Mozilla Refining Third-Party Cookie Patch in Firefox

Mozilla Refining Third-Party Cookie Patch in Firefox:

http://threatpost.com/mozilla-refining-third-party-cookie-patch-in-firefox/

 

A fight between end users and these advertisers and data agencies has been going on for a long time, but I fear it's going to get much uglier before it gets better. Websites are increasingly becoming "ad block aware" and with that, tracking companies are more and more forcing themselves on users. Many more times in the last year I've come across websites that don't display properly, force AdBlock Plus turned off or otherwise just not work properly. DNT flags are a failure because they've been outright ignored. These companies are becoming heavy-handed and have so far refused to compromise in any reasonable way.

I think also that ABP and other methods might at this point have done a bit more harm than good as well. It sucks to say that as a pro-ad blocking person, but I think that truth might need to be faced. Just like all wars though, one side or the other is going to have to bend a little if these issues are ever going to have a chance of being resolved.

 

The real problem in the ads is that only two sides are profiting: the ad network and the website owner. But, they're all forgetting who's giving them profit: us.

We should be part of a healthy ad ecosystem, and for that we also need to profit. Allow me to profit, and I'll allow the ads. I'll even create a new system just for that.

How about that?

 

Just give me a heads up when you plan to take this proposal before them, I have to see this Really though, I started my ad-blocking when ads turned into Flash movies and trackers started following people everywhere they went. Enter the "ever-cookie" business and I had had enough. Advertisers caused the backlash against them, but like a little kid throwing a hissy fit, they're not happy with anything but precisely what they want. The more they've fought back, the more ad-blockers have fought back, and we're beginning to see what happens when neither side wants to give. Users are really the ones paying for it.

 

Using this for quite a while, seems pretty good:

https://userscripts.org/scripts/show/155840

There are some other scripts like this in userscripts too...

 

Firstly, they would argue that you are already profiting in the sense of getting various things for free and others at a reduced cost due to advertising related income offsetting some of the price. Secondly, this would be adding yet another hand at the doll-out table and one must ask whether any such profits would be fair compensation for selling out your privacy and your time. For large players who have scale working for them, meaningful profits can be had. For individuals, at least those who don't try to game the system by simply viewing/clicking on ads all day and without any interest in them, the "profits" would probably be puny. For the relative poor who *need* income and are willing to prostitute themselves, perhaps not so puny as to be ignored though.

Note that we have a climate where there are "rewards" (positive income) and "lack of rewards" (zero income). Rewards for successfully showing personalized advertising and engaging in all the privacy-reducing practices that are required for personalized advertising. Lack of rewards where such advertising is not successfully shown, for example where cookie and/or ad blockers are effective in blocking things. What we don't have are penalties (negative income as in *additional* expenses). Imagine, for a moment, a world where people who encounter tracking, profiling, personalized ads, etc don't simply block that to create "lack of rewards" but also create penalties. As in they do something which costs the companies involved money. This changes the game completely, because now companies can actually be genuinely financially hurt or even bankrupt when they cross the line. Theoretically, the market would then find its true equilibrium. At least one which would better reflect the overall view of market participants *including those that would want to actively express a negative view*.

Enough of that though. As for the cookie issue, I think the only way to properly deal with third-party cookies is *user-created* context-dependent rules. What's the closest thing Mozilla has to that... Configurable Security Policies (CAPS)?

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/security/components/ConfigPolicy.html

I'm not sure if cookies can be addressed through that (would have to do some digging). Even if they can, though, Firefox lacks a decent interface to that functionality The ability to specify "Allow for session" cookie preferences combined with request level rules would be a work around though. Not particularly friendly for Joe User who wouldn't want to even mess with NoScript/ABE, RequestPolicy, or ABP. That's fun to us though, right? RIGHT? LOL.

 

I have my doubts that it would allow you to bypass anything but the warning pop-up. You'd still be blocked from the content I'm sure. It's a nice gesture, but it's really treating the symptoms of the problem than the actual problem, which is that advertisers need to have some sort of compromise and so do end users.

 

I'll just go to a different web site, problem solved

 

I'd still try something before doubting it, unless not worth the risk. Thanks subhrobhandari, can't believe I haven't searched for such things before.