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

Edit:

Just to add a few remarks from the discussions below:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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
  4. Mozilla needs to make money/find a business model, agreed. Selling you out to advertisement companies cannot be it.
  5. 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).
  6. 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.
  • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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    4 months ago

    This does not prevent regular ad tracking, this provides additional data to advertisers. It also means Mozilla is now tracking me, and then Mozilla does this “anonymizing” on their servers. I do not trust Mozilla with this data, and I don’t trust that no way can be found de-anonymize or combine this data with other data ad networks already collect.

    This is not in my interest at all. This data should not be collected. The ad networks can suck it, why should I help them?

    https://blog.privacyguides.org/2024/07/14/mozilla-disappoints-us-yet-again-2/

    • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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      4 months ago

      What do you want? A Mozilla with no income? Because then there is no libre browser.

      • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        Can you imagine a world where Linux wasn’t directly getting paid by Amazon to hook all your machines up to AWS? You can’t! And how could vim possibly be developed without dropbox integration and sponsorship, that would never work. There is no way a world exists where Krita doesn’t sell all your drawings to OpenAI, how are they going to make any money?

        None of these nice things could exist if they weren’t selling out their users, that’s just reality.

        • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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          4 months ago

          Yes I get your point. Some software can run without a large income stream, on a volunteer basis.

          You’re using that fact to say that Firefox also can. And if you care to look at my profile you’ll see I’ve argued time and time again that Mozilla is an overblown organisation and should be slimmed down to a couple of hundred, working solely on the browser.

          I doubt, however, that you can build a modern, up-to-date browser on a volunteer basis.

          How many full-time people do you think it takes?

          • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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            4 months ago

            Linux has full time developers. Blender has full time developers. Lots of other projects have full time developers. They still don’t sell my data to Google.

            A web browser is a very visible piece of software, relied upon by end users, businesses and governments alike. I’m sure enough people and organizations would donate their time and money to fund this, if it existed.

    • verdigris@lemmy.ml
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      4 months ago

      … No, it does not. The ads are currently already tracking clicks and conversions, on top of a whole boatload of other personal data. This API instead provides them with just the click and conversion data, divorced from the personal data and then aggregated with all the other site visitors.

      Being against this proposal basically means you trust random websites and ad companies more with your data then you do Mozilla and LetsEncrypt.

      • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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        4 months ago

        This API instead

        Instead of what? As I said, this is in addition to existing tracking, with some vague promise that if current tracking methods were banned or abandoned, this could be used instead. Except it’s not getting banned (Mozilla is not going to out-lobby Google) or abandoned (market forces prevent that), and why oh why would I want some alternative way for ad companies to get my data in that situation anyway? Let them die.

        Now if another person is going to repeat this nonsense talking point, which you have picked up strait from Mozilla’s corporate PR, I’m going to lose my mind. Have some critical thinking skills. They are giving away your data right now and they give you nothing in return except a nonsense promise of a fairytale future.

        Please I just want a browser that acts in the user’s interest only, does not work with Meta on adtech, and does not think it’s their duty to save the ad industry from itself.

        • verdigris@lemmy.ml
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          4 months ago

          Again, no, that’s not true. This API is only used by sites that opt into it, and in so doing, they are disabling the normal tracking which is far more invasive.

            • verdigris@lemmy.ml
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              4 months ago

              It’s enforced by the websites, they opt into this API. It says that everywhere you can read about this.

              • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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                4 months ago

                I can’t find this in the announcements and stuff. Where does it say that exactly?

                  • gnuhaut@lemmy.ml
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                    4 months ago

                    You said:

                    Again, no, that’s not true. This API is only used by sites that opt into it, and in so doing, they are disabling the normal tracking which is far more invasive.

                    OK, your source for this:

                    A full version of an in-browser attribution API will offer strong privacy protections, while providing considerable flexibility in how to measure ad performance. Our long term goal is a standardized attribution solution. We believe that a good attribution system will give advertising businesses a real alternative to more objectionable practices, like tracking, which should allow browsers to further restrict those practices.

                    Nowhere does it say websites are disabling other tracking methods.

                    It says that browsers could (maybe, in the future) restrict other methods of tracking, if this gets widespread mainstream adoption. Why are these things related exactly? Mozilla could presumably implement these tracking restrictions right now. The reason they are related in the minds and PR of Mozilla drones is that they don’t dare do this without providing an alternative for the ad industry. Their corporate overlords won’t “allow” it.

                    But right now, this restricts and replaces nothing, they literally are giving you vague promises about future improvements, while already collecting your data, like I said.

                    I will remind you that you accused others of spreading misinformation in this thread. I will accept your little mea culpa song and dance now. Gimme!