4 ms·

> A corner stone of digital privacy and security is being in control of your systems and data I see this as an opportunity that Mozilla has, and I'd submit an

> A corner stone of digital privacy and security is being in control of your systems and data I see this as an opportunity that Mozilla has, and I'd submit an "idea" to them but I don't know how. Google got big by making ads suck less - they were the first that delivered non-intrusive ads that actually worked (and were personalized too, to boot - without being intrusive!) I wonder if there isn't a serious market for flipping the paradigm on its head. The marketers do need to deliver relevant messages to relevant persons... but I think they don't need to collect lots of personal data about you. What if someone trustworthy would flip the paradigm on its head? Say that you tell Firefox your interests, and, besides being a browser, it becomes a sort of "local ad exchange" too - when you visit "New Yorker", it says "I can display here an add about cars, or one about sleep pills, or one about cruises etc.". Instead of profiling the user - send extensive ad profiles to the browser, and let the browser pick locally based on user profile & preferences. It would be wasteful in that you potentially send a lot of ad metadata to a single browser... but, theoretically, all that metadata can be cached. And, I dunno, maybe it's not really that much metadata, afterall? It's a rough idea, but I feel it's one worth exploring that could provide genuine benefits both for (non-shady) marketers & for end-users.

PakG1 9y ago
Interesting, but I think that data would be only semi-useful for marketers. Situations change, needs change, and for some things, on a frequent basis. I imagine most users are disinterested in constantly going into their preferences to update what they're willing to view. It's much easier for them to let someone passively observe their life and web activity the way Facebook or Google do it. And except for a number of tech savvy tinfoil hats, most people would still choose convenience over privacy and security. The proof is in the numbers. So this would probably be dead in the water for Firefox because few marketers would find value in it. Hopefully, I'm wrong about people continuing to value convenience over privacy and security though.
- virgilp 9y ago
  Well, Firefox _could_ passively observe your life and update your preferences (better than Facebook or Google do, if it's the primary browser - since they'd observe you across all activities). It's just that it wouldn't need to share that information with anyone except you - it stays local. That's what I love about the system - you can be as targeted/"privacy invasive" as you wish without actually invading anyone's privacy, since people stay firmly in control of their own data. To add to that, "private mode" would actually do what people expect it to do - keep them anonymous on the web, and not leak sensitive/ embarrassing information about themselves.

PakG1 9y ago

Interesting, but I think that data would be only semi-useful for marketers. Situations change, needs change, and for some things, on a frequent basis. I imagine most users are disinterested in constantly going into their preferences to update what they're willing to view. It's much easier for them to let someone passively observe their life and web activity the way Facebook or Google do it. And except for a number of tech savvy tinfoil hats, most people would still choose convenience over privacy and security. The proof is in the numbers. So this would probably be dead in the water for Firefox because few marketers would find value in it. Hopefully, I'm wrong about people continuing to value convenience over privacy and security though.

virgilp 9y ago
Well, Firefox _could_ passively observe your life and update your preferences (better than Facebook or Google do, if it's the primary browser - since they'd observe you across all activities). It's just that it wouldn't need to share that information with anyone except you - it stays local. That's what I love about the system - you can be as targeted/"privacy invasive" as you wish without actually invading anyone's privacy, since people stay firmly in control of their own data. To add to that, "private mode" would actually do what people expect it to do - keep them anonymous on the web, and not leak sensitive/ embarrassing information about themselves.