Mozilla Pulls Advertising from Facebook (betanews.com) 82
An anonymous reader shares a report: Mozilla is not happy with Facebook. Not happy at all. Having already started a petition to try to force the social network to do more about user privacy, the company has now decided to withdraw its advertising from the platform. The organization is voting with its money following the misuse of user data by Cambridge Analytica, as it tries to force Facebook into taking privacy more seriously. Mozilla says that it is not happy to financially support a platform that does not do enough to protect user privacy. But the company is not severing ties completely. It says that advertising is being "paused" and that if the right steps are taken by Facebook "we'll consider returning."
Probably a net win (Score:4)
From everything I've read, the value of advertising on Facebook is pretty questionable.
Facebook is so noisy normally, I'm not sure how people would even see ads apart from those annoying product adds embedded in the timeline view.
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I'm not sure how people would even see ads...
Depends on the ad. A lot of ads are crafted to look like normal FB posts with only a small "Suggested App" or "Sponsored" identifier at the top to indicate that it's advertising.
Still not useful (Score:2)
Depends on the ad. A lot of ads are crafted to look like normal FB posts with only a small "Suggested App" or "Sponsored" identifier at the top to indicate that it's advertising.
Right, but then it looks like a post - where the normal action is to scan quickly and move on. If an ad is not going to get you to click through, it's not very impactful as people's memories are terrible.
I've seen the exact ads you mention, while they are probably more useful than other kinds of ads I still doubt they have a large
Re:Still not useful (Score:5, Insightful)
...while they are probably more useful than other kinds of ads I still doubt they have a large impact.
I wouldn't expect most forms of advertising to have much of an impact, but companies are putting out a LOT of money betting that I'm wrong.
Re:Still not useful (Score:4, Insightful)
...while they are probably more useful than other kinds of ads I still doubt they have a large impact.
I wouldn't expect most forms of advertising to have much of an impact, but companies are putting out a LOT of money betting that I'm wrong.
There's an old gag about half of advertising spending being a waste of money, but no-one knows which half.
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There are degrees in hell too.
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There are degrees in hell too.
Mozilla seems hellbent[1] on getting a trophy in each of the degrees of hell. They're so busy making themselves irrelevant that not advertising on facebook would barely register. Pity. They had a good browser once.
[1] See what I did there? :-)
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And a never ending argument about whether they should be using Fahrenheit or Celsius. Heaven is in Kelvin.
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I'd consider that we can't get truly private browsing until an inheritance scheme for all browser-stored data is used so that cookies for site X referred by site A are stored differently compared to if X is referred by site B.
And this applies not only to cookies but any cached content so X sees me as a new user for every new site I access that embeds trackers from X.
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BS. The distinctions Obama's bootlickers are trying to make in that article are without difference. There is nothing illegal or even unethical about Obama campaign's use of Facebook data, but neither is there anything wrong with CA's use of it. Can we use your FB-data for research? Yeah, sure. Ok, thank you...
Your article outright lies too. For example, its claim that
is
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Not a big pale Moon fan. The author is a dick.
I don't care much about that. Being a dick seems to go with the job, and Moonchild is FAR from alone in that regard among the people who head up major projects. What I care about is that I still have a browser that supports all the FF extensions I have come to rely on, along with a sane and configurable UI, instead of Mozilla's flavour-of-the-month-and-users-be-damned bullshit.
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See this article: No, Obama Didn’t Employ the Same Strategies as Cambridge Analytica.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/... [washingtonmonthly.com]
Because the person who ran the Obama campaign says that what they did was different and OK.
Right.
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The personality test collected information of users Facebook friends, and participants agreed to have their data collected for academic use.
Also the Facebook android app will download information about all your contacts if you agree to letting it find your friends. So you might have a shadow profile on Facebook even if you don't have an account, when your friend uses the Facebook app. And there is no way to opt out.
Mozilla Advertises ? (Score:1)
Re:Any group that suddenly cares (Score:5, Insightful)
There is a distinct difference between using Facebooks API collecting information about visitors while following the terms they agreed to and someone with access provided for research using it to slurp up data on everyone then proceeding to sell it. If you can't understand it then it suggests you don't have a grasp of ethics.
If you care at all about privacy you should be happy about the scrutiny, these are far from the only actors collecting data.
What ethics? (Score:2)
There was no ethical difference to users when Facebook slurped up data and sold it to Democrats versus when Cambridge Analytics slurped up data and sold it to Republicans.
Sure there was a difference to Facebook, but to the rest of us it's the same thing.
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This has been going on for decades. But yeah act like it didn't happen before.
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You don't have a grasp of reality. This is Facebook's business model. They sell your information
Actually it isn't Facebooks business model, they don't make any money by selling your information. What Facebook does is sells access to your eyeballs and they're willing to slice n' dice the userbase based on criteria.
Credit card companies, magazines, etc. all do however.
I'm sure (Score:2)
wait, mozilla advertises? (Score:2)
guess that means they have a hit/recognition factor of 0. save your money.
Yeah, right. (Score:3)
Privacy is important to Mozilla (Score:1, Troll)
Mozilla Foundation will rely on illegally leaked IRS records for their decision-making. None of this Facebook stuff -- because privacy.
Facebook's business model (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook's business model is analyzing and selling user data. They're not going to change it at all. User privacy goes against their core values, they only really support the illusion of it.
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...Oh, I bet they change quite a bit. As you said, their business model is selling user data... not giving it away for free.
From the FB POV, this essentially amounts to theft - no wonder they are bumping the security force and screening apps, etc. If your house was broken into and valuables stolen, you'd likely increase security, too!
Loose the noise---Loose Facebook (Score:1)
Whole point of facebook is to BE public. (Score:2)
Isn't that why people use it? To put yourself out there to the public?
Or to put it another way, those that want privacy don't use facebook.
The whole point of Facebook (Score:2)
is to hoover up as much data as they can and make a profit from it all while pretending to be nothing more than an innocent Social Media platform where friends and family can keep in touch.
I'm curious what " privacy " can reasonably be expected or even demanded from such an entity whose sole purpose is information brokerage ?
Good! (Score:2)
The hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it funny that just a few versions ago Mozilla was doing privacy-invading shit, now they're calling upon Facebook to be more responsible with user privacy.
Give me a break.
too little (Score:1)
Shocked, shocked to find, user data is being sold! (Score:4, Insightful)
The same "misuse" occurred in 2012 [ijr.com], when it was hailed as Obama's genius [investors.com] and "mastery of Big Data". I don't understand, why anyone would use Facebook — and allow them to sell one's data — but to be suddenly scandalized by Cambridge Analytica's use of it is just blatant hypocrisy.
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I'd delete my FB account over this, but... I never made one in the first place. Selling our private data has always been their business model and I've been using various extensions to prevent them from siphoning the info from me since the beginning because it was so damned obvious.
The real problem, though, is how they siphon your data from your friends & relatives and you can't do much about that because you never gave it to FB to begin with. So it's about 10 years too late to be scandalized by all th
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Oh, yes, he did [time.com]:
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Oh, well, if Snopes finds a fault in Republicans, while white-washing Democrats, that's a real shocker... Every word must be true.
Bullshit — every campaign involves a multitude of "parties", who share the information. Each of those qualifies as "a third" party...