It means that they don't want tracking to stop. And you should _definitely_ trust them as well as all their partners.

Good on Mozilla for doing this. I want privacy when I'm on the internet, without having to resort to tor-like schemes

Tor-like schemes won't help you much as the tracking is done on the device.

Pretty much the old tobacco tactics.

Not good at all. I still trust Mozilla to a large degree but I definitely don't trust their partners. Mozilla needs money to operate, they need partners and they'll will have to give something to them in return for the money - that is all ok and just how things are. What is not ok is that associate so closely with shady operations like Cliqz for example.

I think there's a misunderstanding : the quote above does not come from Mozilla, but from one of the Digitrust people (Mitchell)

Here is the full quote :

“We know certain companies (Firefox) take the position that there is no sufficient consumer value to justify ‘tracking’ — anonymous audience recognition — of any kind, not even for use in communicating privacy choices,” Mitchell said. “They believe no third party can be trusted. We take a different position: that trust should be established directly between consumers and the brands, and publishers they trust, and with the third parties that those brands and publishers trust.”

You might want to clarify that the quote is from Jordan Mitchell from IAB, not Mitchell Baker from Mozilla. I was quite perplexed at first :).

It argues that you would _trust by proxy_. So: you trust the company (site) you're visiting, that company trusts third parties, and by proxy you trust those third parties.

The problem is that most people wouldn't trust those brands in the first place if they new what shady third parties they enlist.

Trust isn't transitive

clarification: this doesn't answer your question about what he means, this is a critique of what he said.

It's a hard to parse sentence, which is intentionally vague. It's weasel wording, basically.