this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2024
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222
Firefox enables user tracking (mstdn.social)
submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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... 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.
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[–] [email protected] -5 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 0 points 4 months ago (1 children)

https://github.com/mozilla/explainers/tree/main/ppa-experiment

Check out the second and third paragraphs in particular.

This initial implementation is just to test the actual API, so I don't believe sites using it will be blocking the other tracking yet, but once this API is tested and starts to see adoption, the goal is replacing tracking with this anonymized attribution.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 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!