Mozilla's Rally Will Share Your Data With Scientists Instead of Advertisers (engadget.com) 40
An anonymous reader shares a report: By this point in the internet's history, most of us have come to terms with the fact that accessing the web involves giving up information about ourselves every time we visit a website. Mozilla thinks we can do better, and so it's launching Rally, a data-sharing platform and plugin the company claims is the first-of-its-kind in the browser space. With Rally, Mozilla says it hopes to make a case for an equitable market for data, "one where every party is treated fairly" and "where people understand the value of their data." In practice, Rally will allow you to share your browsing data with computer scientists and sociologists studying the web. Out of the gate, they'll be a single study from Princeton University that seeks to understand how people find, consume and share news about politics and COVID-19. At some point later, Beyond the Paywall from Stanford University will examine the economics needed for a more sustainable news landscape.
Why share data at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean what will stop the scientist from sending the data it collected to advertisers later, so they can fund more research. Just because you consider yourself a scientist it doesn't make you a paragon of virtue. Besides with targeted ad's I just get Ads for products that I had just purchased, or at least ad's in stuff I am more vaguely interested in. Compared to the risk of my browsing habits being listed as Exhibit: 8.5 on a publicly posted paper.
Re:Why share data at all. (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
If you are an unethical person signing a piece of paper saying to you going to be ethical, otherwise face criminal action, isn't that big of a deterrent for someone willing to break the law or knows hows to skirt around it.
Lets just say you are ethical, however your grad student who is helping out on the project isn't so much, he takes a copy of the data, for him to do research while is is on break (say he is lives in an other country), when the new semester starts he never comes back. Yea you are probably
Re:Why share data at all. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, the people at Cambridge Analytica probably self-identified as (data) scientists.
Re: (Score:3)
They were data scientists. It's just that scientists are people, and have all the motivations of people.
Re: (Score:2)
So no thanks and no thanks.
Advertising is science (Score:2)
Given, that advertising is a science [apa.org] too, what exactly is the difference?
The current market is perfectly equitable already — all browser-users are treated exactly the same.
Re: (Score:2)
Given, that advertising is a science [apa.org] too, what exactly is the difference?
Advertising is a science the same way like psychiatry is a science - the difference being, the latter tries to cure insane people to improve humanity, while the former tries to manipulate sane ones for crass commercial purposes.
Re: (Score:2)
That's no difference at all, actually — the distinction you're giving based on the rather subjective terms like "crass". For example, were the scientists telling us [reuters.com], masks are useless — and possibly dangerous — "improving humanity"? Was their lying [nytimes.com] bad?
What, I guess, you were trying to say, is that Mozilla will give data to "good" scientists instead of "bad" ones. Which, of course, is just as pointless...
Re:Advertising is science (Score:5, Interesting)
No, there's a fundamental difference:
- Psychiatrists mess with unhinged minds to restore some sanity, ability to live independently, safety (for violent mental patients) and quality of life. They do so out of necessity, and probably out of a deep need for decent humans to help their brethren.
- Advertisers mess with perfectly working minds to bias them into performing unsound things, such as purchasing products the individual doesn't need, or creating want when there was none before.
Not only is a working mind a terrible thing to mess with, the desires and reflexes advertisers plant in them are proven to make people's lives generally more miserable, and increase financial hardship for no good reason.
Advertisers are unprincipled people, and a waste of humanity. Anybody with any sense of decency should avoid working for that particular industry.
Re: (Score:3)
That depends on, who employs a particular psychiatrist. Their skill can be applied to what you're listing as well as to improve interrogation techniques as well as to suppress political dissenters [wikipedia.org].
I'd prefer a guy trying to sell me a burger to those seeking to convince me (and my children), I'm a ra
Re: (Score:2)
Whitewashing. It's a proven technique in data gathering world, all the way down to national security organisations. NSA can't spy on US citizens in certain ways, but it can ask for certain information from allies. So GCHQ spies on americans and gives NSA the data. And so, NSA is not doing anything illegal while getting information it couldn't legally get on its own.
Wow (Score:1)
Hmm, yes... (Score:5, Insightful)
How about I share as little of my browing data with as few people as possible? Sorry sociologists and scientist...
You know what? 30 years ago when the web was new and innocent and so was I, I might have bitten. But now, after 30 years of privacy abuse and constant bombardment of intrusive advertisement and associated malware, you can all go fuck yourselves with a reamer - advertisers, scientists, Mozilla... the lot bally of you. My data stays with me whenever possible.
Incidentally, doesn't Mozilla have better things to do? Like for example make Firefox faster so it has a chance to challenge Chrome?
Re: (Score:3)
So here's a question for you:
Every browser (that I am aware of at least) trades "free!" for "your data"
Well, how about we go back to paying for a browser, that doesn't snarf up my info, or does such an option no longer exist?
Re: (Score:2)
> Incidentally, doesn't Mozilla have better things to do? Like for example make Firefox faster so it has a chance to challenge Chrome?
What makes you think Mozilla *wants* to challenge Chrome? Because every single action they've taken over the last several years now suggests that they really, really, DON'T want to do that. It would be biting the hand that feeds them.
(Besides, working on the browser requires developers, and having those means Baker wouldn't be able to continue to skim as many millions off
I guess I'm going to have to build a pi hole (Score:3)
There seem to be many places interested in harvesting my data.
A concerted effort to identify and collate, and publish which of them to block with a cheap in-line device seems to be appropriate. I'm pretty sure a pi 0 would be enough. I haven't messed with anything like this, may already be a solution.
When I hit a website with my browser that doesn't want to serve pages until I unblock it, there always seems to be plenty of other sites with whatever I'm looking for.
Re: I guess I'm going to have to build a pi hole (Score:2)
Is No An Option? (Score:2)
an equitable market for data
Is no an option? How about no market for my data?
Biased data? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Grumbling about invasions of privacy aside, is this a good idea even for science? Firefox users are a self-selected subgroup of web users. They've consciously decided to use something other than the default or most popular browser. Surely that drapes a cloud over any results gleaned from their data?
How would you ever get unbiased data?
I think that research about sociological things on the internet is important for society (e.g. which things increase political polarization, which things increase negative self-perceptions). I think the research should be done publicly. I think such research is impossible to do in an unbiased way unless you have access to all the data that the big companies have - but they have to keep it private.
Therefore, this research must be done, and doing it in a biased way (and th
Computer Scientists Working for Whom? (Score:3)
Cambridge Analytica (Score:2)
In the beginning... (Score:2)
By this point in the internet's history, most of us have come to terms with the fact that accessing the web involves giving up information about ourselves every time we visit a website.
Has it ever been different? Server logs have been a thing since there have been servers.
No thank you (Score:2)
I won't send you my data, sorry, because we don't live in a perfect world and, once my personal information has left my computer, I can no longer assume to have any control over it.
Please do (Score:2)
I'm currently doing a study on de-anonymizing data.
Fuck nosy Nellies (Score:2)
Well (Score:1)
Out of the gate, they'll be a single study from Princeton University that seeks to understand how people find, consume and share news about politics and COVID-19. At some point later, Beyond the Paywall from Stanford University will examine the economics needed for a more sustainable news landscape.
I see. So they'll just collect your activity and viewing regarding politics and hot topics with lots of political intersections.
Well, sounds good. Nothing could go wrong there!
More trifles, improve the fucking browser instead. (Score:2)
How about perfecting the browser instead of wanking on side projects?
Remember Phoenix? It was light and fast, a fine way to rise from Netscape's ashes.
Mozilla are bored with their browser and it shows, especially with cosmetic revisions (artists should be kept away from UI design).
Whaling (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, I know that one!! It's like Japan hunting whales "for science" right!? Right?
And by "scientists" we mean... (Score:2)
"Data scientists..."
And by "data scientists" we mean "data scientists that work for Uncle Sam."
Still sending the data to people (Score:2)
And where there's people, there's always going to be temptation. I think all they've done is switch from mozilla -> advertisers to mozilla -> "scientists" -> advertisers.
Define scientists (Score:2)
A lot of job postings for advertising companies are for "data scientists"
Mozilla are about to lose a trademark lawsuit (Score:2)
I suspect that Broadcom, owners of the long-term and successful software platform "Rally Software", might have something to say.
I get that checking registered trademarks can be a hassle, but this is obvious to anyone with access to google. Someone at Mozilla has fucked up royally.
Political Speech (Score:3)
This will be used to profile people based on their politics, to stifle political speech, and potentially to track and punish people based on their views.
What can possibly go wrong (Score:2)
fat lot of good their data gathering will do.... (Score:2)
Their data gathering will only grab a fraction of my browsing. I use more than one browser. Each has strong and weak points. So I use the browser that makes it easiest for me to work with the data needs at hand. Mozilla would only be getting a fraction of the information from me that there is to gather.
{^_^}