9 ms·

"Firefox added [ad tracking] and has already turned it on without asking you"

259 points by notamy 2y ago

notamy 2y ago
Was uncertain how to word the title better, open to suggestions. HN's title character limit made it hard. This is about "privacy-preserving attribution" https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attr...
nullindividual 2y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40952330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40952330 [131 comments, 8 hours ago]
lern_too_spel 2y ago
This is similar to the PPA/PCM that Safari added in 2021.
david_draco 2y ago
The thread does not explain whether the behaviour of Firefox was actually changed when they added the check box, or if it is a new option to opt-out of something that could not be opted-out before.
- Vinnl 2y ago
  It's new: > Firefox now supports the experimental Privacy Preserving Attribution API, which provides an alternative to user tracking for ad attribution. This experiment is only enabled via origin trial and can be disabled in the new Website Advertising Preferences section in the Privacy and Security settings. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/128.0/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/128.0/releasenotes/
- nullindividual 2y ago
  It added in the 'privacy preserving feature' that did not exist before, automatically enabled. > Firefox now supports the experimental Privacy Preserving Attribution API, which provides an alternative to user tracking for ad attribution. This experiment is only enabled via origin trial and can be disabled in the new Website Advertising Preferences section in the Privacy and Security settings. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/128.0/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/128.0/releasenotes/ This is the page users saw when they updated to 128. No mention of this setting. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/128.0/whatsnew/?oldversion=127.0.2 https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/128.0/whatsnew/?oldver...
- Porygon 2y ago
  I think this is the check box in question: https://pomf2.lain.la/f/8v4aq9sg.png https://pomf2.lain.la/f/8v4aq9sg.png It is located at "Settings" -> "Privacy & Security" -> "Website Advertising Preferences" and is checked by default.
  - instagib 2y ago
    I followed the top level comment and added Boolean dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled False It disabled the checkbox after updating Firefox. I set it to true to test and it enabled the checkbox also.
- ZeroGravitas 2y ago
  The poster of the tweet also says later: > I recommend turning it off, or switching to a more privacy-conscious browser such as Google Chrome. Which seems an interesting comment from someone so extremely anti-advertising.
  - NuSkooler 2y ago
    The suggestion to switch to Chrome is pretty rich. Firefox is more privacy conscious Chrome even with this enabled.
  - lukan 2y ago
    I read it as satire. Even chrome is better than firefox. "Now to be clear, the disclosure Chrome provides to users is not adequate. Their wording of the "Ad Privacy" feature popup is highly disingenuous and the process to disable once notification is given is too complex and must be performed on a per-profile basis. But at least they do it"
david_draco 2y ago
It is obvious why Firefox does this though; they have no income otherwise like Google does. Firefox users somehow think that using is "supporting" Mozilla/Firefox, but it is not, and they would not pay for the browser, or pay a subscription free. Privacy-friendly ads are a reasonable way for Mozilla to survive long-term -- if they are indeed privacy-friendly. Ultimately you probably either need a clean-room NGO that ensures the data cannot be de-anonymized, or accept that ad impact counting is BS anyway and only measure profit increases across A/B ad phases.
- JadeNB 2y ago
  > Privacy-friendly ads are a reasonable way for Mozilla to survive long-term -- if they are indeed privacy-friendly. At some level, trusting that privacy-friendly advertising through Firefox actually respects privacy is going to have to involve trusting Mozilla. Mozilla seems to have gone out of its way over the years to erode user trust, and this is just one more step down that road. As the author says, if Firefox is even sneakier about this than Chrome, what scope is there for trust?
  - mulmen 2y ago
    I don't think Mozilla is going to pull a Google and deliberately choose to become evil. Mozilla simply doesn't have (or want?) the resources to hire competent product people (if such a thing even exists) to manage features and marketing. This is the problem with running software as a company instead of an open project where the product is the end rather than a means to profit.
- SoftTalker 2y ago
  I would pay for a browser that was 100% ad- and tracking-free. I pay for an email account. I pay for YouTube. I pay for several streaming media services. I get that people are used to browsers being free, but no reason that can't change.
  - fancy_pantser 2y ago
    What stops you? Are you not satisfied with the ones on offer? Is there a compatability issue that's a show-stopper?
mouse_ 2y ago
Meanwhile, Ladybird, the first new browser engine since the 90's to 100% the Acid3 JavaScript test, just secured $1 million in funding from the founder of GitHub. We, as responsible web users, need to do whatever it takes to break up Google's web oligopoly. The open web is at stake.
- tatersolid 2y ago
  I read the Ladybird FAQ for their rationale, but building a new browser in 2024 using an unsafe language is such a facepalm it’s hard to take the entire project seriously.
  - pjmlp 2y ago
    While I enjoy the sentiment, it isn't as if Rust is doing any favours regarding Firefox adoption.
    - intelVISA 2y ago
      We've added tracking but at least it's safe(tm).
  - convolvatron 2y ago
    'the rationale that they are actively evaluating other develoment platforms? "However, now that Ladybird has forked and become its own independent project, all constraints previously imposed by SerenityOS are no longer in effect. We are actively evaluating a number of alternatives and will be adding a mature successor language to the project in the near future. This process is already quite far along, and prototypes exist in multiple languages."
    - aaomidi 2y ago
      They need to commit to not using C/C++ for the majority of the project. If not, then yes it can’t be taken seriously.
      - 2y ago
Animats 2y ago
It's new. That misfeature was checked for me, even though I had "strict privacy protection" set, the level that comes with a warning that it might break some websites. And even though I had "Do not track" checked. On two different computers. This version of Firefox, 128.0, was auto-installed by Ubuntu update. Has someone filed a bug report on Firefox yet?
lpgauth 2y ago
"Google/Firefox claim their tracking features are not "tracking" because they use something called "differential privacy". I don't have room to explain this class of technology, but I sincerely consider it to be fake." Differential privacy is not fake, although quite complex to do in practice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy
- GrantMoyer 2y ago
  The fake part isn't whether differential privacy exists. The fake part is claiming differential privacy can be used by browsers to provide aggregate ad conversion data to advertising networks without providing information that can be linked to an individual. According to Mozilla[1], Firefox's implementaion uses the "Distributed Aggregation Protocol" (DAP)[2]. Individual browsers report their behavior to a data aggregation server, which in turn reports aggregate data to an advertiser's server using differential privacy. But the aggregation server still knows the behavior of individual browsers, so basically it's a semantic trick to claim the advertiser can't infer the behvior of individual users by defining part of the advertising network to not be the advertiser. Now, Mozilla says the data aggregation server they use is run by the Internet Security Research Group[3], which is a non-profit, so perhaps the social incentives truely are aligned in this case to ensure individual user behavior isn't shared with advertisers. But it's disingenuous to claim user privacy is protected absolutely by technical measures when in reality it's only protected by social measures. Finally, ad conversions can easily be measured without cookies by serving unique URLs with each ad, so what's even the point of this technology? I'm not clever enough to discern any ulterior motives (if there even are any), but the complexity of the approach is suspicious to me, since ostensibly a much more obvious solution would suffice. [1]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attr... [2]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-ppm-dap https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-ppm-dap [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Security_Research_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Security_Research_Gro...
  - throwaway81523 2y ago
    It's fake because it provides information that can be used for evil purposes: attribution to an individual has nothing to do with it. It's fake if it really is 100% anonymous. Example: Count Jackboot (your favorite evil politician, Trump or Biden or whoever) is running for office. He wants to know voter opinion on topic X so he can lie about it. He commissions a reputable polling firm to ask people about X, and give him only the aggregated results. The polling firm contacts you, asks your opinion about X, and promises you that your opinion can't be linked back to you. You'll be helping the Jackboot campaign completely anonymously. You believe the anonymity promise, but that's irrelevant, you hopefully don't want to help the Jackboot campaign at all! Saying everything is private because Jackboot only gets anonymous information is a self-serving rationalization by the advertisers and data collectors. The only way to be private is give no information whatsoever.
thangalin 2y ago
1. Visit about:config 2. Set dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled to false I've added the configuration value to the following page: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Privacy/Privacy_Task_Force/firefox_about_config_privacy_tweeks https://wiki.mozilla.org/Privacy/Privacy_Task_Force/firefox_... I'm not affiliated with Mozilla, but I do understand how wikis work. ;-)
- lkdfjlkdfjlg 2y ago
  > I'm not affiliated with Mozilla, but I do understand how wikis work. ;-) You don't seem to understand why this is problematic though, so I'll explain it to you: enabling tracking when you know that one of your selling points to your users is respect for privacy is a huge breach of trust.
  - intelVISA 2y ago
    To be fair, I don't think that has been an active Mozilla mission for close to a decade now. They mostly exist as a Google owned shell now...
    - lkdfjlkdfjlg 2y ago
      Maybe it hasn't been an active Mozilla mission for a decade in practice, but they did paid it lip service many times in the past decade, so still counts as breach of trust.
    - tredre3 2y ago
      > To be fair, I don't think that has been an active Mozilla mission for close to a decade now. Ok, maybe they should update firefox's home page, then? Very first lines: > Get the browser that protects what's important > No shady privacy policies or back doors for advertisers. Just a lightning fast browser that doesn’t sell you out.
      - johnnyanmac 2y ago
        GP did say "active mission". I'm sure Google had "Do no evil" on their site for maybe 4 years after they in fact started being evil.
brunoqc 2y ago
Anyone knows how to disable this on Android?
- hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
  menu > Settings > Data Collection
  - brunoqc 2y ago
    It doesn't seem to mention the new "privacy-aware" tracking. I got studies, something about "adjust" and some telemetry thing. Also they were already all off so it must not be one of them, I think.
deng 2y ago
As usual when people criticize Mozilla, this thread is way over the top. I agree it's not good that this is on by default. But saying that Chrome is better because it at least asks is disingenuous. Chrome simply presents you with the "Enhanced Ad Privacy" window and a button "Got it" or "Settings". That's clearly a dark pattern and technically not "asking" at all. The Topics API which you enable by clicking "Got it" is, at least from what I read, clearly worse than what Mozilla has implemented. Calling "differential privacy" a fake is simply untrue. It is not easy to implement, but if done properly, it's absolutely not fake. I agree though that Mozilla has, as usual, dropped the ball here in how they have introduced this technology. They are obviously desperate, and they know if they would ask, probably the vast majority of people would not agree. Also as usual, they will probably roll back this setting once the outcry is large enough, and they have once again lost trust and gained absolutely nothing. It's also clear that with the tiny market share Firefox has nowadays, thinking they could introduce a new ad technology is simply hubris.
- zihotki 2y ago
  They are not desperate, they are transforming into ads company which started after they bought adtech company
ta46873676 2y ago
OK I'll step up, senior dev of 30 or so years, and sick to death of the likes of Google ad-men trying to ruin things - how do I help? That said, keeping up with changes in JS/ecma seems hard. Whats the answer?
- TheDong 2y ago
  > how do I help? Ads aren't very important really, if you want to help, I recommend donating all your money to those in need and volunteering at a local homeless shelter, soup kitchen, or anything of the like.
  - account42 2y ago
    Considering that we have long had the ability to feed an house everyone and ads are a big part of the machine sucking a huge chunk of human wealth into the pockets of a minority your time is much better spent taking down that machine than it is picking up the trash it dumps in your neighborhood.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40952330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40952330
metadat 2y ago
What incentivized Mozilla to do this? How does this get them more money? (I.e., who's paying M for this?)
- ta57834774774 2y ago
  They have been Goog's pet for a long time. Only thing staving off antitrust.
- lolinder 2y ago
  They just bought an ad company.
  - tutipop 2y ago
    And not just any ad company: > Anonym was founded in 2022 by former Meta executives Brad Smallwood and Graham Mudd. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-the-bar-for-privacy-preserving-digital-advertising/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-t...
openrisk 2y ago
Q: How many people are using a web browser on a daily basis worldwide as their main window to the collective infosphere? A: Billions. Q: What fraction of the corresponding GDP would it take to fund a serious browser-as-public-good initiative that would develop this technology to its full potential without the perverse constraints of adtech business models? A: 0.0001%? Too small to compute? The idea that critical communication infrastructure must be (directly or indirectly) supported by advertising interests is certainly not obvious. Advertising businesses, like all businesses or individuals should be guests on that global platform, playing by the rules, not setting the rules. The status-quo is a unique and singular failure that has been normalized for reasons that historians will surely describe with gory detail in due course. There are more ways to fund things than either adtech or dazed and confused individuals paying/donating directly for software. Especially when the stakes are extremely high. Mozilla's attempt to provide a more palatable alternative while accepting the premise that the web is an ad-funded technology was, alas, always doomed. Its market share is trending to zero and it is just a matter of time before complete disaster...
- mulmen 2y ago
  > There are more ways to fund things than either adtech or dazed and confused individuals paying/donating directly for software. Like what?
  - chaps 2y ago
    Grants!
- moepstar 2y ago
  > fund a serious browser-as-public-good initiative > A: 0.0001%? Too small to compute? Interesting thought experiment. I think, the question can pretty much be answered with "whatever is necessary to fund a company, their personnel and keep them afloat and honest". Not sure when and why Mozilla has deviated from that path/mantra. Did they get greedy? Corporate bloat?
- woopsn 2y ago
  Mozilla is up in a bunch of shit at this point. They have a half a BILLION dollar nut to raise annually, and money from Google covers the whole thing. It's ridiculous. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Finances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Finances
CrendKing 2y ago
This gives me impression like what happens to the nuclear weapon proliferation. At beginning, it is an arms race, between US and USSR, between users and advertisers. Either side thinks they can't survive without vanquishing the other. Eventually they realize it is stupid to continue, and reach a point to both step back. I think Mozilla is at the point where they realize it is no longer beneficial to continue the race against advertisers. It is time to collaborate. This way both users, advertisers, and maybe Mozilla themselves can all benefit from stepping back one foot. I personally support this move. Morally speaking, content creators I consume deserve income from my visit, as long as my privacy is preserved. Seems a good compromise if it works.
- elashri 2y ago
  > content creators I consume deserve income from my visit, as long as my privacy is preserved I doubt that most people in these discussions wouldn't agree with that point. The problem lies in the details. Advertisers don't take anything less that complete personalized targeting. We are not in the 2000s era of buying ad space on related websites/forums anymore. The problem is there are misalignment between targeted ads and privacy. And I didn't find all the proposal for anonymity successful, it is always possible to de-anonmize the data.
  - CrendKing 2y ago
    If a website uses targeted ads and track users, they won't use the PPA feature Mozilla introduces here. So the setting won't affect user. On the other hand, if a website is not evil and willing to sacrifice revenue for better user privacy, and use non-targeted ads, PPA gives them tool to do so. In contrast, the current adblocking methods are blunt forces. They don't distinguish the nature of specific ads.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  >Morally speaking, content creators I consume deserve income from my visit, as long as my privacy is preserved. sad for the content creators (I do actievely try to donate and subscribe to quality content when apt), but I simply don't tryst my privacy being preserved any longer. So opt out of this setting and keep Adblock extension on. The well has long been poisoned for me. But I'm also in the minority and it seems there's still enough adrev going that I'm barely an atom in the market.
lapcat 2y ago
Mozilla has been working with Meta on this. "For the last few months we have been working with a team from Meta (formerly Facebook) on a new proposal that aims to enable conversion measurement – or attribution – for advertising called Interoperable Private Attribution, or IPA." https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/privacy-preserving-attribution-for-advertising/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/privacy-preserving-attri...
- kstrauser 2y ago
  I didn’t see that, and it makes it even worse. We owe Meta nothing. I have zero reason to donate my data to them.
  - heresie-dabord 2y ago
    I have supported Firefox for a long time. I enjoy using Firefox with plug-ins such as uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Multi-Account Containers, and FlagFox. I understand the need to work with Google and Meta. I don't like or trust the advertising business but I recognise that these companies are billion-dollar giants. However, activating a feature without asking users is a failure to uphold the mission statement. And Meta is a repeat offender in the domain of security. Mozilla, this is a failure. Here is a fork of Firefox that I have been using: https://librewolf.net/installation/ https://librewolf.net/installation/
    - kstrauser 2y ago
      > I understand the need to work with Google and Meta. I confess that I don't understand a need for them to work with Meta. What does anyone but Meta gain by adding this feature? A quick search doesn't show that Mozilla gets significant financial support from Meta (although maybe that's just bad searching on my part). If not money, what does Mozilla gain from this? Goodwill and a hearty thanks?
      - heresie-dabord 2y ago
        > I confess that I don't understand a need for them to work with Meta. I have an intense dislike of Meta. But the company prints money and its tentacular toxicity touches almost everything on the Internet. > what does Mozilla gain from this? Goodwill and a hearty thanks? One supposes it's money because nothing else is a plausible reason for Mozilla behaving exactly like Meta.
jacknews 2y ago
The fact they didn't loudly announce this 'feature' has seriously undermined their trustworthiness, for me at least. What's the expression; 'So much depends on reputation. Guard it with your life'. Mozilla seem to be just throwing it away.
- jopsen 2y ago
  Who would rather trust? Apple, Microsoft, Google? Realistically, these are the organizations that can afford to develop a high performance browser engine. All the chrome and firefox forks probably don't have the devs or infrastructure to fork blink/gecko and keep up with security and features. It's easy to be excited about Ladybird -- and maybe it will work, MAYBE. It's fair to argue that we've let the web evolve into such an advanced platform that building a secure high performance browser is a HUGE moat. People are so fast to criticize Mozilla. Maybe, this isn't all bad.
  - jacknews 2y ago
    whataboutism? Sure I trust Mozilla more than Google/Microsoft. But less so, now.
  - spencerflem 2y ago
    I agree with you- people are really weird about Mozilla, and I almost always defend them (check my comment history) But wow this is vile. I did not expect this from them. Bad enough that I'm not sure if I can reccomend Firefox over a fork anymore
idle76 2y ago
Wierd, I just updated to v128 (been offline a couple of days) on android, and the Settings -> Data Collection -> Marketing wad already off. I already had the usage and studied off, so maybe that's why
- CTOSian 2y ago
  I am on 128.0 on android and no such option on settings, but that 'dom.privacy...' flag was 'true'
93po 2y ago
Still waiting for a browser that doesn't send a million things to fingerprint me with. Random websites don't need to know the battery level of my device. It shouldn't even be able to know my window size or resolution. It's beyond me that we should provide any information to send back other than our IP address and the resource we want to access. Anything more than that should be allowed on a case-by-case basis, but 99% of websites don't need more.
nullc 2y ago
Do I understand the feature correctly? Your browser tracks your activity and submits it, non-anonymously to a mozilla operated server where it is vulnerable to lawful or lawless interception or compromise by hackers, and from there they sell anonymized (hopefully) data to advertisers?
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
mikeiz404 2y ago
This is the browser setting's "learn more" link: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attr...
1oooqooq 2y ago
fun thing is, only google/bing/meta/amz/anyone who sell ads in large scale/etc can profit from this. the best Mozilla can hope to gain is to get some scraps from google. disgusting. btw this wasn't discussed in any of the public Mozilla forums we monitor.
dhx 2y ago
It is important to be aware that >64 bit supercookies ("impressions") are now being stored outside of the cookies subsystem in their own PrivateAttribution.sqlite database.[1] The implications are numerous: 1. There is no user interface or settings yet available to change the whitelist of Google-enrolled (Google being the only enrollment option today as far as I have discovered) ad-tech domains that are allowed to set the supercookies or use these supercookies to track users between sites.[2] By contrast, users can currently configure cookie settings such that they are only allowed for certain user-whitelisted sites. 2. There is no user interface yet to view and delete the supercookies, as one can currently do with normal cookies.[3] 3. Supercookies are shared across all Firefox containers breaking existing expectations of container isolation.[4] 4. Supercookies were shared across private browsing and non-private-browsing sessions until v120.b5, then Private Attribution was disabled in private browsing sessions (for now, and pending decisions on whether supercookies should persist across private browsing sessions).[5] 5. The setting privacy.firstparty.isolate is not honoured by Firefox's Private Attribution feature.[6] 6. Users are at greater security and privacy risk due to implementation of an extremely complicated and obfuscated draft standard that is full of technobabble bullshit which deliberately avoids real security and privacy impacts.[7] For example, the specification hand waves away the significance of a 64-bit supercookie as somehow being difficult to use to track users between sites. Reality is that only 33 bits is needed to uniquely identify every human alive today, and 37 bits for every human who has ever lived. The specification's section on privacy and security impacts does not address, for example, a website including an ad that proceeds to fingerprint John's browser as an 18 bit identifier as demonstrated at [8], then combine it with other identifiers such as the netblock/ASN of John's home internet connection. Later when John is in a completely different Firefox container connected to his employer's WiFi network browsing another site, the browser fingerprint or other tracking data within the 64-bit supercookie can trivially be used to associate John with his employer. This Firefox partial implementation of "Private Attribution API" is just a small part of the full set of "Privacy Sandbox" anti-features Google is busy adding to Chrome, including, and of much greater concern: 1. "Private Attribution API" event-level reporting. Currently Firefox appear to have just implemented aggregate-level reporting, so the supercookie values aren't shared outside of the browser. The full specification from Google also allows event-level reporting where the supercookie values (which are set by an ad-tech company such as Google when the user visits site A) are later re-shared with the ad-tech company when the user visits a completely different site B. 2. "Protected Audience API". Execute within the browser auction bidding JavaScript bots from multiple advertisers where the bot can peek at private user data in order to bid on the impression, and then the winning bot will display the ad and report back the winning impression. 3. "Topics API". Summarise browser history in order to tell ad companies what categories of websites the user has been visiting. For example, John is interested in boats, fishing, car racing, beer and travel. Jane is interested in rock climbing, exercising in gyms, yoga, Italian cuisine and furniture. [1] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/privateattribution/PrivateAttributionService.sys.mjs https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/privateattr... [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Attribution-Reporting-Register-Source https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/At... [3] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901106 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901106 [4] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901103 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901103 [5] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901792 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901792 [6] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/privateattribution/PrivateAttribution.cpp https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/privateattr... [7] https://wicg.github.io/attribution-reporting-api/ https://wicg.github.io/attribution-reporting-api/ [8] https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
stiltzkin 2y ago
"or switching to a more privacy-conscious browser such as Google Chrome." You got me there. Switch to Librewolf
pentagrama 2y ago
I checked and is true that is enabled by default. The "Learn more" link on the setting lands here: >PPA is enabled in Firefox starting in version 128. A small number of sites are going to test this and provide feedback to inform our standardization plans, and help us understand if this is likely to gain traction. PPA can be disabled in Firefox settings. https://support.mozilla.org/es/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution https://support.mozilla.org/es/kb/privacy-preserving-attribu...
freitasm 2y ago
I am running Firefox 128 (Windows) and don't see this option. Is this a Linux thing only?
tooltower 2y ago
I have been donating a few hundred dollars to Mozilla every year (or at least most years) for the last 7 years. It's not much, but I might stop that donation now.
t0bia_s 2y ago
Better to use more privacy friendly LibreWolf, fork of Firefox.
mystrik 2y ago
For what it's worth, there already have been bugs filed and quickly closed in the Mozilla bug tracker on this. I just created a new bug to make my stance on this behavior clear. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1907763 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1907763
kurtoid 2y ago
Seems like it's way too early to be testing this thing, especially when some features important the privacy, like not sharing data across container tabs (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901103 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901103) and clearing data when cookies are reset (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901106 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901106) haven't even been done yet!
illiac786 2y ago
No one seem to have outlined this point of view, so here it is: This feature is supposed to replaced the current tracking methods for advertising purposes – and is better (or less worse) from a privacy point of view. It is currently on by default to ensure there is enough testers. If the test is not successful, the plan is to remove this feature again. There is a long term benefit for everyone if this is adopted. Let’s not forget how Google is clawing onto third party cookies, etc., and put Firefox’s position in relation to this. It does leave a lot of critic points open though: * enabling it by default is really putting a negative light on it. I understand that if it’s disabled by default, no one will allow it and the test will fail due to lack of data points, there is simply no good solution here I can think of. * will advertising companies really renounce the other tracking methods if this method proves useful for them or will it become just one more tool on their belt? As usual, the worse part if all of this really is Mozilla’s communication, they could have done much better. How could they imagine for a second it wouldn’t become a shitstorm, I wonder…

259 points by notamy 2y ago

Was uncertain how to word the title better, open to suggestions. HN's title character limit made it hard. This is about "privacy-preserving attribution" https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attr...

nullindividual 2y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40952330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40952330 [131 comments, 8 hours ago]

lern_too_spel 2y ago

This is similar to the PPA/PCM that Safari added in 2021.

david_draco 2y ago

The thread does not explain whether the behaviour of Firefox was actually changed when they added the check box, or if it is a new option to opt-out of something that could not be opted-out before.

Vinnl 2y ago
It's new: > Firefox now supports the experimental Privacy Preserving Attribution API, which provides an alternative to user tracking for ad attribution. This experiment is only enabled via origin trial and can be disabled in the new Website Advertising Preferences section in the Privacy and Security settings. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/128.0/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/128.0/releasenotes/
nullindividual 2y ago
It added in the 'privacy preserving feature' that did not exist before, automatically enabled. > Firefox now supports the experimental Privacy Preserving Attribution API, which provides an alternative to user tracking for ad attribution. This experiment is only enabled via origin trial and can be disabled in the new Website Advertising Preferences section in the Privacy and Security settings. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/128.0/releasenotes/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/128.0/releasenotes/ This is the page users saw when they updated to 128. No mention of this setting. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/128.0/whatsnew/?oldversion=127.0.2 https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/128.0/whatsnew/?oldver...
Porygon 2y ago
I think this is the check box in question: https://pomf2.lain.la/f/8v4aq9sg.png https://pomf2.lain.la/f/8v4aq9sg.png It is located at "Settings" -> "Privacy & Security" -> "Website Advertising Preferences" and is checked by default.
- instagib 2y ago
  I followed the top level comment and added Boolean dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled False It disabled the checkbox after updating Firefox. I set it to true to test and it enabled the checkbox also.
ZeroGravitas 2y ago
The poster of the tweet also says later: > I recommend turning it off, or switching to a more privacy-conscious browser such as Google Chrome. Which seems an interesting comment from someone so extremely anti-advertising.
- NuSkooler 2y ago
  The suggestion to switch to Chrome is pretty rich. Firefox is more privacy conscious Chrome even with this enabled.
- lukan 2y ago
  I read it as satire. Even chrome is better than firefox. "Now to be clear, the disclosure Chrome provides to users is not adequate. Their wording of the "Ad Privacy" feature popup is highly disingenuous and the process to disable once notification is given is too complex and must be performed on a per-profile basis. But at least they do it"

david_draco 2y ago

It is obvious why Firefox does this though; they have no income otherwise like Google does. Firefox users somehow think that using is "supporting" Mozilla/Firefox, but it is not, and they would not pay for the browser, or pay a subscription free. Privacy-friendly ads are a reasonable way for Mozilla to survive long-term -- if they are indeed privacy-friendly. Ultimately you probably either need a clean-room NGO that ensures the data cannot be de-anonymized, or accept that ad impact counting is BS anyway and only measure profit increases across A/B ad phases.

JadeNB 2y ago
> Privacy-friendly ads are a reasonable way for Mozilla to survive long-term -- if they are indeed privacy-friendly. At some level, trusting that privacy-friendly advertising through Firefox actually respects privacy is going to have to involve trusting Mozilla. Mozilla seems to have gone out of its way over the years to erode user trust, and this is just one more step down that road. As the author says, if Firefox is even sneakier about this than Chrome, what scope is there for trust?
- mulmen 2y ago
  I don't think Mozilla is going to pull a Google and deliberately choose to become evil. Mozilla simply doesn't have (or want?) the resources to hire competent product people (if such a thing even exists) to manage features and marketing. This is the problem with running software as a company instead of an open project where the product is the end rather than a means to profit.
SoftTalker 2y ago
I would pay for a browser that was 100% ad- and tracking-free. I pay for an email account. I pay for YouTube. I pay for several streaming media services. I get that people are used to browsers being free, but no reason that can't change.
- fancy_pantser 2y ago
  What stops you? Are you not satisfied with the ones on offer? Is there a compatability issue that's a show-stopper?

mouse_ 2y ago

Meanwhile, Ladybird, the first new browser engine since the 90's to 100% the Acid3 JavaScript test, just secured $1 million in funding from the founder of GitHub. We, as responsible web users, need to do whatever it takes to break up Google's web oligopoly. The open web is at stake.

tatersolid 2y ago
I read the Ladybird FAQ for their rationale, but building a new browser in 2024 using an unsafe language is such a facepalm it’s hard to take the entire project seriously.
- pjmlp 2y ago
  While I enjoy the sentiment, it isn't as if Rust is doing any favours regarding Firefox adoption.
  - intelVISA 2y ago
    We've added tracking but at least it's safe(tm).
- convolvatron 2y ago
  'the rationale that they are actively evaluating other develoment platforms? "However, now that Ladybird has forked and become its own independent project, all constraints previously imposed by SerenityOS are no longer in effect. We are actively evaluating a number of alternatives and will be adding a mature successor language to the project in the near future. This process is already quite far along, and prototypes exist in multiple languages."
  - aaomidi 2y ago
    They need to commit to not using C/C++ for the majority of the project. If not, then yes it can’t be taken seriously.
    - 2y ago

Animats 2y ago

It's new. That misfeature was checked for me, even though I had "strict privacy protection" set, the level that comes with a warning that it might break some websites. And even though I had "Do not track" checked. On two different computers. This version of Firefox, 128.0, was auto-installed by Ubuntu update. Has someone filed a bug report on Firefox yet?

lpgauth 2y ago

"Google/Firefox claim their tracking features are not "tracking" because they use something called "differential privacy". I don't have room to explain this class of technology, but I sincerely consider it to be fake." Differential privacy is not fake, although quite complex to do in practice. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_privacy

GrantMoyer 2y ago
The fake part isn't whether differential privacy exists. The fake part is claiming differential privacy can be used by browsers to provide aggregate ad conversion data to advertising networks without providing information that can be linked to an individual. According to Mozilla[1], Firefox's implementaion uses the "Distributed Aggregation Protocol" (DAP)[2]. Individual browsers report their behavior to a data aggregation server, which in turn reports aggregate data to an advertiser's server using differential privacy. But the aggregation server still knows the behavior of individual browsers, so basically it's a semantic trick to claim the advertiser can't infer the behvior of individual users by defining part of the advertising network to not be the advertiser. Now, Mozilla says the data aggregation server they use is run by the Internet Security Research Group[3], which is a non-profit, so perhaps the social incentives truely are aligned in this case to ensure individual user behavior isn't shared with advertisers. But it's disingenuous to claim user privacy is protected absolutely by technical measures when in reality it's only protected by social measures. Finally, ad conversions can easily be measured without cookies by serving unique URLs with each ad, so what's even the point of this technology? I'm not clever enough to discern any ulterior motives (if there even are any), but the complexity of the approach is suspicious to me, since ostensibly a much more obvious solution would suffice. [1]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attr... [2]: https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-ppm-dap https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/draft-ietf-ppm-dap [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Security_Research_Group https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Security_Research_Gro...
- throwaway81523 2y ago
  It's fake because it provides information that can be used for evil purposes: attribution to an individual has nothing to do with it. It's fake if it really is 100% anonymous. Example: Count Jackboot (your favorite evil politician, Trump or Biden or whoever) is running for office. He wants to know voter opinion on topic X so he can lie about it. He commissions a reputable polling firm to ask people about X, and give him only the aggregated results. The polling firm contacts you, asks your opinion about X, and promises you that your opinion can't be linked back to you. You'll be helping the Jackboot campaign completely anonymously. You believe the anonymity promise, but that's irrelevant, you hopefully don't want to help the Jackboot campaign at all! Saying everything is private because Jackboot only gets anonymous information is a self-serving rationalization by the advertisers and data collectors. The only way to be private is give no information whatsoever.

thangalin 2y ago

1. Visit about:config 2. Set dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled to false I've added the configuration value to the following page: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Privacy/Privacy_Task_Force/firefox_about_config_privacy_tweeks https://wiki.mozilla.org/Privacy/Privacy_Task_Force/firefox_... I'm not affiliated with Mozilla, but I do understand how wikis work. ;-)

lkdfjlkdfjlg 2y ago
> I'm not affiliated with Mozilla, but I do understand how wikis work. ;-) You don't seem to understand why this is problematic though, so I'll explain it to you: enabling tracking when you know that one of your selling points to your users is respect for privacy is a huge breach of trust.
- intelVISA 2y ago
  To be fair, I don't think that has been an active Mozilla mission for close to a decade now. They mostly exist as a Google owned shell now...
  - lkdfjlkdfjlg 2y ago
    Maybe it hasn't been an active Mozilla mission for a decade in practice, but they did paid it lip service many times in the past decade, so still counts as breach of trust.
  - tredre3 2y ago
    > To be fair, I don't think that has been an active Mozilla mission for close to a decade now. Ok, maybe they should update firefox's home page, then? Very first lines: > Get the browser that protects what's important > No shady privacy policies or back doors for advertisers. Just a lightning fast browser that doesn’t sell you out.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      GP did say "active mission". I'm sure Google had "Do no evil" on their site for maybe 4 years after they in fact started being evil.

brunoqc 2y ago

Anyone knows how to disable this on Android?

hoppyhoppy2 2y ago
menu > Settings > Data Collection
- brunoqc 2y ago
  It doesn't seem to mention the new "privacy-aware" tracking. I got studies, something about "adjust" and some telemetry thing. Also they were already all off so it must not be one of them, I think.

deng 2y ago

As usual when people criticize Mozilla, this thread is way over the top. I agree it's not good that this is on by default. But saying that Chrome is better because it at least asks is disingenuous. Chrome simply presents you with the "Enhanced Ad Privacy" window and a button "Got it" or "Settings". That's clearly a dark pattern and technically not "asking" at all. The Topics API which you enable by clicking "Got it" is, at least from what I read, clearly worse than what Mozilla has implemented. Calling "differential privacy" a fake is simply untrue. It is not easy to implement, but if done properly, it's absolutely not fake. I agree though that Mozilla has, as usual, dropped the ball here in how they have introduced this technology. They are obviously desperate, and they know if they would ask, probably the vast majority of people would not agree. Also as usual, they will probably roll back this setting once the outcry is large enough, and they have once again lost trust and gained absolutely nothing. It's also clear that with the tiny market share Firefox has nowadays, thinking they could introduce a new ad technology is simply hubris.

zihotki 2y ago
They are not desperate, they are transforming into ads company which started after they bought adtech company

ta46873676 2y ago

OK I'll step up, senior dev of 30 or so years, and sick to death of the likes of Google ad-men trying to ruin things - how do I help? That said, keeping up with changes in JS/ecma seems hard. Whats the answer?

TheDong 2y ago
> how do I help? Ads aren't very important really, if you want to help, I recommend donating all your money to those in need and volunteering at a local homeless shelter, soup kitchen, or anything of the like.
- account42 2y ago
  Considering that we have long had the ability to feed an house everyone and ads are a big part of the machine sucking a huge chunk of human wealth into the pockets of a minority your time is much better spent taking down that machine than it is picking up the trash it dumps in your neighborhood.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

[dupe] More discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40952330 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40952330

metadat 2y ago

What incentivized Mozilla to do this? How does this get them more money? (I.e., who's paying M for this?)

ta57834774774 2y ago
They have been Goog's pet for a long time. Only thing staving off antitrust.
lolinder 2y ago
They just bought an ad company.
- tutipop 2y ago
  And not just any ad company: > Anonym was founded in 2022 by former Meta executives Brad Smallwood and Graham Mudd. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-the-bar-for-privacy-preserving-digital-advertising/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-t...

openrisk 2y ago

Q: How many people are using a web browser on a daily basis worldwide as their main window to the collective infosphere? A: Billions. Q: What fraction of the corresponding GDP would it take to fund a serious browser-as-public-good initiative that would develop this technology to its full potential without the perverse constraints of adtech business models? A: 0.0001%? Too small to compute? The idea that critical communication infrastructure must be (directly or indirectly) supported by advertising interests is certainly not obvious. Advertising businesses, like all businesses or individuals should be guests on that global platform, playing by the rules, not setting the rules. The status-quo is a unique and singular failure that has been normalized for reasons that historians will surely describe with gory detail in due course. There are more ways to fund things than either adtech or dazed and confused individuals paying/donating directly for software. Especially when the stakes are extremely high. Mozilla's attempt to provide a more palatable alternative while accepting the premise that the web is an ad-funded technology was, alas, always doomed. Its market share is trending to zero and it is just a matter of time before complete disaster...

mulmen 2y ago
> There are more ways to fund things than either adtech or dazed and confused individuals paying/donating directly for software. Like what?
- chaps 2y ago
  Grants!
moepstar 2y ago
> fund a serious browser-as-public-good initiative > A: 0.0001%? Too small to compute? Interesting thought experiment. I think, the question can pretty much be answered with "whatever is necessary to fund a company, their personnel and keep them afloat and honest". Not sure when and why Mozilla has deviated from that path/mantra. Did they get greedy? Corporate bloat?
woopsn 2y ago
Mozilla is up in a bunch of shit at this point. They have a half a BILLION dollar nut to raise annually, and money from Google covers the whole thing. It's ridiculous. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Finances https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Finances

CrendKing 2y ago

This gives me impression like what happens to the nuclear weapon proliferation. At beginning, it is an arms race, between US and USSR, between users and advertisers. Either side thinks they can't survive without vanquishing the other. Eventually they realize it is stupid to continue, and reach a point to both step back. I think Mozilla is at the point where they realize it is no longer beneficial to continue the race against advertisers. It is time to collaborate. This way both users, advertisers, and maybe Mozilla themselves can all benefit from stepping back one foot. I personally support this move. Morally speaking, content creators I consume deserve income from my visit, as long as my privacy is preserved. Seems a good compromise if it works.

elashri 2y ago
> content creators I consume deserve income from my visit, as long as my privacy is preserved I doubt that most people in these discussions wouldn't agree with that point. The problem lies in the details. Advertisers don't take anything less that complete personalized targeting. We are not in the 2000s era of buying ad space on related websites/forums anymore. The problem is there are misalignment between targeted ads and privacy. And I didn't find all the proposal for anonymity successful, it is always possible to de-anonmize the data.
- CrendKing 2y ago
  If a website uses targeted ads and track users, they won't use the PPA feature Mozilla introduces here. So the setting won't affect user. On the other hand, if a website is not evil and willing to sacrifice revenue for better user privacy, and use non-targeted ads, PPA gives them tool to do so. In contrast, the current adblocking methods are blunt forces. They don't distinguish the nature of specific ads.
johnnyanmac 2y ago
>Morally speaking, content creators I consume deserve income from my visit, as long as my privacy is preserved. sad for the content creators (I do actievely try to donate and subscribe to quality content when apt), but I simply don't tryst my privacy being preserved any longer. So opt out of this setting and keep Adblock extension on. The well has long been poisoned for me. But I'm also in the minority and it seems there's still enough adrev going that I'm barely an atom in the market.

lapcat 2y ago

Mozilla has been working with Meta on this. "For the last few months we have been working with a team from Meta (formerly Facebook) on a new proposal that aims to enable conversion measurement – or attribution – for advertising called Interoperable Private Attribution, or IPA." https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/privacy-preserving-attribution-for-advertising/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/privacy-preserving-attri...

kstrauser 2y ago
I didn’t see that, and it makes it even worse. We owe Meta nothing. I have zero reason to donate my data to them.
- heresie-dabord 2y ago
  I have supported Firefox for a long time. I enjoy using Firefox with plug-ins such as uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Multi-Account Containers, and FlagFox. I understand the need to work with Google and Meta. I don't like or trust the advertising business but I recognise that these companies are billion-dollar giants. However, activating a feature without asking users is a failure to uphold the mission statement. And Meta is a repeat offender in the domain of security. Mozilla, this is a failure. Here is a fork of Firefox that I have been using: https://librewolf.net/installation/ https://librewolf.net/installation/
  - kstrauser 2y ago
    > I understand the need to work with Google and Meta. I confess that I don't understand a need for them to work with Meta. What does anyone but Meta gain by adding this feature? A quick search doesn't show that Mozilla gets significant financial support from Meta (although maybe that's just bad searching on my part). If not money, what does Mozilla gain from this? Goodwill and a hearty thanks?
    - heresie-dabord 2y ago
      > I confess that I don't understand a need for them to work with Meta. I have an intense dislike of Meta. But the company prints money and its tentacular toxicity touches almost everything on the Internet. > what does Mozilla gain from this? Goodwill and a hearty thanks? One supposes it's money because nothing else is a plausible reason for Mozilla behaving exactly like Meta.

jacknews 2y ago

The fact they didn't loudly announce this 'feature' has seriously undermined their trustworthiness, for me at least. What's the expression; 'So much depends on reputation. Guard it with your life'. Mozilla seem to be just throwing it away.

jopsen 2y ago
Who would rather trust? Apple, Microsoft, Google? Realistically, these are the organizations that can afford to develop a high performance browser engine. All the chrome and firefox forks probably don't have the devs or infrastructure to fork blink/gecko and keep up with security and features. It's easy to be excited about Ladybird -- and maybe it will work, MAYBE. It's fair to argue that we've let the web evolve into such an advanced platform that building a secure high performance browser is a HUGE moat. People are so fast to criticize Mozilla. Maybe, this isn't all bad.
- jacknews 2y ago
  whataboutism? Sure I trust Mozilla more than Google/Microsoft. But less so, now.
- spencerflem 2y ago
  I agree with you- people are really weird about Mozilla, and I almost always defend them (check my comment history) But wow this is vile. I did not expect this from them. Bad enough that I'm not sure if I can reccomend Firefox over a fork anymore

idle76 2y ago

Wierd, I just updated to v128 (been offline a couple of days) on android, and the Settings -> Data Collection -> Marketing wad already off. I already had the usage and studied off, so maybe that's why

CTOSian 2y ago
I am on 128.0 on android and no such option on settings, but that 'dom.privacy...' flag was 'true'

93po 2y ago

Still waiting for a browser that doesn't send a million things to fingerprint me with. Random websites don't need to know the battery level of my device. It shouldn't even be able to know my window size or resolution. It's beyond me that we should provide any information to send back other than our IP address and the resource we want to access. Anything more than that should be allowed on a case-by-case basis, but 99% of websites don't need more.

nullc 2y ago

Do I understand the feature correctly? Your browser tracks your activity and submits it, non-anonymously to a mozilla operated server where it is vulnerable to lawful or lawless interception or compromise by hackers, and from there they sell anonymized (hopefully) data to advertisers?

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

mikeiz404 2y ago

This is the browser setting's "learn more" link: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attr...

1oooqooq 2y ago

fun thing is, only google/bing/meta/amz/anyone who sell ads in large scale/etc can profit from this. the best Mozilla can hope to gain is to get some scraps from google. disgusting. btw this wasn't discussed in any of the public Mozilla forums we monitor.

dhx 2y ago

It is important to be aware that >64 bit supercookies ("impressions") are now being stored outside of the cookies subsystem in their own PrivateAttribution.sqlite database.[1] The implications are numerous: 1. There is no user interface or settings yet available to change the whitelist of Google-enrolled (Google being the only enrollment option today as far as I have discovered) ad-tech domains that are allowed to set the supercookies or use these supercookies to track users between sites.[2] By contrast, users can currently configure cookie settings such that they are only allowed for certain user-whitelisted sites. 2. There is no user interface yet to view and delete the supercookies, as one can currently do with normal cookies.[3] 3. Supercookies are shared across all Firefox containers breaking existing expectations of container isolation.[4] 4. Supercookies were shared across private browsing and non-private-browsing sessions until v120.b5, then Private Attribution was disabled in private browsing sessions (for now, and pending decisions on whether supercookies should persist across private browsing sessions).[5] 5. The setting privacy.firstparty.isolate is not honoured by Firefox's Private Attribution feature.[6] 6. Users are at greater security and privacy risk due to implementation of an extremely complicated and obfuscated draft standard that is full of technobabble bullshit which deliberately avoids real security and privacy impacts.[7] For example, the specification hand waves away the significance of a 64-bit supercookie as somehow being difficult to use to track users between sites. Reality is that only 33 bits is needed to uniquely identify every human alive today, and 37 bits for every human who has ever lived. The specification's section on privacy and security impacts does not address, for example, a website including an ad that proceeds to fingerprint John's browser as an 18 bit identifier as demonstrated at [8], then combine it with other identifiers such as the netblock/ASN of John's home internet connection. Later when John is in a completely different Firefox container connected to his employer's WiFi network browsing another site, the browser fingerprint or other tracking data within the 64-bit supercookie can trivially be used to associate John with his employer. This Firefox partial implementation of "Private Attribution API" is just a small part of the full set of "Privacy Sandbox" anti-features Google is busy adding to Chrome, including, and of much greater concern: 1. "Private Attribution API" event-level reporting. Currently Firefox appear to have just implemented aggregate-level reporting, so the supercookie values aren't shared outside of the browser. The full specification from Google also allows event-level reporting where the supercookie values (which are set by an ad-tech company such as Google when the user visits site A) are later re-shared with the ad-tech company when the user visits a completely different site B. 2. "Protected Audience API". Execute within the browser auction bidding JavaScript bots from multiple advertisers where the bot can peek at private user data in order to bid on the impression, and then the winning bot will display the ad and report back the winning impression. 3. "Topics API". Summarise browser history in order to tell ad companies what categories of websites the user has been visiting. For example, John is interested in boats, fishing, car racing, beer and travel. Jane is interested in rock climbing, exercising in gyms, yoga, Italian cuisine and furniture. [1] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/privateattribution/PrivateAttributionService.sys.mjs https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/privateattr... [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/Attribution-Reporting-Register-Source https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Headers/At... [3] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901106 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901106 [4] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901103 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901103 [5] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901792 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901792 [6] https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/privateattribution/PrivateAttribution.cpp https://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/source/dom/privateattr... [7] https://wicg.github.io/attribution-reporting-api/ https://wicg.github.io/attribution-reporting-api/ [8] https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/ https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/

stiltzkin 2y ago

"or switching to a more privacy-conscious browser such as Google Chrome." You got me there. Switch to Librewolf

pentagrama 2y ago

I checked and is true that is enabled by default. The "Learn more" link on the setting lands here: >PPA is enabled in Firefox starting in version 128. A small number of sites are going to test this and provide feedback to inform our standardization plans, and help us understand if this is likely to gain traction. PPA can be disabled in Firefox settings. https://support.mozilla.org/es/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution https://support.mozilla.org/es/kb/privacy-preserving-attribu...

freitasm 2y ago

I am running Firefox 128 (Windows) and don't see this option. Is this a Linux thing only?

tooltower 2y ago

I have been donating a few hundred dollars to Mozilla every year (or at least most years) for the last 7 years. It's not much, but I might stop that donation now.

t0bia_s 2y ago

Better to use more privacy friendly LibreWolf, fork of Firefox.

mystrik 2y ago

For what it's worth, there already have been bugs filed and quickly closed in the Mozilla bug tracker on this. I just created a new bug to make my stance on this behavior clear. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1907763 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1907763

kurtoid 2y ago

Seems like it's way too early to be testing this thing, especially when some features important the privacy, like not sharing data across container tabs (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901103 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901103) and clearing data when cookies are reset (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901106 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1901106) haven't even been done yet!

illiac786 2y ago

No one seem to have outlined this point of view, so here it is: This feature is supposed to replaced the current tracking methods for advertising purposes – and is better (or less worse) from a privacy point of view. It is currently on by default to ensure there is enough testers. If the test is not successful, the plan is to remove this feature again. There is a long term benefit for everyone if this is adopted. Let’s not forget how Google is clawing onto third party cookies, etc., and put Firefox’s position in relation to this. It does leave a lot of critic points open though: * enabling it by default is really putting a negative light on it. I understand that if it’s disabled by default, no one will allow it and the test will fail due to lack of data points, there is simply no good solution here I can think of. * will advertising companies really renounce the other tracking methods if this method proves useful for them or will it become just one more tool on their belt? As usual, the worse part if all of this really is Mozilla’s communication, they could have done much better. How could they imagine for a second it wouldn’t become a shitstorm, I wonder…