this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2024
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (6 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Then you keep blocking ads and nothing changes for you.

The backlash here is wild and completely uninformed. This is only good for consumers, the ads that this will affect are already tracking you in more onerous ways.

[–] laughterlaughter 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

"They are already kicking you in the balls, so why not let Mozilla kick you too?"

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Lmao no this is Mozilla giving you a cup.

[–] laughterlaughter 0 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

You're still missing the point. I know what the tech does. But it's opt-out without user consent, not opt-in. And there is some phoning home for it to work, isn't there?

This is Mozilla pulling your pants down while you sleep, grabbing your balls to put the cup, pulling the pants back up, then carrying on as if nothing happened.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 3 months ago

Well, this isn't about you. If you're blocking ads anyways, there's going to be no data to report.

But Firefox needs webpage owners to be able to make a buck off of supporting Firefox. Otherwise, we'll see even more webpages suggesting to switch to Chrome.

[–] Phegan 13 points 3 months ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago

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.

[–] Ledivin 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Do you donate to FOSS software you use?

I do. Are there any other strawmen you'd like to throw at me?

[–] Feathercrown 1 points 3 months ago
[–] IzzyScissor 0 points 3 months ago (2 children)

"at me"?

Bruh, you're not who they were responding to. You don't have to insert yourself and then get defensive.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

The top level comment is a pretty generic and widely agreeable within privacy circles statement, so yeah the reply was reasonably interpreted to be directed at people who agree with the top level comment, not just the author of the comment specifically.

[–] Ledivin 1 points 3 months ago

It was against an opinion I agree with... I'm sorry for "inserting myself" into a completely public discussion on social media πŸ™„πŸ™„πŸ™„

[–] lmaydev 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Sow do you plan to pay sites for the resources you use?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 months ago

It depends, but mostly no. And if that means some sites are not economically possible, so be it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I do donate to sites I regularly use, and find this much preferable to ads. I think most people find this preferable to ads, given how much I see popular ad-free websites raising during donation drives.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Then keep blocking ads and opt out of it. Not that hard isn't it?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago

It's hard when I don't get told about it and find by chance.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

opt-out (instead of opt-in) should be illegal.

[–] Ledivin 1 points 3 months ago

It sure would have been if the community wasn't raging about it - most of us would have never learned it was turned on in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Well you can't have that because it guarantees you stay irrelevant and broke. Google did not make money off of you and you were never their target audience. Google and Chrome only ever existed because the majority of people click ads. Same thing here. Mozilla has been ad-funded since at least 2005.