.
Would you rather get second hand information or would you rather get the technical specifications from the horse’s mouth?
It’s pretty painful how quickly wrong information spreads. I’m sure it’s not intentional, but that doesn’t really make it better…
Interesting thread. But I don’t understand why the data needs to be collected and correlated by a third party, can’t the ads themselves detect views and clicks? (that’s what they need right?)
Or am I missing something about the process?
The advertiser’s don’t place the ads themselves. They say where and when they are placed, but the actual placing/integration is done by the likes of Google, Facebook, and, in this case, Mozilla.
That’s the “third party” that’s doing the tracking.
That’s not accurate. Mozilla isn’t placing the ads. Mozilla is storing impressions and then collating a privacy protecting report so that advertisers see that their ads are working, but not revealing information about the users to the advertisers. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution
But it says “without sending information about you”
I’m gonna start my own browser, with blackjack, and hookers
I’m probably going to be downvoted for saying this, but since the ad supported internet is here to stay, wouldn’t you rather see ads that at least somewhat match your interests, if they use a technique that moves some of the attribution logic that used to run on third-party servers to instead be done in your web browser?
There’s a few models that have worked well online:
- You pay for the content/service directly
- Paid users subsidise the free users (“freemium” services)
- Someone else covers the cost (which is how a lot of Lemmy servers operate for example)
- You don’t pay anything and it’s ad-supported
The last is very common. People expect to get high quality content and services, but don’t want to pay anything for it (or can’t afford it), which is why the ad supported model is so prevalent. It’s not going away any time soon, and advertisers are already tracking you. Wouldn’t you want to use a system that involves less tracking?
I’d rather not have ads at all and just pay $5 a month and have all the websites I visit get a portion of that $5. Some people tried this years ago, but the payment infrastructure wasn’t ready for it. Nostr can do it now though, their users “zapped” (tipped) nearly 1M USD (950k) over the past two months alone to content creators on their platform (twitter clone). And there’s a feature to automatically split a set donation among all the posts you’ve liked. No reason that can’t be done for the entire web. All instant, all with incredibly low fees, all payments made directly from you to the site you visited, no middlemen having to manage custody risk.
Browser extension tracks what sites I visit and then at the end of the month send them all tips. Sites could detect such an extension and automatically not show ads if you have it installed.
Wait, so you want a browser extension that tracks you… so you can avoid Mozilla not tracking you??
I understand wanting the micropayments thing. I want that as well. But you’re literally advocating tracking here.
The difference is that such an extension isn’t reporting my traffic to a “trusted third party”. My browser is doing the tracking locally and sending micropayments to sites I visit.
wouldn’t you rather see ads that at least somewhat match your interests
No, that means they’re tracking me.
if they use a technique that moves some of the attribution logic that used to run on third-party servers to instead be done in your web browser?
The more of my data that stays on my system, the better. I’m not against ads or necessarily relevant ads, I’m against tracking.
Wouldn’t you want to use a system that involves less tracking?
Yes. I’m willing to disable my ad blocker if they don’t track me. If the browser places the ads and the only data that leaves my machine is deanonymized and can’t reasonably be used to identify me, that’s enough.
However, I’d much prefer to just pay whatever the revenue from the ads I see is. Unfortunately, most services are either $5-10/month to remove ads, and there’s no way they make that much from me (it’s probably <$1/month, if not per year). I wish Firefox would do something like GNU Taler where I can load up a fund and websites take a faction of a cent for each page view or something.
Exactly this. I know a very good local tech website (Tweakers.net) which offers antonymous ads but they are still relevant because they’re tech related being on a tech related web site. That’s a way I could support!
Is there a way to disable it on mobile? I have not seen anything yet.
It’s not on mobile yet, it’s only on specific websites, and as I understand it, it doesn’t even do anything unless you click an ad.
Which is completely different from Chrome’s system, which sends information about you to websites regardless - and they haven’t even fenced off third-party cookies yet!
