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Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by perihelions on Monday July 15, 2024 @06:13PM (#40971911)
But *what's in it for the user?*

- "in the absence of alternatives, there are enormous economic incentives for advertisers to try to bypass these countermeasures, leading to a perpetual arms race that we may not win"

It's in the user's interest to attempt to appease the spammers? It's in the user's interest to voluntarily hand over some personal, private information about themselves, to commercial stalkers, in hopes that–what–satiates the data harvesters?

Is this Mozilla's position?

Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by ineptech on Monday July 15, 2024 @07:04PM (#40972253)
I don't think this is fair. It's not like we have great privacy now, and Mozilla is in danger of giving it away; advertisers already fingerprint your browser and tie your traffic back to a real-world identity today. I don't think PPA would help them do that any better at all.

Mozilla's position is, instead of the arms race to hide/identify traffic, if the browser builds in a way to measure conversions that doesn't rely giving up your identity then advertisers have less need of getting at your identity through other means. (And they haven't said this, but I assume the next step is, if advertisers can measure conversions then it becomes easier to envision legal countermeasures in the form of regulation)

Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by bdjsiqoocwk on Monday July 15, 2024 @06:42PM (#40972100)
Yes. They're just surrendering.
Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by gjsman-1000 on Monday July 15, 2024 @06:20PM (#40971957)
Well, they’ve been trying to fight the advertisers for, oh, 2 decades now; and the advertisers have basically won every fight repeatedly. This is combined with Firefox market share declining to the point that if they do not at least somewhat placate the advertisers, the advertisers could simply block Firefox en-masse and survive. Time for a new strategy.
Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by roblabla on Monday July 15, 2024 @06:35PM (#40972063)
> the advertisers could simply block Firefox en-masse and survive

And why would firefox users care about advertisers blocking firefox? Oh noes, ads aren’t showing up in my browser!

Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by squigz on Monday July 15, 2024 @06:50PM (#40972152)
I think Firefox users would care if they suddenly couldn't access a large part of the Internet on Firefox.
Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by gjsman-1000 on Monday July 15, 2024 @06:55PM (#40972188)
Believe me, the advertisers are probably watching the whole Manifest v3 rollout in Chrome very closely; and weighing the odds that, if they block Firefox, they’ll be able to kill it off completely and have ads for everyone.
Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by account42 on Wednesday July 17, 2024 @04:29AM (#40983659)
Why would websites bother with an arms race to block a browser barely anyone uses?
Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by ZhongXina on Tuesday July 16, 2024 @04:11AM (#40974503)
Which two decades? They haven't even began trying to fight advertisers. There are a few browsers with aggressive ad blocker shipped out of the box; Firefox is not one of them.
Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by account42 on Wednesday July 17, 2024 @04:27AM (#40983654)
> Well, they’ve been trying to fight the advertisers for, oh, 2 decades now; and the advertisers have basically won every fight repeatedly.

Who has been fighting the advertisers? Mozilla? No, they haven't even included a basic ad blocker with FF, only some lackluster "tracking protection" that barely anyone is going to enable (while implementing whatever new privacy leaks Google proposes). If the advertisers have won any fights it is only because Mozilla hasn't even bothered to show up.

Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by Dalewyn on Monday July 15, 2024 @06:35PM (#40972064)
Mozilla themselves siphon telemetry (eg: incoming.telemetry.mozilla.org), they're at best a faux defender of privacy.

Seriously, they don't deserve peoples' support.

Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by squigz on Monday July 15, 2024 @06:50PM (#40972156)
What's wrong with telemetry?
Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by msla on Monday July 15, 2024 @07:02PM (#40972234)
It is a violation of privacy.
Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by squigz on Monday July 15, 2024 @07:05PM (#40972255)
How so?
Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by basscomm on Tuesday July 16, 2024 @08:23AM (#40975851)
Because once I get a product from a vendor, it's none of the vendor's business how I use the product unless I want to tell them about it.

Software vendors seem to think that they're entitled to this information because they really want it, but they're wrong.

Re:A word about private attribution in Firefox by exsomet on Tuesday July 16, 2024 @09:12AM (#40976241)
> Telemetry is the in situ collection of measurements or other data at remote points and their automatic transmission to receiving equipment for monitoring.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemetry

Telemetry’s incompatibility with privacy is self-evident.