Lokjo - EU's Gmaps replacement (@Lokjo@mstdn.social)
mstdn.social
Attached: 1 image Firefox is just another US-corporate product with an 'open source' sticker on it. Their version 128 update has auto checked a new little privacy breach setting. If you still use a corporate browser, at least do some safety version! We mainly use @librewolf@lemmy.ml based on firefox. (yes, we know, a stable european or even non-US browser is still considered 'futuristic' in europe) #eu #browser #firefox #meh

… 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.
  • wolf@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
    377·
    4 months ago

    … 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

    • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
      133·
      4 months ago

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

      It’s the same principle as what Brave is based around: advertising isn’t going to go away, ever, but if we can set up a profitable advertising model that doesn’t require stalking people online, we can at least make advertising better.

      I disagree with their current methods, but I also don’t know of a better alternative. Brave’s weird crypto stuff sure isn’t the answer, and neither is this, but if nobody figures out an alternative (that we can , advertising is only going to get more data hungry. The best alternative we have right now is Google’s FLoC and just about everyone hates that too.

      • mihor@lemmy.ml
        6·
        4 months ago

        I get the sentiment, but no. No way. No way in hell I’m allowing advertisers to get a bit of data or a penny out of me in any way, shape, or form. Not the way they’ve been treating us for the last decade. They can eat dung for all I care. Total war.

      • wolf@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
        4·
        4 months ago

        advertising isn’t going to go away

        That is certainly true for the moment, but IMHO that is not really an argument in this case:

        1. Advertisement can simply show me me some advertisement w/o spying on me. (Effectiveness of targeted advertisement is AFAIK highly controversial anyway.)
        2. My operating system does not have to spy on me and my browser certainly not.
        3. Mozillas BS arguments are just the ‘story told’, obviously they want to make money via advertisement and be the man-in-the-middle. I assume it is their legal right to do so and they can pursue the business model they like, but I do not have to like it.
        4. Again, advertisers will simply use this as an additional source of information about users for real time bidding, and not wind down other methods of information gathering, so this is only bad for me w/o any upsides.
        5. Mozilla is showing it is willing to sell it’s user data out this way (and silently do so), what are the next steps, what will happen with the next updates?

        … and I happily have donated and will donate/pay money to/for websites and software I like/use and will happily accept business models dying which depend on selling my data out.

        One of the main points of using Open Source operating systems and software is, that I have the freedom to use my own hardware the way I like w/o being up-sold or harassed by advertisement.

        • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
          41·
          4 months ago

          Advertisers aren’t going to take your word that you’ve been shown an ad. They need to know that you did actually load the ad, and that you’re not part of a bot network. Advertising fraud is crazy common.

          Various websites I visit actually switched over to context based advertising (rather than personal tracking) but the one I visit most is moving back towards tracking, because advertisers just aren’t willing to keep the context based system alive. They’re not getting the feedback they need so they’re not spending money on ads, and the website is running a deficit.

          The system Mozilla proposes has a chance of fixing that problem.

          You may like to donate money, but the vast majority of users don’t. I wouldn’t want to pay a monthly 8 euro subscription to a tech news site, because that’s what they need to continue paying their staff. I’d rather have ads. The ads are annoying, the tracking is a huge problem.

          I don’t particularly trust Mozilla enough to enable this system by default, but I can see where they’re coming from. The web is run by Google and Microsoft, and Google isn’t allowed to restrict ads by watchdogs because they may drive competing advertisers out of business. That’s why they’re moving to local processing (FLoC), but local processing comes with business risks that are offset by invasive bullshit. I’d rather have the Mozilla option. The protocol uses random noise to maintain privacy.

          Just like with Chrome, you can patch out any parts you don’t like, of course. For now that’ll work. Once this system is shut down and FLoC + client attestation become the norm, it won’t.

          As for a lot of the rest of your comment: you don’t seem to understand how the protocol works if you think Mozilla is selling data. I may have to give it to the tech lead, maybe he was right about informed consent not working on a system this complex.

          • wolf@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
            1·
            4 months ago
            • Concerning advertisement: I want the option to pay for content for myself, I do not want or intent to force this on other users. Although Netflix is moving in a bad direction, in the past I could pay their service and watch a movie/show w/o advertisement. I totally would not mind if Netflix lets me pay a reasonable amount and give other users the option to have a free, advertisement based plan.
            • One related fact: Even payed newspapers etc. since the start of the industries always relied on money from advertisement, there was AFAIK never an outlet which could survive on subscriptions/payed readers alone
            • Fair point about Mozilla not selling your data. But when you phrase it like this, Alphabet/Meta etc. are also not really selling your data (which is their golden goose, after all). I’ll still correct this.
            • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
              3·
              4 months ago

              Netflix pricing is quite reasonable already. The industry sucks, splitting subscription services into silos instead of taking on the music streaming model, but shows and movies are terribly expensive to make. People who get ads on Netflix are the ones without the income to pay the full amount, or who don’t care about ads I suppose.

              I think the Meta/Google comparison doesn’t hold water. The protocol in use here intentionally hides information about you specifically, whereas Google and Facebook will let advertisers gather information about specific users (based on some filters, like age and market demographic) once the advertisement has been shown.

              • wolf@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
                1·
                4 months ago

                Good points, but again: I would assume advertisers track/fingerprint you anyway, so we are not speaking about getting anonymized information from Mozilla but IMHO we are speaking about getting one more data point about you, which is easy to de-anonymize in combination with the rest of the information known about you.

                • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
                  1·
                  4 months ago

                  The whole point of this system is that you’re not being tracked by advertisers. They don’t get any additional information on you specifically through this system. Their existing tracking infrastructure and the data they receive from Mozilla cannot be linked together.

    • verdigris@lemmy.ml
      89·
      4 months ago

      It does not collect any more information about you. It provides far less information than pretty much every ad is already collecting, and that information is anonymized. It does not affect ad blocking solutions.

      So, serious question: what are you not understanding here?

      • wolf@lemmy.zipOPEnglish
        31·
        4 months ago

        … as already mentioned above:

        1. This will be just an additional data point about you sold out - no advertiser will dial back on all the other ways to collect data about you.
        2. Mozilla shows that it willingly and silently will sell your data out and they will increase this over time to make money/try to be the man in the middle.
        3. It does not matter at all if it affects ad blocking solutions, this is about tracking and profiling. Learn about browser fingerprinting and other techniques.
        4. This is built in to your browser, which is crossing a very important line.