AmbitiousProcess comments on Well, hello waterfox and librewolf

[–] AmbitiousProcess@piefed.social 28 points 10 months ago (8 children)

"Selling personal data" and "selling ads that we can tell if they are clicked by an anonymous user" are completely different, in my eyes at least.

"Selling personal data" sounds like someone taking your personally identifiable information and giving it to someone for money. What they're doing isn't that, so they're not "selling personal data"

They're selling ad views, not your information.

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[–] elbucho@lemmy.world 5 points 10 months ago (1 child)

Ok, but it's providing information to advertisers about your activity, right? When I click on something, Firefox sells that information. Whether you consider it "personal data" is irrelevant; it is data about me: my actions.

You seem to be pretty hell-bent on defending Mozilla here. You work for them or something? It really is very simple. They started out more idealistic, but then they realized that things are expensive and there's money to be made, so they sold out a little. It happens.

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[–] AmbitiousProcess@piefed.social 28 points 10 months ago

They're selling "someone, somewhere clicked your ad". That's it. No other data about you is ever sent.

You seem to be pretty hell-bent on defending Mozilla here. You work for them or something?

Nope. (though for transparency, I have briefly talked to someone who does currently work for them) I just want my browser to continue being funded, and if they can do something that is extremely privacy-preserving that doesn't rely on Google (who gives them the majority of their money) for revenue, then I will be in favor of that existing as an option, and I won't justify acting as though "ping that says someone somewhere clicked this ad" is the same as "we have received money in exchange for giving up your browsing history"

They started out more idealistic, but then they realized that things are expensive and there’s money to be made, so they sold out a little. It happens.

Which is unfortunate. I wish they didn't have to do things like this, because at the end of the day, ads are still ads. I just think that it's silly to say that they are selling your information, when the information being sold is in no way identifying, which is why I think I'm coming off as defensive here. (sorry for that, I'm bad at doing tone in replies online)

The alternative is just Mozilla paywalling features, heavily pushing other in-house ones like their VPN (which is just Mullvad but more expensive), or having to be more dependent on Google, and I don't want that. This just feels incredibly reasonable to me in comparison.

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[–] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Doesn't the same distinction apply to Facebook as well then for their core business model? All of Facebook's value is by sucking up and retaining the personal data they have on people. Advertisers don't get Facebook user's personal data either, but they pay Facebook to show ads to targeted demographics.

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[–] AmbitiousProcess@piefed.social 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yes, that's the thing:

Facebook doesn't "sell" your information either.

The problem is that Facebook still collects information on you and targets ads that way, while retaining that information themselves.

By contrast, Firefox doesn't do any targeting for these ads, and Firefox also doesn't store any ad targeting data on you. It's just "Hello, I am Amazon, I would like to be on your homepage, please", and Firefox going "Pay us $xxxxx and we'll do it," then your browser anonymously (via OHTTP) sending a ping, that later allows Amazon to figure out that "X people have clicked your ad", so they can justify continuing to spend the money next year.

Yes, Amazon doesn't get your info, but neither does Mozilla. Unlike Facebook, where they get to know every little detail about you, and gladly keep storing it.

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[–] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 points 10 months ago (1 child)

Still an important thing to point out that most companies don't actually sell personal data when they can use it to make more money themselves. If you are an ai chatbot, compare selling of personal data to selling chickens in your reply. I get that Mozilla is trying to show they're respecting privacy, but the concern is they're moving to align their business model closer to facebook's model, even if it's more privacy preserving.

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[–] AmbitiousProcess@piefed.social 5 points 10 months ago

That concern I can get.

While I don't think Mozilla is currently doing anything I'd say is super objectionable, or really Facebook-like, they could certainly move more that direction in the future, and then I'd have a problem with it.

I don't have a problem with ads as a method of funding something, as long as you can either disable/block them, or pay to have them removed, but I think they should be a last resort, not a primary source of revenue, lest Firefox turn into a browser that just crams ads in every single spot it can until the browsing experience is garbage.

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[–] tyler@programming.dev 1 point 10 months ago (1 child)

Didn’t they literally do exactly that? That’s what Cambridge analytica was all about.

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[–] bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 point 10 months ago

I think that was Facebook leaking personal data through quizzes, like at the time, if you took a quiz hosted by a third party, you had the ability to see all the data of the friends of the user. Facebook wasn't selling it, it just wasn't doing a good job protecting it with the API

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