Technology @lemmy.ml gomp @lemmy.ml 5 days ago

Mozilla acquired Anonym, an ad start-up

blog.mozilla.org Mozilla Welcomes Anonym: Privacy Preserving Digital Advertising | The Mozilla Blog

Mozilla has acquired Anonym, a trailblazer in privacy-preserving digital advertising. This strategic acquisition enables Mozilla to help raise the bar for

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I wish Mozilla had been really clear about their intentions and end goals with this acquisition. On the face of it, it looks terrible. Especially when you look at their jettisoning of Servo.

What the hell are they up to if making a browser engine isn’t a core competency, but buying an ad company is considered a wise move?
- One is just spending money, the other potentially brings you money in.
  
  Well that’s cool if they want to become an ad company, but last I checked they are known for making a browser. I’m sure they’ll do so much better than Oracle in the ad business. /s
- Servo wasn't going anywhere and even today the absolute best they are trying to do is to be a tiny embedded engine. They took parts of projects that were worth shit and added it into their core ecosystem and stopped the vanity dream of making a whole new browser core.
  
  So, servo is dead long live servo
Dear Mozilla, please stop being google.

Thanks.
About Anonym: Anonym was founded in 2022 by former Meta executives Brad Smallwood and Graham Mudd. The company was backed by Griffin Gaming Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Heracles Capital as well as a number of strategic individual investors.

Completely reassuring.
- a browser with 2% market share isn't getting anywhere without lots of money. I fail to see the issue?
  
  The issue is fuck ads
Advertising isn’t going anywhere, so investing in/supporting ways to more ethically serve ads without harvesting private data seems like a good thing?
- Becoming an ad company while trying to put privacy first seems like a conflict of interests in the making
  
  As Jamie Zawinski put it, it’s like a non-profit animal shelter setting up a sideline selling kitten meat to satisfy demands for hockey-stick growth. If somebody castigates them for it, they can point out that the demand for kitten deli slices didn’t going to go away, and if they didn’t sell them, someone else would step in and do it less humanely.
  
  It's not, at all. When you drive by a billboard on the highway, is it invading your privacy? There's no reason there can't be a digital equivalent.
  
  Worse than being a pro-privacy company that utterly depends on Google?
  
  Advertising doesn't need to be privacy infringing. That's something from the last 20 years. No conflict of interest necessary if all they do is ads.
  
  It’s definitely making their job harder on the face of it, but it also differentiates them from other ad companies, so I guess they’re betting on that being a draw for potential clients.
- Why? Does 95% of digital advertisement even serve a single valuable purpose?
  
  I get that websites need funding and that legitimate business require some way communicate their services exist. We need to solve the problem for the former and create specialized accessible safe spaces for the later.
  
  When is the last time anyone here saw an ad for a local business, when is the last time anyone recall willfully clicking one? Was there actually anything useful there?
  
  From what i recall ads almost always are one of the following:
  
  sex, barely legal drugs and predatory video games. (Lumped together to make a bad pun)
  
  real product/fake price: oh this item isnt in stock plz look at catalog
  
  politics, buy our guide to get rich, actual illegal scam operation.
  
  None of them are honest or respectful to the customer. People aren't prey, stop baiting.
  
  Admittedly, for me this is personal. Autism means i experience the extra noise as painful. Plastering it on useful websites feels like a hostile attack to keep me out and unwelcome. I downright refuse to look at watch nor will i support them through ad free subscriptions to the point of it having become a digital disability.
  
  But come on, can we smart online people really not figure out something else that isn't based on literal brainwashing.
  
  I think a long time ago a vicious cycle began in the advertising space where predatory ads had more incentive to pay for ad space, so sensible people start to perceive ads in general as predatory. Now no sensible advertiser that's trying to promote a legitimate product for legitimate reasons will do so by buying ad space, thus reinforcing the increasingly accurate perception that all ads are predatory.
- When everyone start using adblockers then it will go away and companies will have to come with new business models. I have been using adblockers since the first adblock was released and I don't see ads so it's up to the people. Better invest in/support ways to block ads.
  
  Same, but surely you realize that ads have only gotten worse in the intervening time. I also don't truly believe that we'll ever reach critical mass on adblocker users. You're asking people who don't care, who don't use the internet the same way we do, to suddenly care enough to take manual action outside of their knowledgebase amd comfort zone.
  
  The only way the adblocker user numbers get pumped up to critical mass for a change is if a popular default browser makes adblocking an opt-out default.
- The alternative was supposed to be idle crypto mining
When you get most of your funding from Google, you might start to act like Google.
- Looking at it most favorably, if they ever want to not be dependent on Google, they need revenue to replace what they get from Google and like it or not much of the money online comes from advertising. If they can find a way to get that money without being totally invasive on privacy, that's still better than their current position.
  
  In my view that isn't favorable. It is perhaps real, but it still doesn't sit well as we know where it likely leads.
This is the same kind of framing Google used when they were considered the little guy on your side as opposed to big evil corp.
Honestly, Mozilla has been peddling adware for a long time now. The writing has been on the wall. It started with putting sponsored links to Amazon on the Firefox home screen, then the shitty Pocket acquisition and the stupid featured stories/recommendations garbage, then the full screen Mozilla VPN ads...Firefox has been adware for a while. Use a fork that removes the bullshit. Switch to LibreWolf.
I think the important thing is consent to use data. If I can control what data I share with them, it isn't the end of the world. If I choose to not, and it's honoured, then this is a good thing. I'd prefer this approach funding development to Mozilla not being able to compete.

Mozilla is a far superior company to Google.
- they shouldn't have the data in the first place. constant data leaks have shown us that is the only way to have some privacy.
that was a week ago, what is this the browsers meme?

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