Original toot:
It has come to my attention that many of the people complaining about #Firefox’s #PPA experiment don’t actually understand what PPA is, what it does, and what Firefox is trying to accomplish with it, so an explainer 🧵 is in order.
Targeted advertising sucks. It is invasive and privacy-violating, it enables populations to be manipulated by bad actors in democracy-endangering ways, and it doesn’t actually sell products.
Nevertheless, commercial advertisers are addicted to the data they get from targeted advertising. They aren’t going to stop using it until someone convinces them there’s something else that will work better.
“Contextual advertising works better.” Yes, it does! But, again, advertisers are addicted to the data, and contextual advertising provides much less data, so they don’t trust it.
What PPA says is, “Suppose we give you anonymized, aggregated data about which of your ads on which sites resulted in sales or other significant commitments from users?” The data that the browser collects under PPA are sent to a third-party (in Firefox’s case, the third party is the same organization that runs Let’s Encrypt; does anybody think they’re not trustworthy?) and aggregated and anonymized there. Noise is introduced into the data to prevent de-anonymization.
This allows advertisers to “target” which sites they put their ads on. It doesn’t allow them to target individuals. In Days Of Yore, advertisers would do things like ask people to bring newspapers ads into the store or mention a certain phrase to get deals. These were for collecting conversion statistics on paper ads. Ditto for coupons. PPA is a way to do this online.
Is there a potential for abuse? Sure, which is why the data need to be aggregated and anonymized by a trusted third party. If at some point they discover they’re doing insufficient aggregation or anonymization, then they can fix that all in one place. And if the work they’re doing is transparent, as compared to the entirely opaque adtech industry, the entire internet can weigh in on any bugs in their algorithms.
Is this a utopia? No. Would it be better than what we have now? Indisputably. Is there a clear path right now to anything better? Not that I can see. We can keep fighting for something better while still accepting this as an improvement over what we have now.
Man alive, I thought that Mozilla had been doing their own Personal Package Archives so that we didn’t have to deal with Ubuntu packaging it as a Snap anymore. And this is doubly disappointing.
Completely facile argument, right there in the last sentence.
We can keep fighting for something better while still accepting this as an improvement over what we have now.
YOU BUILT THE FUCKING THING. Just turn it off and go away. Tada, we now have something better: no privacy-violating data at all.
Who’s forcing you to make advertisers happy? Don’t answer that, because I don’t care. You can’t pretend to be about privacy and then build things that help advertisers violate it.
This one’s also pretty funny btw:
If at some point they discover they’re doing insufficient aggregation or anonymization, then they can fix that all in one place.
Advertisers don’t give a shit. They have zero motivation to fix anonymization. They’re not going to HELP us get rid of privacy violations.
Just turn it off and go away. Tada, we now have something better: no privacy-violating data at all.
Well, yes. Except for the fact that advertisers now have an excuse to try more invasive things to get to their data
Advertisers don’t give a shit. They have zero motivation to fix anonymization. They’re not going to HELP us get rid of privacy violations.
That’s why a trusted third party is handling this. They care a lot, because of they fumble it they are now an untrusted third party and someone else will take care of the anonymization part
Well, yes. Except for the fact that advertisers now have an excuse to try more invasive things to get to their data
They’re going to do this anyway. As far as Firefox is concerned, it’s the browser’s job to stop them. That’s what Firefox is selling: privacy
because of they fumble it they are now an untrusted third party
Assuming I take this for granted, they have already fumbled it by turning on an anti-privacy feature without consent. They can no longer be trusted. Not that you ever should have trusted them because whatever motivation they have for pure moral behavior now, that will change with the wind when more VC money gets involved, or there’s been a change in management.
And firefox has ALREADY had a recent change in management, which is probably why THIS is happening NOW. They just bought an adtech firm for pete’s sake. Don’t trust other people with your data. At all.
Did you even read the article or are you just hating? There is a will known additional non profit that is well known and trusted by probably everyone that knows about it. This nonprofit is handling the anonymization.
The fact that mozilla does’t understand what user consent is, is alarming about where they are heading.
If they didn’t understand user consent, would they really have the ability to opt out? I get that you’re on your soap box and seething with anger, but let’s not devolve into ludicrous nonsensical reframing.
When Chrome asks the user to activate a similar feature while Firefox doesn’t - welp, no. They don’t understand user consent.
Imagine finding a Mozilla microphone under your dining table. “Oh, but you can remove it and toss it. That’s understanding user consent!”
This is bullshit. The total amount of advertising I want is zero. The total amount I want of tracking is zero. The total amount of experiments I want run on my data without consent is, guess, zero.
Then keep blocking ads and opt out of it. Not that hard isn’t it?
It’s hard when I don’t get told about it and find by chance.
Sow do you plan to pay sites for the resources you use?
It depends, but mostly no. And if that means some sites are not economically possible, so be it.
Do you donate to FOSS software you use?
Your options are ads or donations. As it costs money to develop and host a lot of FOSS, in our capitalist world, it’s impossible to offer a service without somehow receiving money to continue to provide that service.
Yes, for example I donate to thunderbird since I find it useful. And I wouldn’t mind donating to Firefox either provided they wouldn’t do this sort of fuckery.
though in the long run we need to overturn capitalism of course, and that an economic model is viable doesn’t mean we should sustain it or justify it.
Mozilla: We want to offer anonymised data so advertiser stop trying to track you with shady means. You can opt ou tho.
Privacy ultras: WHY YOU WANT DATA?!
Mozilla: …
The problem for me is not that they implemented this. The problem is that they TURNED IT ON without my consent!
