Mozilla Will Serve Ads Within Tiles Of Its New Tab Pages

I've added your comments to an ongoing post I have on my Facebook account where a lot of industry folks look in. It won't go unnoticed and once again - thank you.

 

https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2014/02/13/content-ads-caution/

 

More ramblings from the Mozilla Project - requires some grasp of *Marketing speak* to fully understand -

~ Revenue Diversification the Mozilla Way~
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/02/13/revenue-diversification-the-mozilla-way/

 

Just the usual babbling bull .... from marketing people.
BTW, what happen to your color?
Mrk

 

So how will they offer targeted ads without tracking you? It's impossible. They are doing nothing less than breaching their trust with open source community and alienating themselves from users who have been their backbone.

This sounds like it came from Google marketing book 101.

 

Yeah I was just wondering that too, he looks pale...like me.

 

I wonder if you only tried out v4 and then quit? That version was indeed a mess, but ever since v5, and especially from v8 and on it's been a much quicker and more stable browser than 3.6 on every box I've seen. For me more responsive and stable than Chrome the way I have it tweaked, though it wasn't the case out of the box.

I keep seeing that this change is only for "new users", and until I see otherwise first hand I have to believe it. Either way I'm confident that I'll have a way to block it. EHH4ABP is almost certain to do the trick, or Greasemonkey with a custom script, if not about:config. They'll be content with the fact that 90+% of the masses won't block it because they don't know how, or don't care, and your Wilders user will remain unscathed as usual.

Regarding ABP, same deal. They'll probably include it among the whitelisted "allow some advertising" box, knowing most people are oblivious to it's existence or not using ABP altogether. Again, they'll have most of the people and be content with that, and not want to alienate the rest... the techy users that write the articles. Because that could lose them users.

JMO

 

Don't forget..

This also opens the door for potential malware injection. How many ads to we find everyday that inject malware, or point to malware domains? LOTS. I have between 100-500 Malware IP blocks on my network a day, and through research find most of those served through blocked advertisements.

Anything with advertisements is usually discounted as viable for me, and that now includes Firefox. Not that I used it, it simply removes it from contention altogether.

 

Firefox, Directory Tiles, Advertisements, and Honesty

Huns and Honesty: a short rant about the latest announcement by Mozilla on their desire to include sponsored content into the tiles page, with main focus not on the intent to make money but on the honesty and integrity and transparency toward users. Read now.

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/firefox-directory-tiles.html


Cheers,
Mrk

 

Qupzilla? what you say?

 

I could care less if they want to make FireFox into adware, as long as it doesn't spread to SeaMonkey. I'll be interested to see what happens with Tor Browser. It does make me wonder what effects this will have on extensions that are designed to block ads and tracking. Will they become incompatible? Will they have to whitelist that content? Will that content just bypass them? Time will tell. Even if they do manage to make it impossible to remove ads/tracking with browser extensions, Proxomitron will still handle the task just fine.

 

That itself is an irrational statement. First, equating "annoyance" with "fear" or "hatred" is over the top.

Now, here is what is irrational: forcing something on people who do not want it. The rational solution is simple for advertisers: make it opt-in. Have them publish their own add-on, say, "Adflock", whereas users who do wants ads would be able to install the add-on in order for the advertisers to be able to provide them with tailored ads. This is the rationale approach because it allows the advertisers to focus their resources on people who really want their products.

 

Hold your horses. Nowhere in my post did I equate "annoyance" with "fear" or "hatred". Just because I said something about "annoyance" in a paragraph above does not mean I am "equating" it to to my personal observation and opinion on people's behavior towards advertising. I can accept opposing views but I don't appreciate people putting words into my mouth.

Now, I do agree on giving end-users the option to opt-in or opt-out of interest-based ads. For e.g. Google Settings on Android provides that option; albeit you have to opt-out. There is also an option to reset advertising ID. To a certain extent, this is what "Do not track" option aims to achieve; but we know how that has gone so far. The advertising industry needs to learn and be more co-operative but it takes 2 hands to clap. Users should also stop making advertising the enemy. Right now, we are stuck in a limbo because the 2 sides refuse to see the other party's side of the story...each prioritizing own interests.

 

They will never make ads opt-in unless they are absolutely forced to. If they were willing to do that, the industry would have never fought back so hard against simple little things like default 3rd party cookie blocking in IE and FF..though now we know why Mozilla backed off the idea considering they've slipped into bed with the industry. The moment someone realized Big Data would be king and become the best way to make money, consumers started losing the option to opt-in and have a choice.

 

If that happens I will be forced to install Internet Explorer in Wine. So far I've been using SeaMonkey for 4 days and everything works just like in Firefox. Better part yet, Im still on version 2.24 and not 27!

 

I am making a point that people are mostly annoyed with ads. Using over-the-top negatively charged term like "fear", "hatred", "irrational", "enemy", looks like an attempt to de-legitimatize not wanting ads because they are an annoyance and a nuisance to a majority of people.

I like how you mention "opt-out" casually along with "opt-in" as if these where similar, and then go on to put some blame on the user for not wanting ads. Etc. Forget "opt-out". Users who want ads install "Adflock" add-on. They can remove it whenever they don't want ads anymore. Isn't the perfect solution for both side? It's also perfect for advertisers since they would end up with users who actually want to see their ads.

I sure know that. It's fun though to see marketers struggle to make a point, on the record preferably, why that would be bad for us the users.

 

@gorhill

I have never said people who are annoyed by ads necessarily belong to the same group of people who hate/fear ads. I don't know why you insist on making it look that way. Where are you getting the idea that I am "blaming" users or "de-legitimizing" their wants. You are the one making that assumption. Stop pushing your thoughts and make it look Iike it's mine. Now, I am annoyed. For once, learn to read and understand the context of my posts instead of doing selective quotation.

I like how you casually simplify the needs for advertising. But of course, that is to be expected from someone who can only look at advertising and marketing in a negative light. Yeah...advertisers and marketeers must be bastards. Only techies and privacy-oriented folks are angels, right?

 

If the issue was just the ads themselves, it wouldn't be such a problem. The problem is everything that comes with the ads:
Tracking.
Targeting.
Collecting data on users and their activities, history, etc.
Selling and sharing that data with other parties.
The potential for the ads to deliver malicious content.

Who is going to monitor these ads and all the scripts and trackers that come with them? Who will decide what is and is not acceptable? The ad companies? Mozilla would need to add several full time positions just to monitor and restrict their behavior. Show me an internet advertizing company that doesn't try to data mine or track the user. Show me one that doesn't push the limits of what is acceptable.

People consistently forget one thing. The internet advertizing and big data industries didn't create the internet. The internet makes their existence possible. The internet doesn't need them to survive. They need the internet. One only needs to look at the brief history of the internet to see their intentions. They're like ill behaved children. Give them an inch and they try to take a mile. Mozilla wouldn't "need" more money if they'd stop trying to expand into everything else, especially ecosystems. Quit trying to be a corporation. You got where you are by being a community. Stop competing with global corporations on their terms.

 

I can agree with the privacy implications. For that, a lot more has to be done to improve the situation.

I have to disagree on the role of advertising though. Ads are a mean to reach an audience and to increase brand awareness. It is meant to bridge the gap between sellers and potential buyers. I respect advertising as a platform because I learnt business and I can see its economic advantage.

While advertising may have not created or been part of the early history of internet, you cannot deny that advertising revenue helps to fund a large portion of the internet today.
Try asking any webmaster or content creator. Look at why The H closed down.

https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=350683

As for Mozilla and its plans for Firefox OS, I think we can at least not discourage the intent, even if we choose not to be more supportive. The current mobile ecosystems are largely controlled by corporations like Google, Apple and Microsoft. Android is open-source but it is apparent that Google is trying to tie it closer to Google services through its OEM certification. Not everyone runs aftermarket ROMs. Just like how Mozilla managed to gain users with Firefox during IE days, it's time for them to bring in competition to the mobile space. Better for the open-source community as a whole.

 

I'm annoyed by ads, and I also consider them to be hazardous. I'm happy to support sites, services and products that I use through micro payments using Bitcoins or whatever. But I'm not happy to encounter distracting BS while focusing on something. And I'm outraged by the irresponsibility of serving ads that may include drive-by downloads.

 

I never buy based on advertising. I have always bought based on the experience of my friends, and on third-party reviews that are objective and unbiased. And through the Internet, it's trivial to find numerous reviews, and to detect and discount those that are misleading.

Ads don't serve buyers. They serve sellers, and they disproportionately serve sellers of mediocre to shoddy goods. They are propaganda.

 

Perhaps a good place to start would be investigating whether $extension provides options to block Google Safebrowsing requests and Firefox Health Report requests. If not, does $extension even warn users that it isn't designed to protect them against tracking which utilizes the info sent off machine by those features?

Now would be a good time for Firefox extension developers to review/improve their ability to filter "behind the scenes traffic". As well as work hard, together, to assure that extension interfaces are sufficient to carryout full-featured, fine-grained, filtering.

 

I question if using browser extensions for this is the best option. Too many good extensions have been broken by updates. Their "update as often as possible" policy makes that worse. I'd also be concerned about ad companies and Google coercing Mozilla into breaking the ability to filter "behind the scenes traffic", especially in regards to tracking and data mining. I'd like to see the development of anti-tracking and ad blocking moved from browser extensions to a free standing filtering proxy similar to Proxomitron. As a separate app, it would work on all browsers. There'd be no issues with updates breaking it. As a separate, independent application, it wouldn't be subject to coercion or threats to withdraw funding, both of which are very real possibilities with FireFox. It could be used to remove malicious or exploit code before it ever reached the browser. It could be designed to need very minimal permissions or access to system components, making it nearly useless as an exploitable target. As much as I like Proxomitron, I'd love to see a current, Open Source replacement with equal abilities that, like Proxomitron, can work on all operating systems without needing net framework or other equivalents to it.

 

I totally agree with you! I think you described the online advertising problem pretty well!