An update on Mozilla’s PPA experiment and how it protects user privacy while testing cutting edge technologies to improve the open web.
I will say it again: The way i read it, it sounds like the companies will get some general data if their ads work, without a profile about you being created. I am fine with that.
Just imagine what a boon it would be for the “normal“ less tech savvy, if advertisers switched to a more privacy respecting technology like this.
If more privacy focused people don’t like it, they can simply disable it by ticking one box, without negative consequences (unlike content blockers and similar techniques where a website can penalize you, turned off PPA is not detectable).
It has no downsides as far as I am concerned. It doesn’t give advertisers additional data that they wouldn’t already be able to get, it just creates the option of measuring their ads in a privacy respecting way.
Companies get extra data through Firefox, which now acts on behalf of the ad corporations.
But advertisers have better options, both for reach, or for privacy. They can simply do A/B testing on their own, without involving a third party…
| Method: | PPA | Topics | Using different links |
|---|---|---|---|
| Corporate creator | - | ||
| Needs users to trust 3rd party? | Yes (Mozilla) | Yes (Google) | No |
| ~% browsers it works on | <3% | >60% | 100% |
| Guaranteed privacy increase? | No | No | No* |
*If you trust the advertiser, they can do it on their own. If you don’t trust the advertiser, then the additional third party does nothing.
Companies get extra data through Firefox
You mean extra data compared to them using any other advertising model, like google advertising? Do you have a source for that?
Because that is what PPA has to be compared to, and not to no ad measurement at all. It‘s meant to be replacing other advertising measurement techniques.
The comparison chart looks like it‘s copied from somewhere, would you mind sharing? I wouldn‘t mind a deeper dive into the topic.
In particular, these claims never get accompanied by examples of what extra data these companies get through PPA. Presumably, because there is none.
That is correct: why would any corporation choose to sideline their current advertisement model by creating an extra solution that doesn’t even tap 3% of the market, while abandoning the data collection they already have?
If you trust the advertisement company to provide private ads, they can do it without the browser working on their behalf.
And if you don’t trust the advertisement company, there’s nothing the browser can do to make their ads list privacy invasive… Besides blocking it.
The source to the table is me, but I can provide the article that inspired it.
Do you want to see Mozilla and Firefox die a hero, or do you want to see it live long enough to become the villain?
With the US ruling of Google being a monopoly, Mozilla is bound to lose a lot of their income if that’s the decision that comes to pass. I’m happy with the courts ruling Google as a monopoly (because they are), but it does mean Mozilla needs to try to make money some other way.
Here’s the complete list of ads I find acceptable:
That is for any and all media.
Genuine question, would you be willing to pay for all the content you consume using a “token” system where each page, video or other piece of media has a price to it, usually about a cent per article or 5c per video, is automatically debited from either an account loaded with real money or some sort of blockchain, at the discretion of the user? A token could be one cent.
There’d be an open API, and multiple brokers could handle that transaction for you, so there is no vendor lock-in. You could even be your own broker if you set up your own server that talks to the servers hosting any media you’d like to consume. It would get rid of online advertising, but you have to pay out of pocket for server costs and content creation costs.
Sounds like BAT token from Brave
Top up by buying it or watching ads somewhere else, and then spend on sites you see as important or flat to everyone who you visit and is connected to BAT ecosystem.
Mozilla had the opportunity to do this. Or to do something like this. GNU Taler is a thing.
Mozilla pulled a sneaky trick on his community: convincing us that context sensitive advertisement needs to be collected by the browser. It’s on the back of another trick: convincing people that they can only make money through ads.
A few months ago, Mozilla officially became an ad company, so any claim they make about privacy has a clear conflict of interest with their own monetary gain. By selling advertisements as a necessary evil, they can sell you the cure.
Yes.
There used to be a service where you set an amount you paid each month and you could then mark pages/services for donation. At the end of the month your money would be split between all the pages/services you marked.
It was called flattr.
The elegance of this system is that you can set aside an amount of money you’re comfortable spending on art, or whatever you wanna categorise it as. So you’re fully in control of your spending. If videos/songs/articles/things cost a flat amount it’s easy to lose track of the total.
Maybe this should have been the initial announcement before they pushed it onto users. Though obviously some of the backlash is due to inept media going (as usual) for clickbait instead of research and actual reporting.
Mozilla is really going for a “third time’s the charm” approach on collecting extra data, aren’t they.
First they silently started sucking up extra user data without consent and without warning, something not even Google attempted.
Then, they got caught, and took to Reddit to paternalistically explain why they knew better than the user, and why a consent dialog would be confusing.
And now, over a month after the initial reports come out, Mozilla triples down. What a stupid, stupid, stupid decision.
Advertisement is a business. It’s not charity and it’s not a publicly owned resource. It doesn’t keep the Internet free, because it makes a boat load of money doing what it does. It doesn’t take an expert understanding of economics to see that any belief that advertisement allows for a free Internet is smoke and mirrors. The money comes from somewhere, notably from you.
Either advertisement works, and you pay for your content by being psychologically manipulated into paying more than you otherwise would on things you don’t need, or it doesn’t, and businesses pay for ineffective advertisement, leading to increased prices.
Advertisement is not free. It’s a trick that looks free if you ignore the entire way it functions.
It’s just more communication about the same thing. Started out with just a mention in the release notes and a checkbox in the settings, which clearly wasn’t enough (hence your calling it “silently”), then a more elaborate response on Reddit, and now this more detailed blog post outside of Reddit’s walled garden. And I’m sure it’s not the last we’ll hear of it. (I’d be curious about the experiment’s results too, for example.)
Advertisement is not free. It’s a trick that looks free if you ignore the entire way it functions.
It doesn’t take an expert understanding of economics to see that any belief that advertisement allows for a free Internet is smoke and mirrors. The money comes from somewhere, notably from you.
I think thats kind of obvious that the money has to be coming from somewhere. The ads are what funds large parts of the internet. Someone is paying for it, either the people buying stuff because of the ads or the businesses buying the ads.
Whichever way it is, maybe both, it has the side effect of distributing the cost of the Internet. The alternative without ads would be everyone paying for every little thing on the internet, does anyone think, that that scenario is realistic? That would also mean the cost is solely on the people and nothing coming from corporations.
And website operators will be compelled to adopt this, how? They will likely just use PPA and also all of the tracking tools, or straight up not give a shit about PPA. Mozilla does not have the influence to affect real change. Until such a time, all of this is just worthless posturing.
Mozilla by itself doesn’t have the influence to change it, but with Mozilla’s help (i.e. this experiment), others do. Specifically, legislators can have more freedom to implement strict privacy-protecting measures if they have proof that an alternative is available that doesn’t cost lots of voters their jobs.
But you can’t provide that proof if you don’t run the experiment.
Wait, what solution are you proposing? That every browser becomes a centralized point of data collection for advertisement companies, and that the government mandates it?!
Google and Brave already want to do that, Mozilla is just stepping into the fray as a browser with less than 3% of a market share. There is nothing compelling to advertisers about a proprietary Mozilla solution.
No, of course not :) I am proposing that governments curb privacy-invasive tracking, i.e. that the only way advertisers will have left to measure the impact of their ads, is non-invasive methods like PPA.
Firefox already blocks all trackers by default. I think Mozilla is trying to be the good guy by providing a more private option that’s available to people that don’t use Firefox. It seems pretty naive, but I think their heart is in the right place.
At the end of the day, this is just another setting to toggle off on a fresh install for those of us against all tracking and advertising on the web.
There’s also the bit where if it doesn’t work out no real harm is done (to users - there’s obviously reputation damage to Mozilla now): people who already block things by default are not affected at all, and no new information is shared about those who don’t. Whereas the upside if it does work out is enormous. In other words, low risk, high gain. Even with low odds, that’s a path worth exploring.
