33 ms·

Mozilla’s 18-month effort to market without Facebook

436 points by watchdogtimer 7y ago

mastazi 7y ago
> it’s unclear why Mozilla is fine with Google’s data practices but not Facebook’s as the company did not immediately respond to a request for clarification. I often wonder the same. And also: Why there is an official Facebook container[1] but not an official Google container?[2] Why a fresh install of Firefox sends multiple calls to Google, including services that track users such as Analytics?[3] [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/06/04/firefox-now-available-with-enhanced-tracking-protection-by-default/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/06/04/firefox-now-availab... [2] there is a third party Google container at least https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-container/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai... [3] https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480 https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...
- zecg 7y ago
  That's a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
  - luckylion 7y ago
    No. The point isn't that Mozilla shouldn't worry about privacy issues regarding Facebook, it's that they should AND should worry about them regarding Google in a similar fashion.
  - mastazi 7y ago
    Caesar represents Mozilla’s users being stabbed in the back by Brutus Mozilla, and the Google Analytics cookie that is downloaded upon installing Firefox is the dagger.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - colanderman 7y ago
    No, tu quoque is when someone defends entity A's bad actions by saying that entity B also does bad things. The GP is not trying to defend Facebook here. Their argument is that Mozilla is not acting fully ethically, by seemingly treating Google specially. Therefore tu quoque does not apply. (Moreover, the argument is logically sound.)
- carlallison 7y ago
  Google is probably Mozilla biggest "customer" so I'm not surprised if Mozilla is ok with whatever Google is doing. https://www.cnet.com/news/google-firefox-search-deal-gives-mozilla-more-money-to-push-privacy/ https://www.cnet.com/news/google-firefox-search-deal-gives-m...
  - ekianjo 7y ago
    Yes they pretend to be the champions of Privacy and Open Web...
    - Jonnax 7y ago
      Okay then use the web browser developed by Google. Or use a Blink based web browser whose development is steered by Google.
      - bovermyer 7y ago
        If you want a browser that's free of all of that, there's always lynx. Of course, you have to give up a few things to use it...
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - gman83 7y ago
        Doesn't the Midori browser use Webkit?
        saagarjha 7y ago
        It does.
        ekianjo 7y ago
        So what? Webkit does not have GOogle tracking.
      - 7y ago
- A2017U1 7y ago
  Can anyone elaborate on [3] or at least copypaste it? Twitter links seem to rarely work without having the app on mobile, it's disgustingly blatant dark pattern stuff.
  - ilikepi 7y ago
    Try this unrolled version: https://threader.app/thread/1165858896176660480 https://threader.app/thread/1165858896176660480
    - djsumdog 7y ago
      OMG that is so much better than the original. Why don't people just write actual blog posts! It makes so much more sense than stringing together 20 tweets!
  - mastazi 7y ago
    The most “amusing” part of that thread in my opinion is this one: > The http://mozilla.org http://mozilla.org tab discussing the importance of Privacy loads in the background, bringing along with it the Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics. Hello, Google.
    - panpanna 7y ago
      I suspect that says more about the state of frontend development today than about Mozillas privacy policy. Anyway, I think Mozilla should address all these concerns ASAP.
  - phjesusthatguy3 7y ago
    On desktop, if you have JS turned off, it throws up a page saying "We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter?" If you click yes, it tries to set a cookie. If it can't set a cookie, it throws up a page saying "We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter?" etc.
- wodenokoto 7y ago
  Mozilla revenue is still something like 90% from Google. The Yahoo deal did help, but they are still very dependent on Google for finance. Historically Google has been a really close Mozilla partner, not only sponsoring search, but also developers. Today, Mozillas relationship with Google is extremely complicated. ZDNET had an article back in April [1], that somewhat sums up how the relationship soured, but doesn't really touch on why and how they are still intermingled. > Google, including services that track users such as Analytics? Mozilla has a special deal with Google, that does not allow Google to use that information as part of their greater analytics or sell it to 3rd parties, as per [2]. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has... [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14
  - lucideer 7y ago
    > Mozilla has a special deal with Google, that does not allow Google... Sorry for being pedantic, as I'm sure this is what you intended anyway, but I do think its worthwhile pointing out explicitly: it does not contractually allow Google. There are no technical restrictions in place; e.g. Google haven't provided Mozilla with an alternative analytics mechanism that consumes less data. All data is still sent by Mozilla to Google. They've just then promosed to do nothing with it. A small but, I believe, notable distinction.
    - skybrian 7y ago
      From a technical standpoint, there are data sharing settings in Google Analytics [1] letting you control how much analytics data is shared with Google. Maybe they wanted it as part of the contract and not just a setting? [1] https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397 https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397
      - lucideer 7y ago
        I'm not sure if you're misunderstanding me or if I'm misunderstanding you... > data sharing settings in Google Analytics [1] letting you control how much analytics data is shared with Google. It's in Google Analytics. It's all shared with Google. Or—more accurately—none of it is "shared" with Google, Google is just sharing some of it with you. There may be settings allowing you to indicate your preference for what they will use for whatever internal purposes, but... Google have collected the data. There's no question of whether they receive it or not.
- ohduran 7y ago
  Their relationship goes as deep as Firefox bringing Google as the default search engine. I presume Google pays some non-negligible amount of money for that, so Mozilla execs are tied to Google. Having one big source of income implies pivoting your whole strategy on virtually anything at their command because without them, you can kiss goodbye the "between $20 million and $100 million" marketing budget.
- trustissues 7y ago
  Maybe because Google has been mostly trustworthy and Facebook as not? AFAIK Google has never shared any user data. They've taken privacy seriously since day one. They do gather lots of data but they don't share it. Facebook on the other hand has been caught multiple times sharing anything and everything.
  - dawg- 7y ago
    Google also has relatively good tools for controlling your data with myactivity. I think they have always been ahead of facebook with stuff like this.
- justapassenger 7y ago
  Because, as a business it’s very very hard to have values, if you don’t want to go bankrupt. Never trust businesses talking about values, or believe they are out there to protect you. Some of them are better than other for sure, but at the core companies don’t have values they stand for - they have hobbies, that they like to use to get more publicity.
  - fallous 7y ago
    Actually it's very easy for a business to have values, those values just have to be those of the customer. Note that "customer" doesn't mean "user," the customer is the person that pays you money. Sometimes user and customer is one in the same, but with regards to free (as in no purchase by the end user) software and services the customer potentially has a very different set of values than the user.
- downandout 7y ago
  It’s pretty simple. Mozilla’s employees are fiercely liberal. For example, a small group of vocal employees managed to oust former CEO Brendan Eich over a tiny donation to a conservative political cause he had made many years before he became CEO. If you have a conservative bone in your body, you are not welcome on the Mozilla campus. So they don’t object to Facebook’s data privacy practices. They object to Facebook’s media-perceived role in Trump’s election. The reality is that if they applied the standard they are using to exclude Facebook from their advertising plan in a non-hypocritical way, they would quickly run out of places to advertise online. Most major online media outlets, including Google, have data practices that actual privacy activists consider to be abhorrent. Their policy isn’t about privacy - it’s about politics.
  - djsumdog 7y ago
    > a small group of vocal employees managed to oust former CEO Brendan Eich over a tiny donation to a conservative political cause Eich was kinda a moron and I don't think they realized that after he was onboard. IIRC, he saw no reason to move forward with the Firefox Quantum support and generally had some other bad software decisions. I suspect the anti-gay stuff was more to justify a way to get rid of him and score some points in the process.
    - roca 7y ago
      As a former Mozilla distinguished engineer --- your comment is insulting, totally wrong and betrays your ignorance. Not even Brendan's worst enemies have ever accused him of being a moron. Brendan was a leading figure at Mozilla since the very beginning of the project. Everyone very well knew who he was. I didn't agree with all of Brendan's decisions. For example I think we should have prioritized process separation higher than we did, and Brendan was partly responsible for deprioritizing that, which I viewed as a serious mistake. But Brendan made a lot more good decisions than bad ones and from that point of view, everyone I know was confident in him as CEO. Engineers certainly weren't looking for an "excuse to get rid of him". I assume executives and the board weren't either, or they wouldn't have made him CEO just before the controversy exploded.
    - 7y ago
- roca 7y ago
  Google hasn't had a Cambridge Analytica.
bhouston 7y ago
Firefox's marketshare is pretty horrible - non-existence on mobile and very small on desktop and shrinking at 10% a year. It is basically at Edge-levels of adoption on desktop: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share#monthly-200901-201910 https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share#monthly-2009...
- helpPeople 7y ago
  Makes me wonder if the pro Firefox and Anti Google threads are part of the marketing ...
- panpanna 7y ago
  Firefox on mobile is actually pretty good and more people should use it. (At least on Android, on iOS it's just a skin on top of whatever engine apple forces down their throats).
  - pkilgore 7y ago
    I started using Firefox Android a year ago and now I can't stand chrome and all the Ads! Ublock origin on Firefox mobile is a godsend.
    - vorticalbox 7y ago
      I find that firefox + ublock is still far slower than brave on android.
      - smt88 7y ago
        It isn't slower for me, and Firefox + uBlock Origin have the benefits of being FOSS (no for-profit making decisions behind the scenes) and having much better control over blocking. Brave sometimes totally fails to block Outbrain-like junk at the bottom of articles, and that seems like it must be intentional.
    - bombledmonk 7y ago
      Add on dark reader and the mobile experience is dramatically better. It's still a little clunky from a UI/UX standpoint, but still superior experience overall.
josefresco 7y ago
Does Google allow politicians to lie on their advertising platform like Facebook? Genuinely asking, as it's a stated policy of Facebook but I haven't heard or seen analysis comparing Google's ad network. I realize this decision by Mozilla was based on a previous Facebook blunder.
rswail 7y ago
um, did anyone else notice that Mozilla has 100 people in their marketing department? What do they all do?
- Dolores12 7y ago
  Spending Google's money.
  - shantly 7y ago
    Justify some exec's paycheck. "I run a 100-person department!"
- zulln 7y ago
  How many would you have guessed they were? The number does not stand out for me.
  - sodosopa 7y ago
    Honestly they can afford a staff with a smaller window of experience. They wouldn’t be able to afford a competent agency of 20 or more people.
- sp332 7y ago
  That's one marketing person per 3 million active users.
  - catalogia 7y ago
    How many of those active users can reasonably be claimed to have initiated their relationship with Firefox as consequence of that 100 person marketing team, rather than, say, word of mouth in the tech community? I don't think I've ever seen an ad for firefox.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
sk84life 7y ago
Keyword that I like was PRIVACY It's meaning is fading today too much.
dpcan 7y ago
"Facebook was one of our better-performing channels at the time that we made the decision" Everyone likes to say they don't use Facebook, but they do. Or at least 10 people they know do. Local businesses use Facebook relentlessly because, lots of times, it actually works to get people in the door or calling your number. Small businesses almost have to use its ad platform (in my opinion). I don't think local businesses can afford to look away from a top performer like this. When I ran an escape room business, my fill-rate on weekends was typically dependent on whether or not I was spending money on Facebook. Google ads were second. Anything else barely had any ROI. Well - in the first few months of running the business, the local newspaper actually brought in some people, but nothing compared to my longer ad runs on Facebook. I feel like this is a "you don't need Facebook" chant, but I feel that's not true for all industries, and I hope the take-away here is that maybe a huge online business with a giant ad budget can find other means, but if you are a small local business with $300 a month for marketing, I personally believe that you kind-of need Facebook.
- Trisell 7y ago
  I’m in my mid thirties. I work with a teen program. To get in touch with them I have to use Instagram or Snapchat. All of my friends that are my current age or older. They are all still on Facebook posting memes and political rants. I think it still makes sense to target Facebook. They have the larger share of the 30+ crowd that most businesses see as their target audience.
  - mastazi 7y ago
    We should note that Instagram is owned by Facebook and Facebook Ads is the tool that you typically use to create and manage ads on both networks.
- josefresco 7y ago
  >Local businesses use Facebook relentlessly because, lots of times, it actually works to get people in the door or calling your number. Small businesses almost have to use its ad platform (in my opinion). I don't think local businesses can afford to look away from a top performer like this. Anecdotally, based on my experience working with over 250 local businesses across the business spectrum, this doesn't reflect reality. A very small percentage of my clients "actively" use "organic" Facebook, an even smaller percentage use their ad platform (much higher usage of Google Ads). The ones that do (buy FB ads), typically do so through local "media company" who tack on their own fees, which in turn makes it a poor investment. I can count on one hand (out of hundreds) the number of our clients who effectively use Facebook. In fact, in the last couple of years, the number of businesses forgoing a "real website" and choosing Facebook (a common theme just a few years ago) has basically disappeared.
Hitton 7y ago
In my opinion advertising browser on facebook is absolutely useless. How many users do you think see an advert and install browser when they current one is for all their intents and purposes same. Mozilla needs to aim at technical people, who will install Firefox not only on their own devices, but also on devices of their relatives (or in case of administrators on devices of their users). And only few technical people care about minuscule difference in performance anymore, so they need to advertise what Google, their main competitor, doesn't offer - privacy. Best way to advertise would be either tech news on articles related to privacy issues and possibly tech influencers who can properly explain privacy benefits. Another way to strike favour with tech crowd would be eliminating bloat from Firefox (e.g. Pocket, still no idea why they bought them, as an extension it worked fine).
- tracker1 7y ago
  Given the changes google is making... "Google is breaking ad blocking in Chrome, try a browser that works for you."
  - Nextgrid 7y ago
    If you're talking about putting that in ads, then it becomes a chicken & egg problem - people who care about ad blocking won't see your ad because they already block them, people who don't won't care about Chrome breaking something they don't use.
sebastianconcpt 7y ago
Mozilla’s marketing budget is between $20 million and $100 million, said Kaykas-Wolff, adding that “it varies depending upon the different programs we’re running.” Per Kantar, which doesn’t track spending on social channels, Mozilla spent $8.2 million in 2018. The budget is split with 50% focused on North America and 50% focused on the rest of the world. Mozilla’s pivot away from Facebook followed the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Now, the majority of the company’s digital spending goes to Google properties — Mozilla’s Firefox competes with Google’s Chrome — as a part of its digital acquisition strategy. According to Netshare, as previously reported by Digiday, Firefox’s market share is 9.3% of global monthly on desktop; meanwhile, Google Chrome’s is 66%. Aside from Cambridge Analytica, it’s unclear why Mozilla is fine with Google’s data practices but not Facebook’s as the company did not immediately respond to a request for clarification. The rest of the digital budget goes directly to publishers.
0000011111 7y ago
Fundamentally the platform (facebook, google, etc) the majority of folks use to connect with be the best one to market products and services on. The issue is that these platforms change over time and across generations. In short, as firms, markets, and societies change so will effective marketing strategies. We can still bicker about whether or not FB has reached its high watermark. It looks like it has for Firefox users though.
K0SM0S 7y ago
I think Mozilla needs to re-think their whole marketing approach yesterday. A few remarks: - 50% US / 50% "rest of the world"? Nah. There's little to no chance to make a strong dent in the US, home of Chrome and Apple and Microsoft etc. Pivot to 99% "rest of the world" and switch to my other point entirely for the US. There's much more need, reason and room for Mozilla to grow internationally. - forget about ad spending, whether Google or TV, it just doesn't suit Mozilla's image, mission, product, nor customers. What we want is to attract the core deciders, from a grassroot kinda move, which spreads to peers, circles, and grows up, towards the corporate. What we want is the 'elite' or 'nerdy' segment even if we'll never call it that. The 1% that make a community thrive because they're so quintessential to tech in general, locally in their projects / cities / worlds. The few that are blessed with speech and some social presence, aura, authority. The ones others follow and listen to for 'tech stuff'. So move worldwide now, and spend almost exclusively on these people. Influencers, media, awareness, image, mission — maybe even some communities living on forums could become advocates. Coordinate locally through bigger advocates to form an army of legions. Maybe find a big thing, like "we'll be in space for humans day 1 to assist expansion" — moon, mars, satellites, whatever rocks the boat for the next decade (think really big, above yearly trends, give a face to a "superior" company). (I'm a space geek, perhaps this is just my taste) Working with people directly, podcasters and youtubers gitlabers and whatnot, hordes of them, is a more tedious, longer approach, but as well a more long-term and much more engaging way to reach people. The money paid in sponsorship goes directly to 'building the world' (these people are evangelizers of principles and values, they're teachers, they're coaches, they play a valuable role in society), not some indirect major ad platform engrossing. It fuels communities that become grateful, with good reason, for marketing money. It becomes "clean" money by virtue of being used for something good. - Don't dictate the message, let your 'influencers' feedback your way to browser supremacy, publicly so; make it a topic not a mandate — this is not just a 'strategy', it's a "why" materialized, a life path, a superior way to accomplish the mission. It's immortality through the software we give now and leave after us. Pivot to meet that, to meet your dearest users needs and wants. That's how you beat the faceless Google Chrome, imho. By giving the browser back to the people, by being a positive company not in some abstract "PR-humanitarian" way (although that's good!) but in a more direct-to-user way. By serving the worthy movements and people you find in this world. Grassroots seeding. Think: for a browser company, connecting people and stuff is pretty much what we do. Let's show the world how much good we can do when there's a whole company behind that! It'll take 10 years. There's no "too late" — until someone else does it, but that's also considered a win for Mozilla in that regard. By 2030, it can be done. And by virtue of being a dominant OSS, it has a staying power far greater than its rivals. It's possible, Mozilla. This is just one rough draft, maybe not the one, but just to say: reinvent that sh--.

436 points by watchdogtimer 7y ago

> it’s unclear why Mozilla is fine with Google’s data practices but not Facebook’s as the company did not immediately respond to a request for clarification. I often wonder the same. And also: Why there is an official Facebook container[1] but not an official Google container?[2] Why a fresh install of Firefox sends multiple calls to Google, including services that track users such as Analytics?[3] [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/06/04/firefox-now-available-with-enhanced-tracking-protection-by-default/ https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/06/04/firefox-now-availab... [2] there is a third party Google container at least https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-container/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai... [3] https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480 https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...

zecg 7y ago
That's a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque
- luckylion 7y ago
  No. The point isn't that Mozilla shouldn't worry about privacy issues regarding Facebook, it's that they should AND should worry about them regarding Google in a similar fashion.
- mastazi 7y ago
  Caesar represents Mozilla’s users being stabbed in the back by Brutus Mozilla, and the Google Analytics cookie that is downloaded upon installing Firefox is the dagger.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- colanderman 7y ago
  No, tu quoque is when someone defends entity A's bad actions by saying that entity B also does bad things. The GP is not trying to defend Facebook here. Their argument is that Mozilla is not acting fully ethically, by seemingly treating Google specially. Therefore tu quoque does not apply. (Moreover, the argument is logically sound.)
carlallison 7y ago
Google is probably Mozilla biggest "customer" so I'm not surprised if Mozilla is ok with whatever Google is doing. https://www.cnet.com/news/google-firefox-search-deal-gives-mozilla-more-money-to-push-privacy/ https://www.cnet.com/news/google-firefox-search-deal-gives-m...
- ekianjo 7y ago
  Yes they pretend to be the champions of Privacy and Open Web...
  - Jonnax 7y ago
    Okay then use the web browser developed by Google. Or use a Blink based web browser whose development is steered by Google.
    - bovermyer 7y ago
      If you want a browser that's free of all of that, there's always lynx. Of course, you have to give up a few things to use it...
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
    - gman83 7y ago
      Doesn't the Midori browser use Webkit?
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        It does.
      - ekianjo 7y ago
        So what? Webkit does not have GOogle tracking.
    - 7y ago
A2017U1 7y ago
Can anyone elaborate on [3] or at least copypaste it? Twitter links seem to rarely work without having the app on mobile, it's disgustingly blatant dark pattern stuff.
- ilikepi 7y ago
  Try this unrolled version: https://threader.app/thread/1165858896176660480 https://threader.app/thread/1165858896176660480
  - djsumdog 7y ago
    OMG that is so much better than the original. Why don't people just write actual blog posts! It makes so much more sense than stringing together 20 tweets!
- mastazi 7y ago
  The most “amusing” part of that thread in my opinion is this one: > The http://mozilla.org http://mozilla.org tab discussing the importance of Privacy loads in the background, bringing along with it the Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics. Hello, Google.
  - panpanna 7y ago
    I suspect that says more about the state of frontend development today than about Mozillas privacy policy. Anyway, I think Mozilla should address all these concerns ASAP.
- phjesusthatguy3 7y ago
  On desktop, if you have JS turned off, it throws up a page saying "We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter?" If you click yes, it tries to set a cookie. If it can't set a cookie, it throws up a page saying "We've detected that JavaScript is disabled in your browser. Would you like to proceed to legacy Twitter?" etc.
wodenokoto 7y ago
Mozilla revenue is still something like 90% from Google. The Yahoo deal did help, but they are still very dependent on Google for finance. Historically Google has been a really close Mozilla partner, not only sponsoring search, but also developers. Today, Mozillas relationship with Google is extremely complicated. ZDNET had an article back in April [1], that somewhat sums up how the relationship soured, but doesn't really touch on why and how they are still intermingled. > Google, including services that track users such as Analytics? Mozilla has a special deal with Google, that does not allow Google to use that information as part of their greater analytics or sell it to 3rd parties, as per [2]. [1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has... [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=697436#c14
- lucideer 7y ago
  > Mozilla has a special deal with Google, that does not allow Google... Sorry for being pedantic, as I'm sure this is what you intended anyway, but I do think its worthwhile pointing out explicitly: it does not contractually allow Google. There are no technical restrictions in place; e.g. Google haven't provided Mozilla with an alternative analytics mechanism that consumes less data. All data is still sent by Mozilla to Google. They've just then promosed to do nothing with it. A small but, I believe, notable distinction.
  - skybrian 7y ago
    From a technical standpoint, there are data sharing settings in Google Analytics [1] letting you control how much analytics data is shared with Google. Maybe they wanted it as part of the contract and not just a setting? [1] https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397 https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1011397
    - lucideer 7y ago
      I'm not sure if you're misunderstanding me or if I'm misunderstanding you... > data sharing settings in Google Analytics [1] letting you control how much analytics data is shared with Google. It's in Google Analytics. It's all shared with Google. Or—more accurately—none of it is "shared" with Google, Google is just sharing some of it with you. There may be settings allowing you to indicate your preference for what they will use for whatever internal purposes, but... Google have collected the data. There's no question of whether they receive it or not.
ohduran 7y ago
Their relationship goes as deep as Firefox bringing Google as the default search engine. I presume Google pays some non-negligible amount of money for that, so Mozilla execs are tied to Google. Having one big source of income implies pivoting your whole strategy on virtually anything at their command because without them, you can kiss goodbye the "between $20 million and $100 million" marketing budget.
trustissues 7y ago
Maybe because Google has been mostly trustworthy and Facebook as not? AFAIK Google has never shared any user data. They've taken privacy seriously since day one. They do gather lots of data but they don't share it. Facebook on the other hand has been caught multiple times sharing anything and everything.
- dawg- 7y ago
  Google also has relatively good tools for controlling your data with myactivity. I think they have always been ahead of facebook with stuff like this.
justapassenger 7y ago
Because, as a business it’s very very hard to have values, if you don’t want to go bankrupt. Never trust businesses talking about values, or believe they are out there to protect you. Some of them are better than other for sure, but at the core companies don’t have values they stand for - they have hobbies, that they like to use to get more publicity.
- fallous 7y ago
  Actually it's very easy for a business to have values, those values just have to be those of the customer. Note that "customer" doesn't mean "user," the customer is the person that pays you money. Sometimes user and customer is one in the same, but with regards to free (as in no purchase by the end user) software and services the customer potentially has a very different set of values than the user.
downandout 7y ago
It’s pretty simple. Mozilla’s employees are fiercely liberal. For example, a small group of vocal employees managed to oust former CEO Brendan Eich over a tiny donation to a conservative political cause he had made many years before he became CEO. If you have a conservative bone in your body, you are not welcome on the Mozilla campus. So they don’t object to Facebook’s data privacy practices. They object to Facebook’s media-perceived role in Trump’s election. The reality is that if they applied the standard they are using to exclude Facebook from their advertising plan in a non-hypocritical way, they would quickly run out of places to advertise online. Most major online media outlets, including Google, have data practices that actual privacy activists consider to be abhorrent. Their policy isn’t about privacy - it’s about politics.
- djsumdog 7y ago
  > a small group of vocal employees managed to oust former CEO Brendan Eich over a tiny donation to a conservative political cause Eich was kinda a moron and I don't think they realized that after he was onboard. IIRC, he saw no reason to move forward with the Firefox Quantum support and generally had some other bad software decisions. I suspect the anti-gay stuff was more to justify a way to get rid of him and score some points in the process.
  - roca 7y ago
    As a former Mozilla distinguished engineer --- your comment is insulting, totally wrong and betrays your ignorance. Not even Brendan's worst enemies have ever accused him of being a moron. Brendan was a leading figure at Mozilla since the very beginning of the project. Everyone very well knew who he was. I didn't agree with all of Brendan's decisions. For example I think we should have prioritized process separation higher than we did, and Brendan was partly responsible for deprioritizing that, which I viewed as a serious mistake. But Brendan made a lot more good decisions than bad ones and from that point of view, everyone I know was confident in him as CEO. Engineers certainly weren't looking for an "excuse to get rid of him". I assume executives and the board weren't either, or they wouldn't have made him CEO just before the controversy exploded.
  - 7y ago
roca 7y ago
Google hasn't had a Cambridge Analytica.

bhouston 7y ago

Firefox's marketshare is pretty horrible - non-existence on mobile and very small on desktop and shrinking at 10% a year. It is basically at Edge-levels of adoption on desktop: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share#monthly-200901-201910 https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share#monthly-2009...

helpPeople 7y ago
Makes me wonder if the pro Firefox and Anti Google threads are part of the marketing ...
panpanna 7y ago
Firefox on mobile is actually pretty good and more people should use it. (At least on Android, on iOS it's just a skin on top of whatever engine apple forces down their throats).
- pkilgore 7y ago
  I started using Firefox Android a year ago and now I can't stand chrome and all the Ads! Ublock origin on Firefox mobile is a godsend.
  - vorticalbox 7y ago
    I find that firefox + ublock is still far slower than brave on android.
    - smt88 7y ago
      It isn't slower for me, and Firefox + uBlock Origin have the benefits of being FOSS (no for-profit making decisions behind the scenes) and having much better control over blocking. Brave sometimes totally fails to block Outbrain-like junk at the bottom of articles, and that seems like it must be intentional.
  - bombledmonk 7y ago
    Add on dark reader and the mobile experience is dramatically better. It's still a little clunky from a UI/UX standpoint, but still superior experience overall.

josefresco 7y ago

Does Google allow politicians to lie on their advertising platform like Facebook? Genuinely asking, as it's a stated policy of Facebook but I haven't heard or seen analysis comparing Google's ad network. I realize this decision by Mozilla was based on a previous Facebook blunder.

rswail 7y ago

um, did anyone else notice that Mozilla has 100 people in their marketing department? What do they all do?

Dolores12 7y ago
Spending Google's money.
- shantly 7y ago
  Justify some exec's paycheck. "I run a 100-person department!"
zulln 7y ago
How many would you have guessed they were? The number does not stand out for me.
- sodosopa 7y ago
  Honestly they can afford a staff with a smaller window of experience. They wouldn’t be able to afford a competent agency of 20 or more people.
sp332 7y ago
That's one marketing person per 3 million active users.
- catalogia 7y ago
  How many of those active users can reasonably be claimed to have initiated their relationship with Firefox as consequence of that 100 person marketing team, rather than, say, word of mouth in the tech community? I don't think I've ever seen an ad for firefox.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]

sk84life 7y ago

Keyword that I like was PRIVACY It's meaning is fading today too much.

dpcan 7y ago

"Facebook was one of our better-performing channels at the time that we made the decision" Everyone likes to say they don't use Facebook, but they do. Or at least 10 people they know do. Local businesses use Facebook relentlessly because, lots of times, it actually works to get people in the door or calling your number. Small businesses almost have to use its ad platform (in my opinion). I don't think local businesses can afford to look away from a top performer like this. When I ran an escape room business, my fill-rate on weekends was typically dependent on whether or not I was spending money on Facebook. Google ads were second. Anything else barely had any ROI. Well - in the first few months of running the business, the local newspaper actually brought in some people, but nothing compared to my longer ad runs on Facebook. I feel like this is a "you don't need Facebook" chant, but I feel that's not true for all industries, and I hope the take-away here is that maybe a huge online business with a giant ad budget can find other means, but if you are a small local business with $300 a month for marketing, I personally believe that you kind-of need Facebook.

Trisell 7y ago
I’m in my mid thirties. I work with a teen program. To get in touch with them I have to use Instagram or Snapchat. All of my friends that are my current age or older. They are all still on Facebook posting memes and political rants. I think it still makes sense to target Facebook. They have the larger share of the 30+ crowd that most businesses see as their target audience.
- mastazi 7y ago
  We should note that Instagram is owned by Facebook and Facebook Ads is the tool that you typically use to create and manage ads on both networks.
josefresco 7y ago
>Local businesses use Facebook relentlessly because, lots of times, it actually works to get people in the door or calling your number. Small businesses almost have to use its ad platform (in my opinion). I don't think local businesses can afford to look away from a top performer like this. Anecdotally, based on my experience working with over 250 local businesses across the business spectrum, this doesn't reflect reality. A very small percentage of my clients "actively" use "organic" Facebook, an even smaller percentage use their ad platform (much higher usage of Google Ads). The ones that do (buy FB ads), typically do so through local "media company" who tack on their own fees, which in turn makes it a poor investment. I can count on one hand (out of hundreds) the number of our clients who effectively use Facebook. In fact, in the last couple of years, the number of businesses forgoing a "real website" and choosing Facebook (a common theme just a few years ago) has basically disappeared.

Hitton 7y ago

In my opinion advertising browser on facebook is absolutely useless. How many users do you think see an advert and install browser when they current one is for all their intents and purposes same. Mozilla needs to aim at technical people, who will install Firefox not only on their own devices, but also on devices of their relatives (or in case of administrators on devices of their users). And only few technical people care about minuscule difference in performance anymore, so they need to advertise what Google, their main competitor, doesn't offer - privacy. Best way to advertise would be either tech news on articles related to privacy issues and possibly tech influencers who can properly explain privacy benefits. Another way to strike favour with tech crowd would be eliminating bloat from Firefox (e.g. Pocket, still no idea why they bought them, as an extension it worked fine).

tracker1 7y ago
Given the changes google is making... "Google is breaking ad blocking in Chrome, try a browser that works for you."
- Nextgrid 7y ago
  If you're talking about putting that in ads, then it becomes a chicken & egg problem - people who care about ad blocking won't see your ad because they already block them, people who don't won't care about Chrome breaking something they don't use.

sebastianconcpt 7y ago

Mozilla’s marketing budget is between $20 million and $100 million, said Kaykas-Wolff, adding that “it varies depending upon the different programs we’re running.” Per Kantar, which doesn’t track spending on social channels, Mozilla spent $8.2 million in 2018. The budget is split with 50% focused on North America and 50% focused on the rest of the world. Mozilla’s pivot away from Facebook followed the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Now, the majority of the company’s digital spending goes to Google properties — Mozilla’s Firefox competes with Google’s Chrome — as a part of its digital acquisition strategy. According to Netshare, as previously reported by Digiday, Firefox’s market share is 9.3% of global monthly on desktop; meanwhile, Google Chrome’s is 66%. Aside from Cambridge Analytica, it’s unclear why Mozilla is fine with Google’s data practices but not Facebook’s as the company did not immediately respond to a request for clarification. The rest of the digital budget goes directly to publishers.

0000011111 7y ago

Fundamentally the platform (facebook, google, etc) the majority of folks use to connect with be the best one to market products and services on. The issue is that these platforms change over time and across generations. In short, as firms, markets, and societies change so will effective marketing strategies. We can still bicker about whether or not FB has reached its high watermark. It looks like it has for Firefox users though.

K0SM0S 7y ago

I think Mozilla needs to re-think their whole marketing approach yesterday. A few remarks: - 50% US / 50% "rest of the world"? Nah. There's little to no chance to make a strong dent in the US, home of Chrome and Apple and Microsoft etc. Pivot to 99% "rest of the world" and switch to my other point entirely for the US. There's much more need, reason and room for Mozilla to grow internationally. - forget about ad spending, whether Google or TV, it just doesn't suit Mozilla's image, mission, product, nor customers. What we want is to attract the core deciders, from a grassroot kinda move, which spreads to peers, circles, and grows up, towards the corporate. What we want is the 'elite' or 'nerdy' segment even if we'll never call it that. The 1% that make a community thrive because they're so quintessential to tech in general, locally in their projects / cities / worlds. The few that are blessed with speech and some social presence, aura, authority. The ones others follow and listen to for 'tech stuff'. So move worldwide now, and spend almost exclusively on these people. Influencers, media, awareness, image, mission — maybe even some communities living on forums could become advocates. Coordinate locally through bigger advocates to form an army of legions. Maybe find a big thing, like "we'll be in space for humans day 1 to assist expansion" — moon, mars, satellites, whatever rocks the boat for the next decade (think really big, above yearly trends, give a face to a "superior" company). (I'm a space geek, perhaps this is just my taste) Working with people directly, podcasters and youtubers gitlabers and whatnot, hordes of them, is a more tedious, longer approach, but as well a more long-term and much more engaging way to reach people. The money paid in sponsorship goes directly to 'building the world' (these people are evangelizers of principles and values, they're teachers, they're coaches, they play a valuable role in society), not some indirect major ad platform engrossing. It fuels communities that become grateful, with good reason, for marketing money. It becomes "clean" money by virtue of being used for something good. - Don't dictate the message, let your 'influencers' feedback your way to browser supremacy, publicly so; make it a topic not a mandate — this is not just a 'strategy', it's a "why" materialized, a life path, a superior way to accomplish the mission. It's immortality through the software we give now and leave after us. Pivot to meet that, to meet your dearest users needs and wants. That's how you beat the faceless Google Chrome, imho. By giving the browser back to the people, by being a positive company not in some abstract "PR-humanitarian" way (although that's good!) but in a more direct-to-user way. By serving the worthy movements and people you find in this world. Grassroots seeding. Think: for a browser company, connecting people and stuff is pretty much what we do. Let's show the world how much good we can do when there's a whole company behind that! It'll take 10 years. There's no "too late" — until someone else does it, but that's also considered a win for Mozilla in that regard. By 2030, it can be done. And by virtue of being a dominant OSS, it has a staying power far greater than its rivals. It's possible, Mozilla. This is just one rough draft, maybe not the one, but just to say: reinvent that sh--.