4 ms·

Mozilla to sell New Tab page ads in Firefox

26 points by msh 13y ago

matthewbadeau 13y ago
The link didn't work for me but I found the article here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57618750-92/mozilla-to-sell-new-tab-page-ads-in-firefox/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57618750-92/mozilla-to-sell...
- eXpl0it3r 13y ago
  Didn't work for me either, thanks for a working link!
  - chris_wot 13y ago
    Try the original blog post: https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...
vanderZwan 13y ago
> "We wanted to get away from being this window into the web that doesn't bring value," to users, she said. Nice bit of doublespeak there. Not showing me ads is valuable to me, you jerks.
- kevingadd 13y ago
  Non-profits still have to pay salaries. Or would you prefer FF effectively no longer exist and have to use Chrome instead? Honestly, explicit ads marked as ads in the UI are preferable to hidden advertisement/deals - like defaulting to Google search without communicating to users that money has changed hands for that preferential treatment.
  - pekk 13y ago
    A browser which shows me ads versus one which doesn't show me ads. Pretty easy choice. In both cases the funding is coming from ads, but one of these is waving them in my face all the time and the other one isn't.
    - kevingadd 13y ago
      The Google search bar that appears in Firefox when you install it, with a Google icon, is effectively an advertisement paid for with Google's money. The fact that it's an effective advertisement (and most people use that search bar) doesn't make it not an advertisement. Note that for example the default search provider has been different in other countries at times based on other advertising deals Mozilla made - not just Google. It's easier to view it as not-an-ad when it's a search provider you use; less so than when it is a random provider that bid the highest amount.
  - rplnt 13y ago
    Don't they have enough money from Google? They must make at least one dollar a year from each user through search. One would guess... Or is Google finally cutting into that? Just another way to get rid of competing browsers? Sadly Bing isn't an alternative outside of US (and I'm not even sure about that).
    - kevingadd 13y ago
      Define 'enough money'. Should they cut back every non-essential employee until they have 5 people in a room, one of them responsible for all Firefox development? Should they assume that the Google revenue party will last forever, despite the fact that Google clearly is motivated to get all users on their own browser? I think it makes sense to diversify the ways they can earn money, and advertising is a reasonable approach as long as it's honest. Nothing here seems to indicate that they will be disguising advertisements or sacrificing usability in favor of advertisements.
      - dragonwriter 13y ago
- cLeEOGPw 13y ago
  Non-profit does not mean free labor.
- panacea 13y ago
  I don't get the anger at this. They're talking about pre-populating the tiles with some websites before you fill them up with your own most visited sites.
  - chris_wot 13y ago
    I can only really speak for myself, but the reason I feel angry is because advertising is a manipulative and often dishonest industry. Mozilla is the total antithesis of this, and it seems very wrong the way it was announced and the manner in which it was done. I certainly don't see any discussion around the decision - who made the decision to prepopulate the tiles? Where is the original debate? How involved was the IAB in this decision? When did this get decided and for how long now? What stakeholders were notified? What about privacy concerns - how will these ads target me? I don't want Firefox to turn into some sort of Facebook where my data isn't safe. There are no details about how they will achieve this increased advertising. In the original blog post, they have said they will target advertising via the country you are residing in - but what other data will it start detecting? All very worrying.
    - panacea 13y ago
      You think Mozilla will ride the slippery slope to promoting malware or something in the tiles? It will be links to decent sponsors webpages I'll bet. Their announcement has been filtered through asshole media.
    - joveian 13y ago
      I'm guessing they aren't going to do tracking yet, but I agree the "we're going to start advertising for the users" presentation is super worrying. This is advanced doublethink. If they can't be honest about the most reasonable changes then I don't trust that they won't at some point make unreasonable changes and simply not mention them. It sounds like they may be trying to copy Opera so take a look at what Opera is doing to see where they might be headed.
- blueskin_ 13y ago
  "We wanted to get away from being this window into the web that doesn't bring value to our shareholders" What she really meant.
lucb1e 13y ago
I'm thinking about proposing something like "I'll run your bloody ads for 1 month. Then you tell me how much you earn off of me and I'll pay you twice that." I'm all for Mozilla getting income from more sources (instead of search engine revenue), but I just don't like ads. There is a reason I donated in the past. If I can't disable the ads this way, it's not that hard to install an add-on that does it, edit about:config or just recompile from sources. No problem if you want to play that game. But I'd much rather pay them.
- ars 13y ago
  In my config I set browser.newtab.url to about:blank I have someone javascript bookmarklets and they don't work with the regular new tab page, but they do with about:blank
- zebra 13y ago
  The ads in fact are placeholders in the empty dial screen. They will disappear after you visit 6 sites. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that you will not be tracked if they are shown to you. If Mozilla does not cross this border I'm fine with this very passive advertisement.
  - fauigerzigerk 13y ago
    The point is that Firefox was supposed to be the browser where you can feel safe. The way they are explaining this new monetization scheme makes me feel that I have to get my guard up.
    - chris_wot 13y ago
      Darren Herman is from MDC Partners, a massive advertising company. Then he founded a "media management" company. He's a "marketing innovator". He writes ambiguous phrases that tend to contradict themselves like "Publisher Transformation with Users at the Center" (what?) and "The new tab page isn’t delivering any value for them." (double-what?) Let's look at some of the wording from this guy [1], it's straight out of some PR/advertising agency. It makes me so incredibly suspicious, and I worry it will be counter to Mozilla's goals. "Some of these tile placements will be from the Mozilla ecosystem, some will be popular websites in a given geographic location, and some will be sponsored content from hand-picked partners to help support Mozilla’s pursuit of our mission." A given geographic region? Who says that it's popular? Hand-picked partners? Who picks them? What are the requirements for being "hand-picked"? Let's look at some more language, filled with buzz-words and devalued propositions: We are excited about Directory Tiles because it has inherent value to our users. While Mozilla hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye with all viewpoints in the digital content community, particularly the IAB, we think they’d agree that users’ interests should come first, and we want to help their members deliver compelling content to strengthen the Web ecosystem. When the user is at the center everyone benefits We believe that if you put the user front and center, you can make every experience for them richer and more meaningful. I know many will find me harsh, but when I read these things I also immediately have my guard up. I wonder what is being hidden behind these frankly contradictory and ambiguous statements. There is, to my mind, a falseness to them that is disturbing. This sort of language is what a politician or PR agency would use to deliver unpalatable news. I feel very strongly that it has no place being on an official Mozilla blog. 1. https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...
jbrooksuk 13y ago
And there was me enjoying the switch I made just last week.
chris_wot 13y ago
The original blog post was on HN front page yesterday and it got voted down to oblivion. Or hit some sort of threshold. Frankly, I find the original blog post to be unbelievably weasily - especially this: "We believe that if you put the user front and center, you can make every experience for them richer and more meaningful. The Content Services team has embraced this, and today I wanted to share some of our thinking and explain our first steps for putting it into practice." and then: "While Mozilla hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye with all viewpoints in the digital content community, particularly the IAB, we think they’d agree that users’ interests should come first, and we want to help their members deliver compelling content to strengthen the Web ecosystem." This: * beats around the bush * starts with spin * says that advertisers have the best interest of users in mind - and I assure you, they do not. I am very, very unimpressed.
- Drakim 13y ago
  Especially the last part infuriates me, I'm now being done a favor by having ads shoved in my face against my will? There is just no way you can spin that as "helping", it's advertisements, nothing more, nothing less.
- sheetjs 13y ago
  > it got voted down to oblivion. It was flagged heavily, which shouldn't be a surprise given the heavy pro-Mozilla bias here. (case in point: this post will be downvoted at least a few times in the next few minutes) But to be fair, the ads haven't been rolled out yet, and there's a nonzero chance Mozilla will come to their senses and reverse course. And if not, use a browser that actually values your privacy and safety (my current browser is SRWare Iron https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php)
  - shrikant 13y ago
    See this: https://web.archive.org/web/20100614055220/http://chromium.hybridsource.org/the-iron-scam https://web.archive.org/web/20100614055220/http://chromium.h... I'm not sure what's changed since then, but it's worth considering.
rubbingalcohol 13y ago
I would be happy to see ads on the new tab page in Firefox if it means supporting Mozilla. They're doing so much stuff to protect freedom on the Internet, and I just don't see the big deal with helping talented people pay their bills.
- doe88 13y ago
  Likewise if it's done wisely (no tracking, ads provided only from Mozilla servers and ideally only once in a while) I'm all for it.
- blueskin_ 13y ago
  Fuck that, I'd rather pay a small donation. £5/year is going to be more than they get from me for ads (as nobody wants to pay per impression, only click) and I'd double that if necessary.
nodata 13y ago
I don't mind Firefox earning money, but can't see how they will avoid the user tracking problem. At some point they will be under pressure to increase revenues, and the advertisers will want more information on who is viewing their ads.
D9u 13y ago
https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
kule 13y ago
Reading the original article [1] this doesn't look like such a big issue. For new users that don't have any recently used sites rather than blank tiles they will get some Mozilla suggested sites and some sponsored tiles. I presume for existing users you'll never even see these and, for new users, as soon as you've actually visited some sites these will disappear. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...
fauigerzigerk 13y ago
"Mozilla said that the ads are part of an attempt to connect new browser users to sites that they might find relevant." I understand that Mozilla is looking for ways to fund itself. But they should not join those who use the word "relevant" in this disingenuous way. This phrasing is an obvious attempt to sugarcoat the fact that we are being inundated by so many schemes to grab a piece of our limited cognitive capacity that we wouldn't even be able to notice something relevant if it were actually there. Mozilla's advantage over other browser makers is that users trust them not to use the kind of deceptive chicanery that we're being subjected to left and right. So they better not ruin that trust by using dishonest language.
pratkar 13y ago
I dont care as long as Ad Blocker works well on this!
companerx 13y ago
So they're going to have certain sponsors' sites on my default New Tab page until I replace them with something else? The horror!! You people and your slippery slopes.
auvrw 13y ago
so just to double-check: no chance of this making it into iceweasel, right?
blueskin_ 13y ago
New tab thumbnails preemptively disabled. Between this, making Sync less secure and Australis, I start seriously wondering if Mozilla are attempting to drive users away.
- lucian1900 13y ago
  The more secure sync was apparently too hard to use for non-experts. Australis is a matter of taste, I personally like it. They're trying to not drive users away, but you and I are a tiny minority.
  - blueskin_ 13y ago
    So why not educate users instead? Especially with the NSA/GCHQ spying still so recent. Firefox is already a power user's browser - the masses who just want a dumb facebook/youtube/twitter/gmail terminal mostly use chrome and will continue to do so, unaware and unconcerned with customisation and privacy issues (my parents use chrome, and didn't have any addons installed at one point (they now have adblock)). Firefox will never even catch up to where chrome is today in market share, let alone pass it, and I'm fine with that, as it's a browser for power users - customisable, privacy-respecting and more 'traditional' by giving users actual control over their experience and options to customise functionality and looks. To use beer as an analogy, Chrome is {Budweiser/PBR/Coors/Miller/etc}; Firefox is a craft beer. Yes, it's nicer, but not as accessible, and the majority of people neither know nor care as it's not their market.

26 points by msh 13y ago

The link didn't work for me but I found the article here: http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57618750-92/mozilla-to-sell-new-tab-page-ads-in-firefox/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-1001_3-57618750-92/mozilla-to-sell...

eXpl0it3r 13y ago
Didn't work for me either, thanks for a working link!
- chris_wot 13y ago
  Try the original blog post: https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...

vanderZwan 13y ago

> "We wanted to get away from being this window into the web that doesn't bring value," to users, she said. Nice bit of doublespeak there. Not showing me ads is valuable to me, you jerks.

kevingadd 13y ago
Non-profits still have to pay salaries. Or would you prefer FF effectively no longer exist and have to use Chrome instead? Honestly, explicit ads marked as ads in the UI are preferable to hidden advertisement/deals - like defaulting to Google search without communicating to users that money has changed hands for that preferential treatment.
- pekk 13y ago
  A browser which shows me ads versus one which doesn't show me ads. Pretty easy choice. In both cases the funding is coming from ads, but one of these is waving them in my face all the time and the other one isn't.
  - kevingadd 13y ago
    The Google search bar that appears in Firefox when you install it, with a Google icon, is effectively an advertisement paid for with Google's money. The fact that it's an effective advertisement (and most people use that search bar) doesn't make it not an advertisement. Note that for example the default search provider has been different in other countries at times based on other advertising deals Mozilla made - not just Google. It's easier to view it as not-an-ad when it's a search provider you use; less so than when it is a random provider that bid the highest amount.
- rplnt 13y ago
  Don't they have enough money from Google? They must make at least one dollar a year from each user through search. One would guess... Or is Google finally cutting into that? Just another way to get rid of competing browsers? Sadly Bing isn't an alternative outside of US (and I'm not even sure about that).
  - kevingadd 13y ago
    Define 'enough money'. Should they cut back every non-essential employee until they have 5 people in a room, one of them responsible for all Firefox development? Should they assume that the Google revenue party will last forever, despite the fact that Google clearly is motivated to get all users on their own browser? I think it makes sense to diversify the ways they can earn money, and advertising is a reasonable approach as long as it's honest. Nothing here seems to indicate that they will be disguising advertisements or sacrificing usability in favor of advertisements.
    - dragonwriter 13y ago
cLeEOGPw 13y ago
Non-profit does not mean free labor.
panacea 13y ago
I don't get the anger at this. They're talking about pre-populating the tiles with some websites before you fill them up with your own most visited sites.
- chris_wot 13y ago
  I can only really speak for myself, but the reason I feel angry is because advertising is a manipulative and often dishonest industry. Mozilla is the total antithesis of this, and it seems very wrong the way it was announced and the manner in which it was done. I certainly don't see any discussion around the decision - who made the decision to prepopulate the tiles? Where is the original debate? How involved was the IAB in this decision? When did this get decided and for how long now? What stakeholders were notified? What about privacy concerns - how will these ads target me? I don't want Firefox to turn into some sort of Facebook where my data isn't safe. There are no details about how they will achieve this increased advertising. In the original blog post, they have said they will target advertising via the country you are residing in - but what other data will it start detecting? All very worrying.
  - panacea 13y ago
    You think Mozilla will ride the slippery slope to promoting malware or something in the tiles? It will be links to decent sponsors webpages I'll bet. Their announcement has been filtered through asshole media.
  - joveian 13y ago
    I'm guessing they aren't going to do tracking yet, but I agree the "we're going to start advertising for the users" presentation is super worrying. This is advanced doublethink. If they can't be honest about the most reasonable changes then I don't trust that they won't at some point make unreasonable changes and simply not mention them. It sounds like they may be trying to copy Opera so take a look at what Opera is doing to see where they might be headed.
blueskin_ 13y ago
"We wanted to get away from being this window into the web that doesn't bring value to our shareholders" What she really meant.

lucb1e 13y ago

I'm thinking about proposing something like "I'll run your bloody ads for 1 month. Then you tell me how much you earn off of me and I'll pay you twice that." I'm all for Mozilla getting income from more sources (instead of search engine revenue), but I just don't like ads. There is a reason I donated in the past. If I can't disable the ads this way, it's not that hard to install an add-on that does it, edit about:config or just recompile from sources. No problem if you want to play that game. But I'd much rather pay them.

ars 13y ago
In my config I set browser.newtab.url to about:blank I have someone javascript bookmarklets and they don't work with the regular new tab page, but they do with about:blank
zebra 13y ago
The ads in fact are placeholders in the empty dial screen. They will disappear after you visit 6 sites. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that you will not be tracked if they are shown to you. If Mozilla does not cross this border I'm fine with this very passive advertisement.
- fauigerzigerk 13y ago
  The point is that Firefox was supposed to be the browser where you can feel safe. The way they are explaining this new monetization scheme makes me feel that I have to get my guard up.
  - chris_wot 13y ago
    Darren Herman is from MDC Partners, a massive advertising company. Then he founded a "media management" company. He's a "marketing innovator". He writes ambiguous phrases that tend to contradict themselves like "Publisher Transformation with Users at the Center" (what?) and "The new tab page isn’t delivering any value for them." (double-what?) Let's look at some of the wording from this guy [1], it's straight out of some PR/advertising agency. It makes me so incredibly suspicious, and I worry it will be counter to Mozilla's goals. "Some of these tile placements will be from the Mozilla ecosystem, some will be popular websites in a given geographic location, and some will be sponsored content from hand-picked partners to help support Mozilla’s pursuit of our mission." A given geographic region? Who says that it's popular? Hand-picked partners? Who picks them? What are the requirements for being "hand-picked"? Let's look at some more language, filled with buzz-words and devalued propositions: We are excited about Directory Tiles because it has inherent value to our users. While Mozilla hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye with all viewpoints in the digital content community, particularly the IAB, we think they’d agree that users’ interests should come first, and we want to help their members deliver compelling content to strengthen the Web ecosystem. When the user is at the center everyone benefits We believe that if you put the user front and center, you can make every experience for them richer and more meaningful. I know many will find me harsh, but when I read these things I also immediately have my guard up. I wonder what is being hidden behind these frankly contradictory and ambiguous statements. There is, to my mind, a falseness to them that is disturbing. This sort of language is what a politician or PR agency would use to deliver unpalatable news. I feel very strongly that it has no place being on an official Mozilla blog. 1. https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...

jbrooksuk 13y ago

And there was me enjoying the switch I made just last week.

chris_wot 13y ago

The original blog post was on HN front page yesterday and it got voted down to oblivion. Or hit some sort of threshold. Frankly, I find the original blog post to be unbelievably weasily - especially this: "We believe that if you put the user front and center, you can make every experience for them richer and more meaningful. The Content Services team has embraced this, and today I wanted to share some of our thinking and explain our first steps for putting it into practice." and then: "While Mozilla hasn’t always seen eye-to-eye with all viewpoints in the digital content community, particularly the IAB, we think they’d agree that users’ interests should come first, and we want to help their members deliver compelling content to strengthen the Web ecosystem." This: * beats around the bush * starts with spin * says that advertisers have the best interest of users in mind - and I assure you, they do not. I am very, very unimpressed.

Drakim 13y ago
Especially the last part infuriates me, I'm now being done a favor by having ads shoved in my face against my will? There is just no way you can spin that as "helping", it's advertisements, nothing more, nothing less.
sheetjs 13y ago
> it got voted down to oblivion. It was flagged heavily, which shouldn't be a surprise given the heavy pro-Mozilla bias here. (case in point: this post will be downvoted at least a few times in the next few minutes) But to be fair, the ads haven't been rolled out yet, and there's a nonzero chance Mozilla will come to their senses and reverse course. And if not, use a browser that actually values your privacy and safety (my current browser is SRWare Iron https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php https://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php)
- shrikant 13y ago
  See this: https://web.archive.org/web/20100614055220/http://chromium.hybridsource.org/the-iron-scam https://web.archive.org/web/20100614055220/http://chromium.h... I'm not sure what's changed since then, but it's worth considering.

rubbingalcohol 13y ago

I would be happy to see ads on the new tab page in Firefox if it means supporting Mozilla. They're doing so much stuff to protect freedom on the Internet, and I just don't see the big deal with helping talented people pay their bills.

doe88 13y ago
Likewise if it's done wisely (no tracking, ads provided only from Mozilla servers and ideally only once in a while) I'm all for it.
blueskin_ 13y ago
Fuck that, I'd rather pay a small donation. £5/year is going to be more than they get from me for ads (as nobody wants to pay per impression, only click) and I'd double that if necessary.

nodata 13y ago

I don't mind Firefox earning money, but can't see how they will avoid the user tracking problem. At some point they will be under pressure to increase revenues, and the advertisers will want more information on who is viewing their ads.

D9u 13y ago

https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero https://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/xombrero

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

kule 13y ago

Reading the original article [1] this doesn't look like such a big issue. For new users that don't have any recently used sites rather than blank tiles they will get some Mozilla suggested sites and some sponsored tiles. I presume for existing users you'll never even see these and, for new users, as soon as you've actually visited some sites these will disappear. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/ https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...

fauigerzigerk 13y ago

"Mozilla said that the ads are part of an attempt to connect new browser users to sites that they might find relevant." I understand that Mozilla is looking for ways to fund itself. But they should not join those who use the word "relevant" in this disingenuous way. This phrasing is an obvious attempt to sugarcoat the fact that we are being inundated by so many schemes to grab a piece of our limited cognitive capacity that we wouldn't even be able to notice something relevant if it were actually there. Mozilla's advantage over other browser makers is that users trust them not to use the kind of deceptive chicanery that we're being subjected to left and right. So they better not ruin that trust by using dishonest language.

pratkar 13y ago

I dont care as long as Ad Blocker works well on this!

companerx 13y ago

So they're going to have certain sponsors' sites on my default New Tab page until I replace them with something else? The horror!! You people and your slippery slopes.

auvrw 13y ago

so just to double-check: no chance of this making it into iceweasel, right?

blueskin_ 13y ago

New tab thumbnails preemptively disabled. Between this, making Sync less secure and Australis, I start seriously wondering if Mozilla are attempting to drive users away.

lucian1900 13y ago
The more secure sync was apparently too hard to use for non-experts. Australis is a matter of taste, I personally like it. They're trying to not drive users away, but you and I are a tiny minority.
- blueskin_ 13y ago
  So why not educate users instead? Especially with the NSA/GCHQ spying still so recent. Firefox is already a power user's browser - the masses who just want a dumb facebook/youtube/twitter/gmail terminal mostly use chrome and will continue to do so, unaware and unconcerned with customisation and privacy issues (my parents use chrome, and didn't have any addons installed at one point (they now have adblock)). Firefox will never even catch up to where chrome is today in market share, let alone pass it, and I'm fine with that, as it's a browser for power users - customisable, privacy-respecting and more 'traditional' by giving users actual control over their experience and options to customise functionality and looks. To use beer as an analogy, Chrome is {Budweiser/PBR/Coors/Miller/etc}; Firefox is a craft beer. Yes, it's nicer, but not as accessible, and the majority of people neither know nor care as it's not their market.