Mozilla Will Serve Ads Within Tiles Of Its New Tab Pages

Those in the advertising industry want them to be very "tailored", "personalized" based on observed behaviors, "relevant" to what the user is doing, etc. That doesn't mean they have to be or should be. Especially when the user hasn't, in a 100% voluntary no negative consequences for not volunteering sense, explicitly chosen to opt-in to "tailored" advertising.

Apart from some limited "regional targeting"... to get the language and country correct, and perhaps some coarse-grained and fuzzed location-within-country information... no other targeting criteria is truly necessary to achieve advertising. Yes, this type of advertising will often be non-relevant to the user. This type of non-relevancy is actually a great thing from the user's POV, because it is a consequence of eliminating privacy/security degrading mechanisms. Of course, those that truly want to opt-in to something "more tailored" should be able to do so in some way. I don't think ad tiles would be a good way to get solicited advertising though.

Maybe, but then again, maybe not. There is the matter of configuration options (preferences, extension APIs, compile time switches, etc) and there is the matter of defaults. I have no idea how many Firefox users deviate from defaults and in what ways they modify their install (extensions vs Tools->Options vs visible about:config preferences vs invisible about:config, etc). However, we know that users in general don't stray or stray far from default configurations.

Which of course creates a situation where developers can milk large numbers of users through default settings while still allowing the supposedly "small but vocal minority"... aka most clueful users... a way to escape the milking.

Note: I don't support opt-out based approaches which exploit the weak and/or momentarily forgetful. I'm just trying to point out that configurability need not be diminished in order to milk large numbers of people.

 

Well, "have" to be tailored ads because it seems like the ad industry in this case is the one who will be laying out the conditions of access to their funds. Remember, Mozilla is approaching them it seems, not the other way around. I think you may be right about Mozilla not needing to worry about the vast majority of users, as they do tend to leave things at default. Whether Australis screws with the options remains to be seen, but this program may not. Though I'm not sure about opt-out. I mean look at the backlash Mozilla got over a simple matter of blocking 3rd party cookies by default. They got yelled at so much they just up and forgot about it. Microsoft faced the same thing with IE. If the ad industry is going to forge a deal with them, Mozilla may get pushed up against a wall and either have to please the wallet holders or the users, and not both. Up until now the ad industry didn't have as much say in what Mozilla allowed users to do. Now they very well might have a lot more.

 

Mitchell Baker, the chair of the Mozilla Foundation, explained and defended the new ads in the Firefox Web browser

IMHO: The bolded words seem to explain it. Mozilla doesn't seem to fall short of revenue by offering Firefox only. Creating a mobile Firefox OS needs additional revenue. Well, I don't have a mobile and therefore I don't feel like paying for it by having to look at, click on ads. I saw on MozillaZine a PDF link about Fx's revenue and expenses. Mozilla seems to be quite healthy financially.

 

I hope for their sake the OS isn't a bust then. I certainly don't feel like being a source of revenue to build an OS I have no intention of using.

 

Fully agree with you Dave0291 since I don't have a mobile and therefore will not use a mobile OS in the future either.

 

http://www.zdnet.com/mozilla-clarifies-defends-firefox-ad-position-7000026335/

Yep.

They'll stay on v24 with ESR till Q4 from my understanding, which gives everyone plenty of time to watch and decide. Instead of leadership and innovation, Mozilla are cloning Google and hatching revenue schemes.

Ah the good ole days, where did they go?

 

We now know that Google will pay just under $300 million per year to be Firefox's default search engine choice. That's almost three-times as much as Mozilla made in its previous deal with Google. In 2010, 84% of Mozilla's $123 million in revenue came from its Google search deal.
Today Mozilla gets almost all of its funding from Google. Indeed, in 2012, 90 percent of its revenue came from its Google search deal with far less than 1 percent coming from donations. Clearly Mozilla needs to diversify its revenue streams lest it become little more than a branch of Google.

 

Yes, diversification is a good thing. To be fair, they don't have Windows or business software to fall back on. They don't have a massive search engine and some of the most talented people in the world working for them.

I would like to see more originality from them though, and I'm not talking integrating ads into Firefox.

 

Consider your own search habits and website accesses (regular as well as random interests). Now imagine what the Ad Tiles would look like for you. My 'personalized tiles' might make for an interesting poll item. No doubt there will be a chuckle or two for some of us.

 

Well, I don't think anyone needs to worry about tailored porn ads..god forbid people start seeing those adult dating service ads that get your city or town just right (btw, how the hell do they do that when not even Google search shows the right location half the time?) .

Kirk, what exactly are they supposed to do if not ads? That's the issue, there is no "original" way for them to make money. They either sell something, rely on partners like Google or ad companies, or take donations. There are only so many ways to make money.

 

Sure, advertising has privacy implications...but what doesn't? I don't agree with referring to it as filth. Advertising itself is not the problem; the implementation can be. One must take into account whether the data is personally identifiable or not. It may be or it may not.

Some also keep bringing up the issue of 'tailoring' and/or 'tracking' but let's get real - customizing ads based on user patterns make the ads more relevant to the user. People complain that ads are annoying and do not provide value to them but when the advertising industry tries to enhance the user experience, they get flak for it. This is not about 'milking users'. Easy for anyone to say that when you are not part of the industry and/or you have not been a student of business/marketing. If you are an advertiser, you would want your ads to be useful and attract the attention of the user. You would want your ad to serve as compelling suggestions/recommendations. It's just business.

I'm sorry but my take on this is that more often than not, fear or hatred towards advertising concept as a whole is irrational. Anyone is entitled to disagree.

I wish all the best to Mozilla and their plans for Firefox OS.

 

I wouldn't say it's irrational. There is a reason why people hate advertising companies:

• malware serving ads
• ads that make browsing impossible
• adware like tactics with toolbars, etc...

 

When I said originality, I was speaking of the Firefox browser, not so much creative ways for revenue.

It's true though, they're not in the same position as others in the industry and have to find ways for revenue and stability, and advertising is one of those ways.

 

IMO it's not about the advertising itself, but about the number of ads online. I'm sick to see that you can't move an inch on the Internet without seeing ads. Even worse, too many people seem to believe that advertising is the solution to all monetary problems when it comes to software/internet/technology/etc. This is a problem not because ads exist, but because they are everywhere! And again, IMO, I don't think that adding even more of them will solve something.

Later edit: This is from an article on the subject: http://www.zdnet.com/mozilla-clarifies-defends-firefox-ad-position-7000026335/

I thought that I am using a browser to surf the internet, and I'm pretty sure I would like it to do what I'm telling it to do, not to do things on my behalf. This attitude of Mitchell Baker, the chair of the Mozilla Foundation is troubling in my opinion...

 

People like us are a part of the old guard, remanents of a time when users controlled what our systems did and telling companies what we needed instead of them deciding what we needed. We've turned into the product, even when we aren't really getting anything in return. Maybe we're overreacting to this Mozilla change, we'll see.

 

Found some bugs: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/showdependencytree.cgi?id=973273

 

Want to make a bet on the dating service ads? These guys will be champing at the bit over this opportunity.

Say for instance you were to just visit your regular haunts over a 30 day period, would the Ad Tiles be blank? Since we are speculating at this time, I think there will be Ad Tiles that will have nothing to do with your personal interests.

We do a lot of scientific research on this family computer so I am wondering what type of personalized ads we will receive. Black holes, gas giants etc., you get where I am going with this. I have a huge yellow sticky on the screen ... Clicking on Ads on this PC is prohibited and is punishable by f'n Malware.

 

I really, really don't think Mozilla is going to go down the porn road or anything like it. Their reputation would be wiped out within a week. My gut tells me we're going to be dealing with the usual suspects such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. Tailored ads, for all their potential, rarely accurately portray your actual interests. In your case, I would be willing to wager that your studies in quark-gluon plasma, strangelets and other such things would end up getting ads for Viagra and other medicines because the ad industry is just that type.

 

You mean hard-on particles
Mrk

 

Indeed?
The earlier post misrepresents the details present within 2012 Mozilla Foundation financial statement:
https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/Mozilla_Audited_Financials_2012.pdf

For 2012, Mozilla Foundation realized total revenue of approx $190MM
Per the "forward looking risks" section of the report, 60% of the Foundation's revenue stream is from {google}

FWIW, for the sake of comparision, I checked Debian's annual revenue. For 2011, it was $125K
(Software in the Public Interest, Inc. aka SPI)
http://www.spi-inc.org/corporate/annual-reports/2011.pdf

Having kept notes, chafing as privacy-unfriendly "features" are incrementally introduced within (and aspects of "choice" removed from) each FF release, here's my present mindset:

I check kickstarter.com every couple weeks, hoping to discover that a "serious" Firefox fork has been announced.
I've resolved to pledge at least US$100 if a no-bloat, no social, no spy-on-me (webrtc,telemetry,healthreporting) alternative project launches.

 

What's missing (or not removed) from the Tor version of Firefox?

 

v--- Freddy, you read that $300M figure here?
http://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=3862&start=10
Obviously neither the PaleMoon dev nor the cnet "reporter" checked their facts.

Also, in that same palemoon forum thread:

Given Moonbeam's "no, youz can't see the details of my l33t, super-secret, build environment" attitude, I can't take him/her seriously.

Is Moonbeam really that stupid, or just presumes the audience is?
For starters, freeforums.org and many other places available for free forum hosting...
...and why does s/he insist a browser needs an inbuilt xmpeepee service?

Lalala... Drama and FUD, sittin' inna tree... K.I.S.S.I.N.G

 

Those figures are from ZDNet.

 

@TheWindBringeth some astute observations you made here that deserve some kudos - thanks for breaking this down as you did.
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=2340696&postcount=70

 

Thank you for pointing us to the new info. Team effort