Mozilla enabled ads in Firefox and they're active in Fedora
Abdur-Rahman Morgan
arm at tearms.org
Mon Nov 17 04:49:55 UTC 2014
Hi,
I just wanted to make a recommendation based on a few comments that were
made thus far.
On 11/16/2014 11:11 PM, Christopher wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 3:54 PM, Nikos Roussos
> <comzeradd at fedoraproject.org <mailto:comzeradd at fedoraproject.org>> wrote:
>
> On 11/16/2014 08:24 PM, Christopher wrote:
> > On Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 6:46 AM, Mustafa Muhammad
> > <mustafaa.alhamdaani at gmail.com
> <mailto:mustafaa.alhamdaani at gmail.com>
> <mailto:mustafaa.alhamdaani at gmail.com
> <mailto:mustafaa.alhamdaani at gmail.com>>>
> > wrote:
> >
> > On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 4:25 PM, Lars Seipel <lars.seipel at gmail.com <mailto:lars.seipel at gmail.com>
> > <mailto:lars.seipel at gmail.com <mailto:lars.seipel at gmail.com>>> wrote:
> > > So Mozilla has recently gone live with its advertisement tiles on the
> > > "New Tab" page. Only newly created profiles get to see this stuff.
> > >
> > > On a pristine F21 install using Gnome, when first launching Firefox,
> > > users are presented with a number of tiles, depending on screen size.
> > > One of those is a so-called "sponsored" tile chosen from a range of
> > > available advertisements (e.g. forbooking.com <http://booking.com>
> > <http://booking.com>, there's also one for the
> > > Snowden movie), apparently depending on geographical location.
> > >
> > > When this "feature" got originally announced[1], there was a
> > discussion
> > > on -devel if this kind of stuff is really appropriate for
> Fedora.
> > >
> > > Some time later Mozilla seemed to have canceled the
> feature, quoting
> > > "That’s not going to happen. That’s not who we are at
> Mozilla." as one
> > > of the reasons[2].
> > >
> > > Apparently, they (again) reconsidered, pushing the feature to
> > nightlies
> > > a few months ago. Well, it now hit the stable branch and,
> therefore,
> > > Fedora.
> > >
> > > This is how Mozilla pitches the feature to advertisers[3]:
> > >
> > >> To support ad personalization, Mozilla created an internal
> data
> > system
> > >> that aggregates user information while stripping out
> personally
> > >> identifiable information. Mozilla can track impressions,
> clicks,
> > and the
> > >> number of ads a user hides or pins. Its advertising
> partners are also
> > >> privy to that data.
> > >
> > > Personally, I don't think that showing advertisements on
> the free
> > > software desktop is appropriate. Our users are supposed to
> be able to
> > > fully trust our software. That's one of our most-often touted
> > strenghts.
> > > I don't think the ability to "track impressions, clicks,
> and the
> > number
> > > of ads a user hides or pins" is something that is
> compatible with
> > that,
> > > regardless of this data being tied to "personally identifiable
> > > information" or not.
> > >
> > > Firefox's behaviour is probably nothing extraordinary on
> the other
> > > platforms Mozilla is targeting. Compared to the prevalent
> attitude of
> > > proprietary vendors, especially on mobile, it doesn't sound
> that bad
> > > anymore. I don't think that's a suitable scale for Fedora,
> though.
> > >
> > > From a user perspective, it's not that hard to disable the
> > feature. Upon
> > > first seeing that page a tooltip is shown to hint at the
> possibility.
> > > Users can choose between three modes, "Enhanced", "Classic" and
> > "Blank".
> > > Contrary to what is stated in the Mozilla kb[4], the only
> one that
> > > actually disables the ads is "Blank", which is equal to setting
> > the new
> > > tab page to about:blank.
> > >
> > > What does the community think of it? Is it okay for our
> flagship
> > > applications to carry ads and report tracking data?
> > >
> > > [1]
> > >
> >
> https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/
> > > [2]
> > >
> >
> https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2014/05/09/new-tab-experiments/
> > > [3]
> > >
> >
> http://www.adexchanger.com/online-advertising/mozilla-finally-releases-its-browser-ad-product-hints-at-programmatic-in-2015/
> > > [4]
> > >
> >
> https://support.mozilla.org/de/kb/how-do-tiles-work-firefox#w_enhanced-tiles
> > > --
> > > devel mailing list
> > > devel at lists.fedoraproject.org
> <mailto:devel at lists.fedoraproject.org>
> <mailto:devel at lists.fedoraproject.org
> <mailto:devel at lists.fedoraproject.org>>
> > > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel
> > > Fedora Code of Conduct:
> http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct
> >
> > The "ads" are not intrusive, they don't collect personally
> > identifiable data, and can be disabled with a selection from
> a button
> > on the start page!
> > See:
> >
> http://www.pcworld.com/article/2848017/how-to-get-rid-of-firefoxs-new-ads-on-the-new-tab-page.html
> >
> > I think the best way is to ship Firefox as is, if somebody
> doesn't
> > want to help the open source project generating some revenue
> using
> > these ads, he can disable them.
> >
> >
> > The framing of the concerns expressed here as people not wanting to
> > contribute back and help an open source project with revenue (through
> > this mechanism or otherwise), does not reflect the concerns
> raised. The
> > concerns raised are that the default configuration is an
> "opt-out" vs.
> > "opt-in" model of Firefox issuing network calls back to Mozilla's
> > servers, and Fedora's user base expects "opt-in" for these sorts of
> > things. It's not about not being willing to help the project
> out... it's
> > about not being able to vet that method of helping out prior to it
> > taking place.
> >
> >
> > When you use Google search engine in any browser, it is
> collecting
> > more data than this feature in Firefox.
> >
> >
> > This doesn't seem relevant to this discussion, unless Fedora browsers
> > are automatically, and without the user's explicit knowledge or
> > permission, navigating to Google's search engine, which (AFAICT) they
> > are not.
>
> Same happens with these tiles. No data is sent back to Mozilla unless
> you *choose* to click one of the promoted tiles.
>
>
>
> First, that's not quite true. Firefox does a call home first, where
> Mozilla will then determine your location from your IP (and possibly
> other data presented to them in the future), in order to present you
> with ads. As I understand it, it will do this the first time you open a
> new tab, before you even navigate to any site (such as about:config).
>
> Second, a user can easily accidentally click on ad, since it is mixed
> among other tiles, with the user's browsing habits. A user may recognize
> their error pretty quickly, but the damage will have already been done,
> as their data will have already been sent. Even if a user intentionally
> clicks on one of these tiled ads, this is a new kind of ad for a large
> user base... and expectations about the implications of clicking on a
> user's privacy are not yet established. A user who intentionally clicks
> on these may not be willing to accept these implications. Hence, the
> preference for an informed "opt-in" (or at the very least, an early,
> loud opportunity to "opt-out"... but that's hard to do in Fedora
> packaging if it's not already in upstream).
Is it possible to recommend GNU IceCat instead:
Description : GNUZilla Icecat is a fully-free fork of Mozilla Firefox.
: Three extensions are included to this version of IceCat:
:
: * GNU LibreJS
: * The IceCat Privacy Extension
: * IceCat Tweaks
GNU LibreJS for most Fedora users might be more than what most people
expect.
The privacy extension along with DuckDuckGo provides anonymity for
searches.
As add-ons one or all these can be disabled by the user.
Since it is recently added to Fedora and version 31 was recently updated
from version 24, why not update the package for Fedora 21 and promote it
instead since it offers an experience that is similar to Firefox users
may expect while promoting privacy in contrast to the recent version of
Firefox being debated.
Enjoy your day ahead,
Abdur-Rahman Morgan
>
>
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