Mozilla Acquires Ad Metrics Firm Anonym (theregister.com) 29
Mozilla has acquired ad metrics firm Anonym in a move to "support user privacy" while delivering effective online advertising. Anonym, founded by former Meta executives in 2022, helps advertisers and ad networks measure the performance of online ads while preserving user privacy. The acquisition comes amid growing consumer concerns and regulatory scrutiny over current data practices in the advertising industry.
Mozilla CEO Laura Chambers sees this as a pivotal shift in the coexistence of privacy and advertising. Mozilla maintains that advertising is the underlying business model of the web, but it can be reformed to minimize societal harms.
Mozilla CEO Laura Chambers sees this as a pivotal shift in the coexistence of privacy and advertising. Mozilla maintains that advertising is the underlying business model of the web, but it can be reformed to minimize societal harms.
Gotta make sure (Score:4, Insightful)
Makes sense. Gotta make sure users are properly lubed before they're brutally anally raped by in browser ads and tracking.
Mozilla Acquires (Score:2)
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Sure, okay. (Score:4, Interesting)
Mozilla has acquired ad metrics firm Anonym in a move to "support user privacy" ...
So the Fox will guard... the fox den... in order to protect the chickens?
[shakes head] Never mind, which row in uBO do I toggle to red to handle this?
These are the stakes. (Score:5, Insightful)
With Google using their near monopoly on browser to rewrite web standards to cripple ad-blocking Firefox is the best alternative on many platforms as it does not respect their bullshit.
Will this continue to be true? Maybe uBlock Origin is the first casualty here. I genuinely do not understand how people use websites without multiple layers of ad blocking. It's an absolute cesspool.
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Agreed. I was just poking a little fun at the irony of this acquisition.
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I genuinely do not understand how people use websites without multiple layers of ad blocking.
I think that for folks like us to understand that, we'd have to go through some traumatic conversion process of the type which, in the space of a minute, turns some people into fundamentalist Christians.
Seriously, I consider people who put up with all the ads, and barely complain about them, to be almost a different species. Certainly, we and they are at least from different cultures, even though we all nominally share the same general culture.
Hell, I've read comments here which condone, and even commend, a
Mozilla is a puzzling organization (Score:5, Insightful)
They're the only thing standing against Google's final dystopic Chromium monoculture and one of the stupidest and most infuriating company operating on the internet.
We need Mozilla badly but I can't help but hate their guts at the same time, because they've consistently made appalling decisions for decades. Just imagine what they could have done with the money they've had over the years if they weren't complete tools... It's madderning.
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Just imagine what they could have done with the money they've had over the years if they weren't complete tools... It's madderning.
OTOH, imagine how much money Mozilla execs could have given themselves if they raped their users' privacy... guess what greedy humans would do?
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It seems like another bad business decision, because it's clearly aimed at competing with Google's Privacy Sandbox. Mozilla just doesn't have the influence to succeed here, nobody is going to deploy their privacy-protecting ad tech when Firefox is at 2.8% market share.
They should have engaged more with the Privacy Sandbox development process, and committed to their own implementation that addresses the privacy issues they have. It's fundamentally a reasonable idea, it just needs careful implementation. At l
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They should have engaged more with the Privacy Sandbox development process, and committed to their own implementation that addresses the privacy issues they have. It's fundamentally a reasonable idea,
I don't see how it is a fundamentally reasonable idea.
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Assuming you think that some amount of ad targeting is necessary to fund the web, which Mozilla does, then Privacy Sandbox is a reasonable way to go about it. It greatly reduces the amount of information available to advertisers, down to just a partial list of potential interests. Combined with removal of 3rd party cookie support, and reducing other bits of information that the browser provides like the user agent string, it makes tracking much less effective. No data is sent to Google or anything like that
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Assuming you think that some amount of ad targeting is necessary to fund the web
So basically if you start with a fundamentally false assumption, then you will be led to further confused conclusions. Got it.
Good analysis of the situation.
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So how would you prefer the web was funded?
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There are plenty of methods to get funding in the modern web. From outright subscriptions, to things like Patreon, to micro payments, or even online stores. Twitch shows that people are willing to pay real money to watch things they like.
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Perhaps you can understand why from a regulator's point of view, "bankrupt a good portion of websites because they are a waste of time" is not something they would likely accept from a major browser vendor such as Google.
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They wouldn't be. I mean the regulator is unlikely to accept bankrupting many of their competitors by changing the tool with which people access those websites. It would be monopolistic and anti-competitive.
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Spending US$20M of donation money to buy Pocket was the big flashing warning sign to me. Pocket, as a cloud service, gives Mozilla information on what you're using it for. I used to use Scrapbook+ to do the same job, only locally, but Mozilla destroyed the functionality it depended on when they moved away from the old extensions model and chose not to replace it with anything. I cannot see this as anything but a deliberate decision made to support their ability to collect information about you through Pocke
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They're not and haven't been for nearly 15 years and counting. Pale Moon [palemoon.org] is the browser that Firefox used to be and could have been now.
Buys ad network to "support user privacy" (Score:1)
Sounds about as genuine as "we value your custom" when heard for the hundredth time while waiting on hold.
Geez, Mozilla has broken through rock bottom to create a new rock bottom.
Good Move (Score:2)
Mozilla has always behaved sketchy since being the "Internet Privacy Company" almost entirely reliant on $350M/yr from the "Internet Surveillance Company".
If they could make a private metrics system the next stop could be a private ads system which could make themselves self-sustaining.
Neat (Score:5, Insightful)
Now I can choose between the browser made by an advertising company, or the browser made by a company that owns an advertising company.
In a move to support user privacy (Haaaar!) (Score:2)
At least tell it like it REALLY is... (Score:2)
Mozilla CEO Laura Chambers sees this as a pivotal shift in the coexistence of privacy and advertising.
How to tell us that you're bending over and spreading...
Mozilla maintains that advertising is the underlying business model of the web, but it can be reformed to minimize societal harms.
...without even asking them to lube you up first.
BTW dear Laura, you're asking us Firefox users to bend over too, without the benefit of K-Y. For my part, the answer is "hell no!"
while preserving user privacy (Score:3)
We will blindfold ourselves while we data-rape you. Its okay because you could be anyone.
Advertisers _only_ want interests (Score:2)
There is a big public list of things advertisers need:. However, it's of the form of "interests"
- Dave is interested in a Subaru
- ditto for car accessories
Both were true, although once I bought the Outback, only the second was true. So I got ads for trailer hitches and roof racks, which were what I sort-of wanted.
All the other stuff that gets collected? Not needed by advertisers, but definitely wanted by third parties.
Only in 2024 (Score:3)
Only in 2024 would someone string these words together and actually think they said something.
"support user privacy" while delivering effective online advertising
That there is a whole heaping pile of steaming shit. You can support user privacy, or you can shovel targeted ads at them. You can't do both. What we're witnessing is Mozilla giving up on the privacy side of things, while somehow convincing themselves that if they just wish hard and loud enough, they can be an ad agency *AND* value user privacy. Well, fuckos, that's two diametrically opposed ideas right there. And when you start selling your raped-in data to third parties because that's how you can make more money? Well, we won't bother to say we saw it comin'. There's fuckin' infants that can see it coming.