EFF Says Mozilla's PPA is better than Google's Solution
EFF Says Mozilla's PPA is better than Google's Solution
Mozilla’s system only measures the success rate of ads—it doesn’t help companies target those ads—and it’s less susceptible to abuse, EFF’s Lena Cohen told @FastCompany@flipboard.com. “It’s much more privacy-preserving than Google’s version of the same feature.”
https://mastodon.social/@eff/112922761259324925
Privacy experts say the new toggle is mostly harmless, but Firefox users saw it as a betrayal.
“They made this technology for advertisers, specifically,” says Jonah Aragon, founder of the Privacy Guides website. “There’s no direct benefit to the user in creating this. It’s software that only serves a party other than the user.”
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There’s no reason why open source software should cater to advertisers.
Advertising is a plague on humanity. If we have to rethink our digital economics to fix it, then so be it.
If people aren't ready to see an ad or pay to support something. Then maybe they don't deserve that thing.
Exactly. I am happy to pay a reasonable price for content (I'm paying a bit for Nebula, for example), and my hope is that transitioning advertising to a privacy-friendly system run by clients will encourage more options to pay for content in lieu of ads.
I'd pay a few dollars a month to avoid ads on most sites, and I'm guessing that's about what advertisers are making from me, but instead the options are:
- pay 10x what they'd make from ads
- see ads and get my privacy absolutely violated
- don't interact with the thing
So the more we move toward privacy-respecting ads, the more likely we are to see more options than the above. At least that's my take.
I just sent feedback to google from the "my ad center" page describing the wallet idea to pay the ad price instead of watching the ad. Last time i sent youtube feedback they didn't come back to me but they did apply the change i was asking for. So we never know.
Cool, but I doubt Google honestly cares much. If they do it, it'll be something much higher than the actual amount that ad is worth as a way to nudge users to pay for some kind of subscription.
Yea. That's also what i think would happen if anything.
exactly. If the price was as much as ads pay it would cost users fractions of pennies per view. They just charge paid users so much more then that for the same thing. Since google ads is one of the biggest ads supplier we could technically have a wallet that substracts the ad value to not see it directly with google.
Fine.
But today they want us to pay and collect everything about us.
I highly recommend "Taking Control of Your Personal Data" by prof. Jennifer Golbeck, published by The Teaching Company, ISBN:978-1629978390, likely available at your local library as a DVD or streaming.
I mean, go ahead, rethink our digital economics. While we wait for that, what do we do in the meantime?
(And of note: Mozilla itself has launched several initiatives there as well (example), but none have panned out so far.)
Yeah it couldn’t happen overnight. I feel like ad blocking is a better solution to invest in up until that point however. We don’t need to enable advertisers.
We have adblockers. Websites keep finding ways to track us still, and/or to block people who are using them :/
I would support something like this. Or something like what brave does. Or something like GNU Taler.
Pretty much anything but sending extra tracking data out.
I feel a little worried that I'm not even sure how Mozilla could monetize this. At least when Brave does its ads, people know how Brave makes their cut.
Mozilla doesn't monetise this; the whole point is to change the ecosystem to enable more privacy. It's not a moneygrab.
Okay, so the end result is a privacy drain for users, extra data that Mozilla slurps up but somehow does not benefit from, no benefit to legitimate advertisers (versus a/b url testing), and no draw for privacy invasive ones.
Then WTF
Tell me, what data about you does anyone get? And why is there no benefit to legitimate advertisers who will be able to know which of their ads have resulted in sales, even if they don't know anything about you specifically?
The draw for privacy-invasive ones indeed needs a couple of extra steps, which requires being able to see the long-term vision: having a privacy-friendly alternative available enables both legislators to enact stricter legislation, as well as decrease the incentive to keep engaging in the cat-and-mouse game with browsers, trying to find new way to violate people's privacy.
Tell me, what data about you does anyone get?
For starters, Mozilla Corp gets non-anonymous data like your IP address, time of connection, and all the advertisement telemetry.
Then they tell you "trust us with this". The problem is, they have already broken their trust by refusing to tell the user, and doubling down upon this.
And why is there no benefit to legitimate advertisers
Because advertisers already have better options.
Method: PPA Topics Using different links Corporate creator Facebook Google - 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.
Sorry, I meant: what data does anyone get through this new capability? Mozilla could always get your IP address and other connection data when e.g. Firefox checks for updates, or add-ons, or safebrowsing lists, etc. Could you name one or two things that are part of "all the advertisement telemetry" that is new?
Because advertisers already have better options.
Better in the sense that they provide the same information with privacy guarantees that are just as good?
Also, why do you need a guaranteed privacy increase? Why would we want to miss "opportunity to get us a future with improved privacy for everyone"?
Could you name one or two things that are part of "all the advertisement telemetry" that is new?
If your argument is that nothing new is being collected, then there is no reason for Mozilla Corp to collect it and you agree with me that they should roll these changes back.
Also, why do you need a guaranteed privacy increase?
Because I hate it when corporations like Google and Mozilla lie by calling something private when it endangers privacy rather than enhancing it.
Here's a question for you: in what universe do corporations somehow implement Mozilla's proprietary technology and actually increase privacy?
If your argument is that nothing new is being collected, then there is no reason for Mozilla Corp to collect it and you agree with me that they should roll these changes back.
I'll also argue that no new data is being collected for vertical tabs, but I don't see why that should mean that vertical tabs should be rolled back.
Here's a question for you: in what universe do corporations somehow implement Mozilla's proprietary technology and actually increase privacy?
Hopefully in this universe, a couple of years down the road, when legislators have become confident that they can legislate away the most invasive practices without putting lots of potential voters out of a job.
If you believe PPA isn't collecting new data, then you haven't pointed to it doing anything else. You make it out to be worthless, and I'm trying to ascertain whether you believe this authentically.
Vertical tabs serve a distinct UX and UI function and I could write paragraphs about it. And even if I couldn't, others have. For years.
Nobody has asked for Mozilla's bullshit until it was pushed on them, but I'd be happy to hear out your post-hoc rationalization if you have actual things it is rather than your interesting claims about what it isn't.
Personally, I don't have a problem with ads. And if those ads can support further development on an open source product I get to use for free then that's even better. What I have problem with is privacy intrusive targeted ads. Even before the internet, newspaper, radio had ads. They sure were annoying, but not as bad of a situation as it is now.