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Yea, there seems to be an unwarranted assumption that Facebook is somehow a necessary part of the ecosystem. They aren't. The internet will continue without the

Yea, there seems to be an unwarranted assumption that Facebook is somehow a necessary part of the ecosystem. They aren't. The internet will continue without them and doesn't need them.

shadowgovt 5y ago
Expecting advertisers to stop advertising on the Internet is like expecting all the billboards on the highway to blow down. Better to work on things like size limits and board-per-mile maximums with the billboard manufacturers.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  The billboards are all virtual. If your interface doesn't render them they don't exist, and without colluding with advertiser's the size and rate of ads to a system that blocks ads is a meaningless number because they are never rendered. The real question is why is my supposedly privacy preserving interface colluding with this advertiser at all? I do not want them involved in my interface and it seems contrary to Mozilla's userbase's interests. Google at least went to the trouble of building a new browser and taking over the market. Facebook hasn't done anything to be involved except have money to pay off a seemingly corrupt mozzila
- asfdgdthawerh 5y ago
  I don't expect advertisers to stop putting up billboards and I don't expect them to blow down. I live in a part of the world where billboards are banned. Likewise, all advertisements are banned from my network and any devices I manage. We are under no obligation to negotiate. Destroying the whole industry is on the table.
  - Jcowell 5y ago
    Yes but Firefox is NOT in any position to do that. The only ones are Apple via iOS Google through Chrome, and the Government and none do these entities have any incentive to do so. As such this is the most plausible way forward.
    - asfdgdthawerh 5y ago
    - munk-a 5y ago
      I'm not certain if Apple and Google acting bilaterally could actually kill advertising dead - I think, even with the enormous power they have, that we'd still need the government to come in as a rule setter to accomplish it. I think there's too much money on the table for both parties to stay honest in the long run for purely altruistic reasons.
- quesera 5y ago
  > Expecting advertisers to stop advertising on the Internet is like expecting all the billboards on the highway to blow down. This is a worthy goal, and has been achieved in some jurisdictions. No wind required. Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, Alaska.
- danShumway 5y ago
  > Expecting advertisers to stop advertising on the Internet is like expecting all the billboards on the highway to blow down. That's not the expectation at all, in fact quite the opposite. Giving concessions to advertisers doesn't make anything change. Anti-fingerprinting is the way you stop advertisers from fingerprinting. Nothing else short of legislation will work, and even legislation doesn't always work in every scenario. Expecting advertisers to behave just because you gave them a more private attribution system is like expecting ants to stop going onto your countertops just because you put a cupcake on the floor. The question is, given that Facebook will always take as much data as they are able to technically extract from the browser, and given that you're correct and advertisers are not going to stop advertising on the Internet regardless of what restrictions are put up -- why is it important to make them happy or to give the company concessions? Building a system that Facebook is happy with won't make its behavior change, so why do we care if they like the things we build?
  - jfk13 5y ago
    Anti-fingerprinting will never be bulletproof. Legislation definitely needs to be part of the solution. More generally, though, I have to ask: do we want an ever-escalating arms race or a negotiated peace?
    - danShumway 5y ago
      > do we want an ever-escalating arms race or a negotiated peace? I have yet to see an evidence that a negotiated peace is possible, and I have seen a lot of evidence that suggests to me that it is impossible. I personally would rather see hard anti-fingerprinting features in browsers, potentially combined with legislation to fill in the gaps. I have seen a lot of evidence from platforms like iOS, and from web standards like deprecating cookies, that advertisers are only willing to come to the table after they've already lost, and that they only come to the table to weaken existing standards. I have a lot of criticism of Apple, but I look at some of the changes in iOS that were made in regards to Facebook, and it's hard for me not to conclude that the best ways to tangibly improve privacy on platforms like Facebook are to just move forward without its permission. I look at adblockers the same way, there were no conversations about acceptable ads until advertisers thought it was possible that adblockers might become widespread. It's not clear to me what a negotiated peace would entail or how to get there, but it is very clear to me how to improve anti-fingerprinting measures and how to pass legislation. Yes, that means that we're in an arms race, but if we understand that advertisers are always going to advocate for more tracking, it follows that a theoretical negotiated peace would also need to be constantly renegotiated over and over again. Short of burning the industry to the ground and not having ads online, which I think is a separate conversation, I don't believe there is a stable solution to advertising and privacy. Whether it's legislation or technology or industry standards, they will always need to be defended and reinforced and renegotiated. There will always be advertisers arguing that they should be more lax. And I think that's part of why the idea of an arms race isn't that scary to me, because to me all of it is an arms race, including negotiated acceptable ad standards.
- staticassertion 5y ago
  Advertisers, like all entities, are as free to do what they like as we allow them to be. They don't have to be a part of the conversation, we don't have to care about advertisers.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    Cutting them out makes it more likely that the resulting law won't actually work IMO. Nobody understands the ad industry better than advertisers. Incentivize them to compromise and we're more likely to get something that actually works than incentivizing them to get creative in finding legal loopholes.
    - account42 5y ago
      I don't want to "understand" the ad industry, I want them gone - at least from my life.
    - reillyse 5y ago
      That sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to me. Here is a better alternative. Make a law, enforce it. We don't ask murderers for input on murder laws.
      - shadowgovt 5y ago
        Advertisers aren't murderers. Not hardly. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the comparison suggests an extremist position that should have no business dictating the law on the topic (still a position worth hearing while seeking compromise, of course).
        selfhoster11 5y ago
        They aren't murderers, but they sure are bullies [0], time wasters, attention thieves and they try to manipulate you into changing your mind about your choices. Maybe the ideal is that it's none of those things, that advertising in theory should be about matching consumers with the product they'd like best - but the fact is that in the age of the Internet, it's been nothing but unwelcome manipulation, and everyone puts up with it because it's the only funding model that's "free" at the point of use. It's about time for them to lose some power. [0]: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/461383-people-are-taking-the-piss-out-of-you-everyday-they https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/461383-people-are-taking-th...

Yea, there seems to be an unwarranted assumption that Facebook is somehow a necessary part of the ecosystem. They aren't. The internet will continue without them and doesn't need them.

shadowgovt 5y ago

Expecting advertisers to stop advertising on the Internet is like expecting all the billboards on the highway to blow down. Better to work on things like size limits and board-per-mile maximums with the billboard manufacturers.

LegitShady 5y ago
The billboards are all virtual. If your interface doesn't render them they don't exist, and without colluding with advertiser's the size and rate of ads to a system that blocks ads is a meaningless number because they are never rendered. The real question is why is my supposedly privacy preserving interface colluding with this advertiser at all? I do not want them involved in my interface and it seems contrary to Mozilla's userbase's interests. Google at least went to the trouble of building a new browser and taking over the market. Facebook hasn't done anything to be involved except have money to pay off a seemingly corrupt mozzila
asfdgdthawerh 5y ago
I don't expect advertisers to stop putting up billboards and I don't expect them to blow down. I live in a part of the world where billboards are banned. Likewise, all advertisements are banned from my network and any devices I manage. We are under no obligation to negotiate. Destroying the whole industry is on the table.
- Jcowell 5y ago
  Yes but Firefox is NOT in any position to do that. The only ones are Apple via iOS Google through Chrome, and the Government and none do these entities have any incentive to do so. As such this is the most plausible way forward.
  - asfdgdthawerh 5y ago
  - munk-a 5y ago
    I'm not certain if Apple and Google acting bilaterally could actually kill advertising dead - I think, even with the enormous power they have, that we'd still need the government to come in as a rule setter to accomplish it. I think there's too much money on the table for both parties to stay honest in the long run for purely altruistic reasons.
quesera 5y ago
> Expecting advertisers to stop advertising on the Internet is like expecting all the billboards on the highway to blow down. This is a worthy goal, and has been achieved in some jurisdictions. No wind required. Hawaii, Vermont, Maine, Alaska.
danShumway 5y ago
> Expecting advertisers to stop advertising on the Internet is like expecting all the billboards on the highway to blow down. That's not the expectation at all, in fact quite the opposite. Giving concessions to advertisers doesn't make anything change. Anti-fingerprinting is the way you stop advertisers from fingerprinting. Nothing else short of legislation will work, and even legislation doesn't always work in every scenario. Expecting advertisers to behave just because you gave them a more private attribution system is like expecting ants to stop going onto your countertops just because you put a cupcake on the floor. The question is, given that Facebook will always take as much data as they are able to technically extract from the browser, and given that you're correct and advertisers are not going to stop advertising on the Internet regardless of what restrictions are put up -- why is it important to make them happy or to give the company concessions? Building a system that Facebook is happy with won't make its behavior change, so why do we care if they like the things we build?
- jfk13 5y ago
  Anti-fingerprinting will never be bulletproof. Legislation definitely needs to be part of the solution. More generally, though, I have to ask: do we want an ever-escalating arms race or a negotiated peace?
  - danShumway 5y ago
    > do we want an ever-escalating arms race or a negotiated peace? I have yet to see an evidence that a negotiated peace is possible, and I have seen a lot of evidence that suggests to me that it is impossible. I personally would rather see hard anti-fingerprinting features in browsers, potentially combined with legislation to fill in the gaps. I have seen a lot of evidence from platforms like iOS, and from web standards like deprecating cookies, that advertisers are only willing to come to the table after they've already lost, and that they only come to the table to weaken existing standards. I have a lot of criticism of Apple, but I look at some of the changes in iOS that were made in regards to Facebook, and it's hard for me not to conclude that the best ways to tangibly improve privacy on platforms like Facebook are to just move forward without its permission. I look at adblockers the same way, there were no conversations about acceptable ads until advertisers thought it was possible that adblockers might become widespread. It's not clear to me what a negotiated peace would entail or how to get there, but it is very clear to me how to improve anti-fingerprinting measures and how to pass legislation. Yes, that means that we're in an arms race, but if we understand that advertisers are always going to advocate for more tracking, it follows that a theoretical negotiated peace would also need to be constantly renegotiated over and over again. Short of burning the industry to the ground and not having ads online, which I think is a separate conversation, I don't believe there is a stable solution to advertising and privacy. Whether it's legislation or technology or industry standards, they will always need to be defended and reinforced and renegotiated. There will always be advertisers arguing that they should be more lax. And I think that's part of why the idea of an arms race isn't that scary to me, because to me all of it is an arms race, including negotiated acceptable ad standards.
staticassertion 5y ago
Advertisers, like all entities, are as free to do what they like as we allow them to be. They don't have to be a part of the conversation, we don't have to care about advertisers.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  Cutting them out makes it more likely that the resulting law won't actually work IMO. Nobody understands the ad industry better than advertisers. Incentivize them to compromise and we're more likely to get something that actually works than incentivizing them to get creative in finding legal loopholes.
  - account42 5y ago
    I don't want to "understand" the ad industry, I want them gone - at least from my life.
  - reillyse 5y ago
    That sounds like Stockholm Syndrome to me. Here is a better alternative. Make a law, enforce it. We don't ask murderers for input on murder laws.
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      Advertisers aren't murderers. Not hardly. In fact, I'd go so far as to say the comparison suggests an extremist position that should have no business dictating the law on the topic (still a position worth hearing while seeking compromise, of course).
      - selfhoster11 5y ago
        They aren't murderers, but they sure are bullies [0], time wasters, attention thieves and they try to manipulate you into changing your mind about your choices. Maybe the ideal is that it's none of those things, that advertising in theory should be about matching consumers with the product they'd like best - but the fact is that in the age of the Internet, it's been nothing but unwelcome manipulation, and everyone puts up with it because it's the only funding model that's "free" at the point of use. It's about time for them to lose some power. [0]: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/461383-people-are-taking-the-piss-out-of-you-everyday-they https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/461383-people-are-taking-th...