verdigris

Because currently the ads are tracking every user personally across as many sites as possible and serving them ads based on that data. It's preferable to eliminate the personal data and only give them the ad click data.

Are no ads better? Yes. But this API is better for users than the status quo, and does nothing to reduce the effectiveness of blockers.

This API effectively defeats ad personalization on sites that use it. The ads can at most be targeted to the site, no longer the user.

Again, no, that's not true. This API is only used by sites that opt into it, and in so doing, they are disabling the normal tracking which is far more invasive.

... No, it does not. The ads are currently already tracking clicks and conversions, on top of a whole boatload of other personal data. This API instead provides them with just the click and conversion data, divorced from the personal data and then aggregated with all the other site visitors.

Being against this proposal basically means you trust random websites and ad companies more with your data then you do Mozilla and LetsEncrypt.

... No, I'm saying that a given site hosts the specific instance of an ad. That site has control over what the ad can harvest, and if they're opting in to this PPA API, that information will be anonymized and much more limited than it currently is.

It's not a list of clicks you've made, it's a list of clicks everyone has made. Unlike the current state of ad tracking, it would change from tracking you to tracking the ad's effectiveness.

It does not collect any more information about you. It provides far less information than pretty much every ad is already collecting, and that information is anonymized. It does not affect ad blocking solutions.

So, serious question: what are you not understanding here?

The entire point of this feature is to reduce personal data given to advertisers. It's an anti-targeted advertising measure, but one that websites have to opt in to. Ads on those sites will no longer get the full scoop on you, but instead will get anonymized and aggregated data about which ads were clicked and any conversions that happen. It's the default because there's no downside to enabling it.

I definitely agree that ads are terrible and that's why I block them all. But this proposal is like your apartment complex (a website) banning door-to-door salesmen from sticking ads in your doorframe, instead putting up a little corkboard in the apartment commons (PPA) where they have to put all the ads. Would it be better if the city just banned advertising? Sure, but they're not going to any time soon.

... How? You clearly do not understand this technology if you think it's a step in the wrong direction.

Status quo: almost all ads use onerous tracking of every scrap of data they can scrape on you. Some savvy users use ad block and/or tracking blockers to avoid this to various degrees.

Mozilla PPA: Ads on certain sites start using a much less onerous attribution system which collects only anonymized data on related clicks; allowing advertisers to continue tracking how well their ads are working without any of the creepy personal data attached. Some savvy users continue to use ad block and/or tracking blockers to avoid the ads altogether.

Do you not see how the latter is objectively better for everyone except the advertisers? The fact that it's "useful to advertisers" just means that this is tech which might actually reach wide adoption. It does absolutely nothing to impinge the effectiveness of ad and tracking blockers, but will be a big improvement for anyone who doesn't use them.

Do you think that somehow without this setting your browser isn't tracking you? What do you think the history is?

This is misinformation. The setting in question is not a "privacy breach setting," it's to use a new API which, for sites that use it, sends advertisers anonymized data about related ad clicks instead of the much more privacy-breaching tracking data that they normally collect. This is only a good thing for users, which is why the setting is automatically checked.

Lmao no this is Mozilla giving you a cup.