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Mozilla acquired Anonym, an ad start-up (blog.mozilla.org)
submitted 4 months ago by gomp@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.ml
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[-] AnomalousBit@programming.dev 78 points 4 months ago

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?

[-] devfuuu@lemmy.world 15 points 4 months ago

One is just spending money, the other potentially brings you money in.

[-] AnomalousBit@programming.dev 16 points 4 months ago

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

[-] Microw@lemm.ee 0 points 4 months ago

They are known for making a browser that constantly puts them into a financial deficit. Mozilla is still looking for a way to pay their bills in the long run.

[-] Vivendi@lemmy.zip 4 points 4 months ago

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

[-] Maeve@kbin.earth 61 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 46 points 4 months ago

Dear Mozilla, please stop being google.

Thanks.

[-] MurrayL@lemmy.world 42 points 4 months ago

Advertising isn’t going anywhere, so investing in/supporting ways to more ethically serve ads without harvesting private data seems like a good thing?

[-] uzay@infosec.pub 116 points 4 months ago

Becoming an ad company while trying to put privacy first seems like a conflict of interests in the making

[-] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 29 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 11 points 4 months ago

There's actually a real world example of this. Some cats that are disected in schools are euthanized cats from shelters, because the alternative is cat farms that breed cats just to be killed and disected

[-] helenslunch@feddit.nl 15 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 23 points 4 months ago

That's what I always say. Targeted advertising should be illegal. Contextual advertising is acceptable.

If I'm on the star trek wiki, serve me ads for star trek, sci-fi, and whatever. You don't need to know anything about me specifically.

We'd still need to do something about like ads that take up too much space, hurt page performance, or introduce malware, but removing the stalking would be an improvement

[-] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 12 points 4 months ago

Contextual ads can be simple images/html without 20 thousand scripts buried in

[-] helenslunch@feddit.nl 3 points 4 months ago

Right, and something like Reddit makes targeted advertising SUPER easy, with zero personal information.

Want to know what kind of products I might be interested in? Literally just ask.

[-] ms_lane@lemmy.world -1 points 4 months ago

When you drive by a billboard on the highway, is it invading your privacy?

Possibly?

Let me rephrase it a little- When you walk past a digital advertising screen at a Westfield Shopping Centre - is it invading your privacy? (The answer is a definite YES, they have facial tracking and keep metrics on where you go in the mall, how long you loiter in certain locations, what stores you go, whether you came back out with bags, etc)

[-] helenslunch@feddit.nl -1 points 4 months ago

Once again, that is an issue with implementation, and not an issue inherent in advertising in general.

[-] Empricorn@feddit.nl 10 points 4 months ago

Worse than being a pro-privacy company that utterly depends on Google?

[-] MurrayL@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 18 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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.

[-] 5C5C5C@programming.dev 9 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 4 months ago

As well as predatory/not, there's also a trend with attention grabbing/not.

There was a period of time where Google AdWords ruled the online ad space, and most ads were pure text in a box with a border making the border between content and ads visually distinct.

Kind of like having small portions of the newspaper classified section cut out and slapped around the webpage.

I still disliked them, but they were fairly easy to look past, and you didn't have to worry about the ad itself carrying a malware payload (just whatever they linked to).

Companies found that those style ads get less clickthrough than flashier ones, and that there's no quantifiable incentive to not make their ads as obnoxious as possible. So they optimized for the wrong metric: clickthrough vs sales by ad.

More recently, companies have stepped up their tracking game so they can target sales by ad more effectively, but old habits die hard, and predatory ads that just want you to click have no incentive to care and "de-escalate" the obnoxiousness.

[-] Blizzard@lemmy.zip 11 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] Blizzard@lemmy.zip 2 points 4 months ago

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

If they don't care about ads then they won't care if those ads are private or not.

[-] thejml@lemm.ee 1 points 4 months ago

I will say that we’re definitely getting to a level of adblockers that the sites actively care about blocking content or warning about people using adblockers. It’s starting to affect their bottom lines.

[-] delirious_owl@discuss.online 0 points 4 months ago

The alternative was supposed to be idle crypto mining

[-] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 16 points 4 months ago

When you get most of your funding from Google, you might start to act like Google.

[-] Spotlight7573@lemmy.world 20 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] refalo@programming.dev 1 points 4 months ago

most people are stupid. you and I don't click on ads, sure, but how do you think google got all their money? you have to cater to the idiots.

[-] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 10 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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.

[-] refalo@programming.dev 8 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] CalcProgrammer1@lemmy.ml 9 points 4 months ago

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.

[-] forgotmylastusername@lemmy.ml 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

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.

this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2024
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