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Privacy-Preserving Attribution: Testing for a New Era of Privacy in Digital Advertising
(blog.mozilla.org)
this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2024
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And website operators will be compelled to adopt this, how? They will likely just use PPA and also all of the tracking tools, or straight up not give a shit about PPA. Mozilla does not have the influence to affect real change. Until such a time, all of this is just worthless posturing.
Mozilla by itself doesn't have the influence to change it, but with Mozilla's help (i.e. this experiment), others do. Specifically, legislators can have more freedom to implement strict privacy-protecting measures if they have proof that an alternative is available that doesn't cost lots of voters their jobs.
But you can't provide that proof if you don't run the experiment.
Wait, what solution are you proposing? That every browser becomes a centralized point of data collection for advertisement companies, and that the government mandates it?!
Google and Brave already want to do that, Mozilla is just stepping into the fray as a browser with less than 3% of a market share. There is nothing compelling to advertisers about a proprietary Mozilla solution.
No, of course not :) I am proposing that governments curb privacy-invasive tracking, i.e. that the only way advertisers will have left to measure the impact of their ads, is non-invasive methods like PPA.
Why would a Firefox fan endorse the state coming down on the side of a Facebook made proposal? I remember when Mozilla used to be about fighting big tech corporations, not empowering them through state-mandated monopolies.
Because the proposal itself appears to be good? I am not tribal enough to reject world peace if Facebook proposes it.
I also don't see how the proposal would lead to a Facebook monopoly.
If the Boeing Corporation started building "world peace" weapons silently into their commercial aircraft without telling anybody, I would question their commitment to world peace.
When Mozilla, an AdTech company, builds extra advertising data collection into Firefox, I question their commitment to privacy and not simply selling ads.
Firefox already blocks all trackers by default. I think Mozilla is trying to be the good guy by providing a more private option that’s available to people that don’t use Firefox. It seems pretty naive, but I think their heart is in the right place.
At the end of the day, this is just another setting to toggle off on a fresh install for those of us against all tracking and advertising on the web.
There's also the bit where if it doesn't work out no real harm is done (to users - there's obviously reputation damage to Mozilla now): people who already block things by default are not affected at all, and no new information is shared about those who don't. Whereas the upside if it does work out is enormous. In other words, low risk, high gain. Even with low odds, that's a path worth exploring.