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I was looking at this when I upgraded and that setting does not need to be there. If it was off by default, no one would feel the need to locate that check box

I was looking at this when I upgraded and that setting does not need to be there. If it was off by default, no one would feel the need to locate that check box and enable it. So just turn it off, remove it from settings and yank the code. The language is even rather vague and Mozilla seems to good a long way to avoid explaining that this is the alternative Google has designed for Chrome to replace tracking via third party cookies (Protected Audience API I believe). Now it is better than third party cookie, but having neither is best. This does not need to be in Firefox.

erk__ 2y ago
This is not the same as Protected Audience API which Mozilla have been very critical about [0], this is something they have worked on with Meta over the past couple of years. If you press the read more button there you go to this page [1] that explains it more. 0: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/privacy-security/googles-protected-audience-protects-advertisers/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/privacy-security/googles-protect... 1: https://support.mozilla.org/da/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution https://support.mozilla.org/da/kb/privacy-preserving-attribu...
- AlexandrB 2y ago
  > this is something they have worked on with Meta over the past couple of years The farmers working with the wolf on a feature to "help" the sheep.
shadowgovt 2y ago
It's better for a browser feature the user has some control over to be the implementation point for this than incentivizing site owners to come up with novel tracking strategies.
- account42 2y ago
  Except this is not how things work. All you are doing is giving the advertisers another tool to track you, it won't magically make them stop using all the other ones.
  - mrweasel 2y ago
    I was thinking that they'd be forced to adopt this, as 3rd. party cookies goes away, but somehow I sense it's more likely that advertisers would adopt something like device fingerprinting instead. The online shopping businesses really isn't interested in privacy, I don't even really blame the adtech industry for this one. The companies running the ads and retargetting campaigns want to know who clicked on what and when. Anything less will trigger a frantic search for ways to evade privacy improvements.
    - shortrounddev2 2y ago
      Device fingerprinting is a hack and unreliable in the long run. Third party cookies are being replaced with first party cookies and PII-based tracking methods like UID2, which enables a decentralized network of vendors to generate the same hash for the same email address across nodes, giving advertisers a global understanding of identity. Once third party cookies are gone, expect to see login prompts everywhere
  - wasmitnetzen 2y ago
    To be fair, Firefox has added a fair amount of tools to try to block all the other ones. Along with supporting Ublock et al.
omoikane 2y ago
I didn't even know that setting was there until I saw this post. Seems pretty sneaky to have a thing like that enabled by default. In comparison, when Chrome pushed out ad privacy setting update[1], there was a popup that asked users to make a choice before moving on, so there was no surprise as to what changed. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37401909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37401909 - Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting (2023-09-06)

erk__ 2y ago

This is not the same as Protected Audience API which Mozilla have been very critical about [0], this is something they have worked on with Meta over the past couple of years. If you press the read more button there you go to this page [1] that explains it more. 0: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/privacy-security/googles-protected-audience-protects-advertisers/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/privacy-security/googles-protect... 1: https://support.mozilla.org/da/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution https://support.mozilla.org/da/kb/privacy-preserving-attribu...

AlexandrB 2y ago
> this is something they have worked on with Meta over the past couple of years The farmers working with the wolf on a feature to "help" the sheep.

shadowgovt 2y ago

It's better for a browser feature the user has some control over to be the implementation point for this than incentivizing site owners to come up with novel tracking strategies.

account42 2y ago
Except this is not how things work. All you are doing is giving the advertisers another tool to track you, it won't magically make them stop using all the other ones.
- mrweasel 2y ago
  I was thinking that they'd be forced to adopt this, as 3rd. party cookies goes away, but somehow I sense it's more likely that advertisers would adopt something like device fingerprinting instead. The online shopping businesses really isn't interested in privacy, I don't even really blame the adtech industry for this one. The companies running the ads and retargetting campaigns want to know who clicked on what and when. Anything less will trigger a frantic search for ways to evade privacy improvements.
  - shortrounddev2 2y ago
    Device fingerprinting is a hack and unreliable in the long run. Third party cookies are being replaced with first party cookies and PII-based tracking methods like UID2, which enables a decentralized network of vendors to generate the same hash for the same email address across nodes, giving advertisers a global understanding of identity. Once third party cookies are gone, expect to see login prompts everywhere
- wasmitnetzen 2y ago
  To be fair, Firefox has added a fair amount of tools to try to block all the other ones. Along with supporting Ublock et al.

omoikane 2y ago

I didn't even know that setting was there until I saw this post. Seems pretty sneaky to have a thing like that enabled by default. In comparison, when Chrome pushed out ad privacy setting update[1], there was a popup that asked users to make a choice before moving on, so there was no surprise as to what changed. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37401909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37401909 - Google Chrome pushes browser history-based ad targeting (2023-09-06)