this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024

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239

Firefox enables user tracking (mstdn.social)

submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

105 comments fedilink hide all child comments

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

Edit:

Just to add a few remarks from the discussions below:

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.
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.
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
Mozilla needs to make money/find a business model, agreed. Selling you out to advertisement companies cannot be it.
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).
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.

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[–] [email protected] 116 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The way it works is supposed to anonymously allow the measuring of advertising performance. Which ads do well with which kinds of users. Instead of tracking each individual user this tracks context, meaning what site the ad was seen on etc. Thereby providing a way to know what kinds of ads work with what kinds of users without profiling every individual in the world.

That is what it's supposed to do. Data still goes to an allegedly "trusted third party" (let's encrypt, apparently) which then does this anonymization.

The idea is a lot less egregious, but it's still only a good idea assuming you agree ads would be a good and ethical way to make the internet go round, if only they weren't profiling everyone. I don't.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yeah the title of the post makes it sound much worse than what it seems to be in practice? Maybe I'm just naive

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago

I think this a problem with applications with a privacy focused user basis. It becomes very black and white where any type of information being sent somewhere is bad. I respect that some people have that opinion and more power to them, but being pragmatic about this is important. I personally disabled this flag, and I recognize how this is edging into a risky area, but I also recognize that the Mozilla CTO is somewhat correct and if we have the option between a browser that blocks everything and one that is privacy-preserving (where users can still opt for the former), businesses are more likely to adopt the privacy-preserving standards and that benefits the vast majority of users.

Privacy is a scale. I'm all onboard with Firefox, I block tons of trackers and ads, I'm even somebody who uses NoScript and suffers the ramifications to due to ideology reasons, but I also enable telemetry in Firefox because I trust that usage metrics will benefit the product.

[–] [email protected] 82 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

This is after they bought an ad company last month, Mozilla is compromised now

Edit: Somebody pointed out the reason: Mozilla Foundation has no members. It's just the executives, no one in the actual community has any input in Mozilla's direction, and considering how wildly out of touch tech executives are this explains it all

[–] [email protected] 68 points 3 months ago (7 children)

A bunch of Firefox devs need to leave Mozilla, fork it and start up an actual non-profit not based around monetization. I would happily donate monthly if I knew it were going to Firefox development, instead of the dozen other things Mozilla spends its money on. I'm sure I'm not alone.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Proton did something similar.

This poll shows promise: https://mastodon.neat.computer/@jonah/112654592627487236

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

You’re definitely not alone. If this happens and it becomes some major news in the community with reasonable visibility, I’m sure many people would support this.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (5 children)

All of these claims clash with the reality of so many core open source projects, used by private users and massive corporations alike, that rely on single voluntary developers or super small groups which receive no flowers and no donations.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I think it’s more because the Mozilla Corporation is a for-profit company and people barely understand the difference between the Corporation and Foundation or what the Foundation even does, or the rules that allow a non-profit to own a for-profit.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 3 months ago (5 children)

This is misinformation. The setting in question is not a "privacy breach setting," it's to use a new API which, for sites that use it, sends advertisers anonymized data about related ad clicks instead of the much more privacy-breaching tracking data that they normally collect. This is only a good thing for users, which is why the setting is automatically checked.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

It's illegal in Europe to have an opt-out checked by default, must be an opt-in unchecked by default. This is one of the reason that Microsoft has always troubles in Europe about privacy and opt-out services.

[–] [email protected] 48 points 3 months ago

That only applies to personally-identifiable information.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

In the EU*

Sorry to be pedantic, but the UK, Swiss etc. are all in Europe but not in the legislative region where this law applies.

This even gets some people confused thinking those countries “aren't in Europe”, which is why I wanted to correct this.

[–] [email protected] 26 points 3 months ago (2 children)

If it is truly anonymized then it isn't protected under GDPR.

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 3 months ago (16 children)

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/

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Advertisers can already easily get this data without this setting, and any measures you take to block ads also by definition affect this setting.

Meanwhile, if this works and becomes widely available, regulators will be able to take measures against user surveillance without having to succumb to the ad industry's argument that they won't know whether their ads work.

And yes, this provides data to advertisers, but it's data about their ads, not about users.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Ah yes, the hypothetical second step, in which tracking is going to be outlawed (I'm not holding my breath), except, of course, for the third party services that do the aggregating, which will "sell" (literal quote) the aggregate data, so I guess these are by semantic sophistry not adtech companies but something else.

I'm so glad this genius "plan" can be used to justify Mozilla funneling data to adtech firms right now, because in some hypothetical future timeline this somehow can be construed with a bunch of hand-waving and misdirection to be in my interest.

How about instead we have a browser that only cares about the users, and not give a fuck about adtech? Its number one goal should be to treat adtech as hostile, and fight to ruin that whole industry.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

for the third party services that do the aggregating, which will "sell" (literal quote) the aggregate data

You're saying you're literally quoting the ISRG as planning to sell the data? Because that goes directly against what I've read about this, which I believe says that they wouldn't even be able to because they can't see the data.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

... first of all, providing a new API to give out information about me is not a good thing in my mind.

Second, this would be the first time in human history, the advertisers would not simply add that APIs information to everything else they aggregate including fingerprinting of your browser.

So, serious question: How is this good for me?

Edit: typo

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Are you trying to tell me that the host server is showing the ad, because last I checked, with my whitelist firewall, I never see ads because all ads are links to the ad server you are actually visiting. It is no different than opening up the webpage and connection to them. They get all the same fingerprinting info.

I'm not saying one way or another here, but there is no such thing as anonymous data collection. It only takes 2-3 unique identifiers to connect a person between a known and anonymous data set and there are almost always quite a few more unique identifiers than this in any given dataset. When I hear anyone say stalkerware is anonymous, I assume they are no longer just a privateer of a foreign drug cartel level state, instead they are full blown slave trader pirates fit for the gallows or worse.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 3 months ago (2 children)

People should just use LibreWolf at this point

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Be careful what you wish for. Firefox needs income and without audience for Firefox, Firefox is no more and then LibreWolf is no more.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I wish they had a mobile app!

[–] [email protected] 20 points 3 months ago

I've enjoyed Mull as an Android alternative https://gitlab.com/divested-mobile/mull-fenix

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago

A Word About Private Attribution in Firefox, by the Firefox CTO.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago

Safari too: https://clearcode.cc/blog/privacy-preserving-ad-click-attribution-explained/

This was a webkit proposal from 2019: https://webkit.org/blog/8943/privacy-preserving-ad-click-attribution-for-the-web/

And it has been a W3C draft since 2021: https://privacycg.github.io/private-click-measurement/

[–] [email protected] 19 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The original mastodon post was with more details, and some drama, but the guy is trying to spam this link everywhere he can. so desperate for attention. lol

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

I think it’s a valid news to spread here.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 3 months ago (8 children)

Ok idealist.

What is your alternative funding stream for Mozilla?

It's bad.

Is it worse than the advertising owned browser that gives your information directly to said advertiser?

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Just switched to LibreWolf/Mull + KeePassXC/KeePass2Android

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

So you didn't care reading up what PPA is, eh?

But yeah I agree with the toot, we need more browsers heck even more browser engines to not end with just one engine controlled by fucking Google.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago (6 children)

"Firefox is just another US-corporate product with an 'open source' sticker on it."

unlike EU-corporate products

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago (4 children)

anyone who cares about privacy is running ublock and/or umatrix anyway so it's negated.

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