this post was submitted on 07 Aug 2024
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Privacy
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If I understand all this correctly, Mozilla teamed up with Meta to create a method that helps advertisers in a user privacy-friendly way. Aside from the initial trigger people have here reading the word "Meta" or by just the existence of ads, is there any problematic with this, without going really deep into tinfoil hat territory?
Also, am I understanding it correctly that the outrage is mainly because this feature is enabled by default? So again, a function that helps protecting your privacy, is enabled by default? Because, it seems most people just offended by only this fact alone.
But I'm maybe missing something here.
Yeah, they failed to communicate it. Which people chose to interpret in the most uncharitable way. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." - Hanlon's razor
Misconceptions about Firefox's Privacy Preserving Ad Measurement – Andrew Moore
Of course people who complain about this loudly are most likely people who block all ads and tracking anyway so it doesn't even affect them. My ideal would be the total ban of all advertising. Then let the free market sort it out lol.
Because Mozilla promised us privacy, and "privacy-friendly" ad tracking is still worse privacy than not baking ad tracking into the browser in the first place.
And they tried to sneak it in under the radar because they knew they were being sketchy.
I don't think "privacy" works in a way you snap your fingers, and bam, you have privacy, without any progress or stations in your way. Especially in today's web. Also, it's not just on Mozilla. On the contrary. I feel like Mozilla is the only "bigger name" in this market who tries to navigate in this shitstormy sea that is the web now.
Tho, it's just me, but it sounds much better if my browser handles all the tracking and data sharing business in a controlled manner with advertisers in a "privacy-friendly" way than no control overall (especially since it's Firefox and not Chrome/Edge), hoping only the other side would respect my preferences and requests.
But in the end, as I read other comments here, the problem is just the default state of the checkbox, got it. Feels a bit silly - in this particular case - but I can understand it.
Does not "help protecting privacy", that is marketing. It's a system for ads that track you in a more privacy-friendly way then other alternatives.
Peoples are mostly angry at the fact that they just silently slipped this system in without asking for consent.
But why? Does it expose more data? More sensitive data than before?
What I don't get, but maybe because of the lack of information I have on the topic is that if it's better in terms of data privacy than before, or is it better if it's turned on than off, why is it such a great problem, if it's turned on by default? In this case, not turning it on would be something that one should be noted. Any technical, real-world reasons why not giving my consent to enable this feature gives reason to get mad, or is this really just about "not having a choice", regardless the outcome?
Exactly. That's also the issue there. It was opt-out by default AND didn't seemed to give enough info to the end-user about what it does, and why it would be better to keep it enabled. Most people, complain about the forced default decision without any notice, and without any appropriate info to understand if it was a decent change or not. You should only enable it, IF you understand and ablige to what it does.
I understand this, thanks. But still feels way too overreacted. But now, that's just what I think about this.