Comment on "Privacy-Preserving" Attribution: Mozilla Disappoints Us Yet Again

Lodra@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

• cley_faye@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Sometimes I just get tired of having to fight against software to have it behave in a semi-decent way. The same way you technically “can” run a decent windows installation after removing/disabling/blocking a ton of stuff, I don’t really want a browser that can be trusted after you had to tinker with dozens of settings to just get back to basic non-intrusive behavior.

  I said this in another thread on the same topic somewhere else, but considering user tracking as an inevitability that we have to accept means we’ve already lost on that front.

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  • Lodra@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Wow. I 100% agree with you here.

    There’s an element of trust when you buy a product. You trust that the product itself isn’t malicious and is intended to help you in some way. E.g. “This food is safely prepared and won’t poison me.” Harvesting user data and advertising really violate that trust.

    Though it is worth noting that we don’t buy web browsers. We simply use them for “free“.

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• Don_alForno@feddit.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  Sadly, tracking is the only way to perform attribution without help from the browser. Tracking is terrible for privacy, because it gives companies detailed information about what you do online. While Firefox includes many privacy protections that make it more difficult for sites to track you online (Enhanced Tracking Protection, Total Cookie Protection, Query Parameter Stripping, and many other measures), there’s a huge incentive for sites to find ways around these in order to perform attribution. Our hope is that if we develop a good attribution solution, it will offer a real alternative to more objectionable practices like tracking.

  “Our hope is, that if we transfer the bank robber some of our money in advance, they’ll not come in and rob all of it.”

  No! Jail the fucker!

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  • Lodra@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    While I appreciate your sentiment, this just isn’t realistic in the current state of the world. First, you need to make these kind of tactics illegal enough to incarcerate a person. Second, you need to expand and enforce this law globally. We definitely need this level of global cooperation, but are also soooo far away from achieving it

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    • Don_alForno@feddit.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I mean they don’t have to literally jail advertisers (although I’d love that). I’d agree with hefty fines. Which, while not perfect, several EU laws have shown is possible unilaterally (e.g. Apple allowing third party app stores in the EU, albeit kicking and screaming).

      I agree that it’s a mountain to climb, but we sure won’t reach the summit if we walk in the other direction.

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      • Lodra@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        The EU is a large enough governing body to have a significant global impact. And I truly appreciate the progress it makes on important subjects.

        However, it’s still not effective enough. Apple doesn’t allow third party app stores in countries outside the EU.

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• ParetoOptimalDev@lemmy.today ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I agree.

  Imagine a world where Chrome doesn’t exist and instead Firefox + privacy preserving attribution is the default for all of the people who won’t listen to your reasons why they shouldn’t use chrome or say “I don’t need privacy, I have nothing to hide”.

  It seems like Mozilla is trying to do the browser equivalent of shifting the overton window and I’m for that.

  However I’ll be monitoring them very very closely.

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  • Lodra@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Ya this is definitely one to maintain some skepticism about. People are criticizing the API’s security in other posts.

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• sunbeam60@lemmy.one ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  You’re not wrong.

  Whether you like it or not a lot of the internet relies on advertisement to work.

  Some sites can introduce subscription fees and they can get out of it (I’d personally like that), some sites aren’t really sites but just optimising towards ad revenue (with all the shady practices that follow), but most produce valuable content for their users and rely on advertisement to sustain themselves.

  So if we want to find a way to support that large center group, without enabling the crappy bottom tier, we have to make profiling safer. Well we don’t have to, we can dream of a safer, better world and try to bring it about by creating revolutions, but if we are practical, creating something that enables what the advertisement industry would like, without destroying what the users would like, is a far more realistic approach to making the world better.

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  • ahal@lemmy.ca ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    You’re absolutely correct.

    Some folks here just want to ban ads outright, but don’t stop to think what that would mean. The one that frightens me is what happens to the already crumbling news industry when they additionally lose all advertising revenue? And don’t say subscriptions, because those won’t come close to cutting it. Maybe a couple outlets like the Times could survive, but all the others are going under.

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  • Lodra@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Exactly. There is a general need to destroy and rebuild a system but it is often dangerous and costly. Especially with regard to a system of laws and government. Improving the system more naturally is far more safe and more achievable at smaller scales.

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• MonkderDritte@feddit.de ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  • It’s an attempt to replace cross site tracking methods, which are terrible

  Doesn’t work with total cookie protection anyway.

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  • Lodra@programming.dev ⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    Exactly. It sounds like Mozilla is trying to protect those that aren’t willing or able to protect themselves. It’s a noble reason to do just a little bit of evil. This is roughly the source of my mixed feelings on the subject.

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