this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
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Firefox

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Original toot:

It has come to my attention that many of the people complaining about #Firefox's #PPA experiment don't actually understand what PPA is, what it does, and what Firefox is trying to accomplish with it, so an explainer 🧡 is in order.

Targeted advertising sucks. It is invasive and privacy-violating, it enables populations to be manipulated by bad actors in democracy-endangering ways, and it doesn't actually sell products.

Nevertheless, commercial advertisers are addicted to the data they get from targeted advertising. They aren't going to stop using it until someone convinces them there's something else that will work better.

"Contextual advertising works better." Yes, it does! But, again, advertisers are addicted to the data, and contextual advertising provides much less data, so they don't trust it.

What PPA says is, "Suppose we give you anonymized, aggregated data about which of your ads on which sites resulted in sales or other significant commitments from users?" The data that the browser collects under PPA are sent to a third-party (in Firefox's case, the third party is the same organization that runs Let's Encrypt; does anybody think they're not trustworthy?) and aggregated and anonymized there. Noise is introduced into the data to prevent de-anonymization.

This allows advertisers to "target" which sites they put their ads on. It doesn't allow them to target individuals. In Days Of Yore, advertisers would do things like ask people to bring newspapers ads into the store or mention a certain phrase to get deals. These were for collecting conversion statistics on paper ads. Ditto for coupons. PPA is a way to do this online.

Is there a potential for abuse? Sure, which is why the data need to be aggregated and anonymized by a trusted third party. If at some point they discover they're doing insufficient aggregation or anonymization, then they can fix that all in one place. And if the work they're doing is transparent, as compared to the entirely opaque adtech industry, the entire internet can weigh in on any bugs in their algorithms.

Is this a utopia? No. Would it be better than what we have now? Indisputably. Is there a clear path right now to anything better? Not that I can see. We can keep fighting for something better while still accepting this as an improvement over what we have now.

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[–] addie@feddit.uk 2 points 7 months ago

Man alive, I thought that Mozilla had been doing their own Personal Package Archives so that we didn't have to deal with Ubuntu packaging it as a Snap anymore. And this is doubly disappointing.

[–] xantoxis@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Completely facile argument, right there in the last sentence.

We can keep fighting for something better while still accepting this as an improvement over what we have now.

YOU BUILT THE FUCKING THING. Just turn it off and go away. Tada, we now have something better: no privacy-violating data at all.

Who's forcing you to make advertisers happy? Don't answer that, because I don't care. You can't pretend to be about privacy and then build things that help advertisers violate it.

This one's also pretty funny btw:

If at some point they discover they’re doing insufficient aggregation or anonymization, then they can fix that all in one place.

Advertisers don't give a shit. They have zero motivation to fix anonymization. They're not going to HELP us get rid of privacy violations.

[–] tja@sh.itjust.works -1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Just turn it off and go away. Tada, we now have something better: no privacy-violating data at all.

Well, yes. Except for the fact that advertisers now have an excuse to try more invasive things to get to their data

Advertisers don't give a shit. They have zero motivation to fix anonymization. They're not going to HELP us get rid of privacy violations.

That's why a trusted third party is handling this. They care a lot, because of they fumble it they are now an untrusted third party and someone else will take care of the anonymization part

[–] xantoxis@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Well, yes. Except for the fact that advertisers now have an excuse to try more invasive things to get to their data

They're going to do this anyway. As far as Firefox is concerned, it's the browser's job to stop them. That's what Firefox is selling: privacy

because of they fumble it they are now an untrusted third party

Assuming I take this for granted, they have already fumbled it by turning on an anti-privacy feature without consent. They can no longer be trusted. Not that you ever should have trusted them because whatever motivation they have for pure moral behavior now, that will change with the wind when more VC money gets involved, or there's been a change in management.

And firefox has ALREADY had a recent change in management, which is probably why THIS is happening NOW. They just bought an adtech firm for pete's sake. Don't trust other people with your data. At all.

[–] tja@sh.itjust.works -1 points 7 months ago

Did you even read the article or are you just hating? There is a will known additional non profit that is well known and trusted by probably everyone that knows about it. This nonprofit is handling the anonymization.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 1 points 5 months ago

Me wondering why the Firefox package archive is suddenly controversial...

does anybody think they're not trustworthy?

I didn't until I read that sentence. I actually get what they are trying to do here, but good grief...

[–] modulus@lemmy.ml 0 points 7 months ago (3 children)

This is bullshit. The total amount of advertising I want is zero. The total amount I want of tracking is zero. The total amount of experiments I want run on my data without consent is, guess, zero.

[–] Phegan@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Do you donate to FOSS software you use?

Your options are ads or donations. As it costs money to develop and host a lot of FOSS, in our capitalist world, it's impossible to offer a service without somehow receiving money to continue to provide that service.

[–] modulus@lemmy.ml -1 points 7 months ago

Yes, for example I donate to thunderbird since I find it useful. And I wouldn't mind donating to Firefox either provided they wouldn't do this sort of fuckery.

though in the long run we need to overturn capitalism of course, and that an economic model is viable doesn't mean we should sustain it or justify it.

[–] lmaydev@lemmy.world 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Sow do you plan to pay sites for the resources you use?

[–] modulus@lemmy.ml -1 points 7 months ago

It depends, but mostly no. And if that means some sites are not economically possible, so be it.

[–] Tywele@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Then keep blocking ads and opt out of it. Not that hard isn't it?

[–] modulus@lemmy.ml -1 points 7 months ago

It's hard when I don't get told about it and find by chance.

[–] GenderNeutralBro@lemmy.sdf.org 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And what is the advertising industry doing to earn back the trust that they've eroded with their incessant, relentless abuse over the entire life of the Internet?

[–] Virkkunen@fedia.io 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Creating ads that are even more targeted to you so you can forget about everything and buy that electric kitchen knife you just saw scrolling reddit

[–] socsa@piefed.social 1 points 5 months ago

I don't know, I am on the fence about the XYT FULLFORGE lithium powered, rechargable electronic kitchen knife I saw on reddit. I just don't know if I can trust the comments which say it stays sharp forever, and I am very skeptical that it truly has the fastest cutting speed of any knife on the market. Perhaps I will go read the Amazon reviews again to get more information about the patented digital motor design.

[–] Emmie@lemm.ee 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

They keep saying many words waving hands frantically and people still don’t like it. I bet if they explain 10th time with colourful diagrams and 3 minute whiteboard explainer video people still won’t like it. Such an ungrateful crowd

You need hands on workshops, we will organise them with foundation budget. That will surely explain things sufficiently. We will also give out informational flyers in small communities to foster local enlightenment.

[–] socsa@piefed.social 1 points 5 months ago

They are definitely in a weird position. On one hand, the current state of internet advertising is horrifying. This has nothing to do with anything Firefox has done. On the other hand, trying to explain to privacy absolutists why these innovations in targeted advertising is actually a revolutionary leap in user privacy, is obviously never going to take.

[–] smpl@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I'm not even buying the premise. Any business can look at its bottomline to see if their advertising works. If they can't, then its not working.

[–] Blisterexe@lemmy.zip 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, but this lets them know WHAT ads are or arent working

[–] smpl@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 7 months ago

You're in trouble already as a business, wasting a lot of money, if you don't know where your target audience is. What you argue is that this is used for a business to probe where an advertisement would work. I'd argue that that is a very expensive way of finding your target audience, because you still have to pay for all the ads that didn't work. There are much better ways of figuring out where your target audience is.

I think most people believe that this obsessive data collection is neccessary, only because Google has repeatedly painted that narrative. This better advertising is just coincidentally the form of advertising that Google is in the best position to supply.

If you carefully pick the places you advertise and do statistics on how it affect your business while a campaign runs I'm willing to bet you get a much better return. As a bonus to saving money you didn't have to shit on an important principle in democracy, the autonomy of the people, protected by something called privacy.

[–] anticurrent@sh.itjust.works 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

The fact that mozilla does't understand what user consent is, is alarming about where they are heading.

[–] sabreW4K3@lazysoci.al 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)

If they didn't understand user consent, would they really have the ability to opt out? I get that you're on your soap box and seething with anger, but let's not devolve into ludicrous nonsensical reframing.

[–] laughterlaughter@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

When Chrome asks the user to activate a similar feature while Firefox doesn't - welp, no. They don't understand user consent.

Imagine finding a Mozilla microphone under your dining table. "Oh, but you can remove it and toss it. That's understanding user consent!"

[–] UnfortunateShort@lemmy.world -1 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Mozilla: We want to offer anonymised data so advertiser stop trying to track you with shady means. You can opt ou tho.

Privacy ultras: WHY YOU WANT DATA?!

Mozilla: ...

[–] laughterlaughter@lemmy.world 1 points 7 months ago

The problem for me is not that they implemented this. The problem is that they TURNED IT ON without my consent!

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 0 points 7 months ago (1 children)
[–] drawerair@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Why is Firefox getting involved in ads? πŸ’΅? To reduce their dependence on Google's payment for keeping Google as the default search engine?

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 5 months ago

"You have become the very thing you swore to destroy"