IAB Urges People To Stop "Mozilla From Hijacking the Internet" 499
hypnosec writes "In its latest attempt to stop Mozilla from going ahead with its proposed default blocking of third-party cookies in Firefox, the Interactive Advertising Bureau took out a full page ad urging users to stop 'Mozilla from hijacking the Internet.' Through the advert, IAB has claimed that the Firefox maker wants to be the 'judge and jury' when it comes to business models on the web. According to the IAB, Mozilla wants to eliminate the cookies which enable online advertisers to reach the right audience. IAB notes that 'If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience.'"
fud (Score:5, Insightful)
They're just afraid of losing their revenue. Cowards.
Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
If the advertisers are bitching that you are taking over the internet, you know you're doing it right. Keep up the good work Mozilla.
Ten Bleeding Hearts (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, the poor ad industry. Who is going to stop them tracking on us, spying on us, and ramming unwanted crap down our throats with their gaudy, distracting banner ads?
Take your violins elsewhere. You won't find sympathy on the Internet.
Queer definition of "hijacking" (Score:5, Insightful)
Apparently what they mean by "Mozilla is hijacking the Internet" is "Mozilla is preventing *us* from hijacking the Internet".
They are a business (Score:4, Insightful)
and as such will act on what they believe will increase their market share. This basically means that they will do what the users want as often as possible, which on the internet includes not loading every cookie from every third-party on earth. It's not their fault that humans hate businesses.
Dear Advertisers (Score:1, Insightful)
Fuck off.
A culling of all the aggregation sites that only exist to serve adverts is well over due. Perhaps search engines will become useful again, rather than wading through expertly placed placeholder pages for shit like Gawker, CNET, ask et al.
Self-regulatory (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah cry me a river (Score:5, Insightful)
Frankly I'm tired of abusive advertising, and entities that disrespect rules and privacy is one of them.
"Less Relevant and Diverse" (Score:5, Insightful)
"If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience."
1) No, you dicks will just come up with some new way to spy on us, and we'll come up with a new workaround. So it goes.
2) I'll believe that targeted advertising delivers a 'relevant and diverse experience' the day the ads show me stuff I want to buy but haven't yet, instead of stuff I just fucking bought; as it stands, most "targeted ads" are essentially a redux of the contents of your last Amazon shopping cart.
Mozilla is saving the Internet (Score:5, Insightful)
This is what we want (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what there IAB, I don't want your fucking cookies. I don't want your web-bugs. I don't want your shit tailored to me. I don't even want your damned ads.
Let's be honest about this, you wish to gather information about me in order to fulfill your wishes to make money off me.
I'm not prepared to give you that information. I don't care about your business model -- I care about my privacy, and not having douchebags like the IAB know enough about me to do targeted advertising.
When I visit a website, I haven't signed an agreement with you saying I'll see your ads, and provide you with information to track me.
So websites like advertising.com and brightcove and eyereturn ... those are blocked at my firewall. You don't ask my consent to collect information about me, and I don't need your consent to deny it to you.
Stop acting like your'e entitled to this information, or that what you think is going to make you the most money isn't against our best interests.
Now, if Apple could only competently block 3rd party cookies in Safari, I'd have yet another browser I can use to keep these idiots away.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait a minute. A couple of days ago the kerfluffle on Slashdot was that Mozilla removed the "disable JavaScript" option from the options screen of Firefox 23.0. I thought that made them evil. Now, they're going to disable third party cookies, so now that makes them good again? I'm so confused.
Why can't they be more like Microsoft, so we can just hate on them 24 x 7?
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they are also afraid of us getting a less diverse Internet experience.
The only time I want your "internet" to differ from mine is when I actively log in.
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
Awww... muffin....
Maybe they shouldn't have started using full screen flash ads that you have to click through in order to get rid of, or auto-playing noise.... if they'd stayed relatively innocuous, most Internet users probably wouldn't have bothered to find ways to get rid of them.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
From TFA: "This particular feature would block all third party cookies by default and users would need to decide for themselves which cookies will be allowed on their systems and which won’t be."
Heaven forbid people will be allow to decide for themselves ?!?!
Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or similar (Score:5, Insightful)
It's definitely a good sign. I'm still waiting for integration of AdBlock plus. Being in the top 10 installed plugins means that users want this feature.
I'm not even against ads but I don't like being tracked by ads servers getting my IP address, my browser fingerprint ( https://panopticlick.eff.org/ [eff.org] ), and the page I was reading (referrer).
RequestPolicy and NoScript are two more good plugins for controlling what info your browser gives to who.
But there's more hope of this sort of thing getting into a fork, such as GNU IceCat: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/ [gnu.org]
Re:"Less Relevant and Diverse" (Score:5, Insightful)
2) I'll believe that targeted advertising delivers a 'relevant and diverse experience' the day the ads show me stuff I want to buy but haven't yet, instead of stuff I just fucking bought; as it stands, most "targeted ads" are essentially a redux of the contents of your last Amazon shopping cart.
This is so true. "You just purchased a washing machine. You might like... a washing machine." It probably works for books, movies, and toilet paper - but it's really funny when you buy something big-ticket.
Re:Excellent (Score:2, Insightful)
Did it not occur to Mozilla that people may want to see ads as gratitude for free content? For example, I've had the option to disable ads on Slashdot for years now. But I know they need revenue to keep this free site up that I enjoy everyday so I don't mind.
Dear IAB (Score:5, Insightful)
I use Adblock Plus and Noscript. Not because I have something in particular against advertising in general, but because I've personally seen more than enough abusive practices to put an end to it myself.
Ya know, like drive-by malware through ad networks.
Until the industry adopts some real standards and actively polices them, then you, IAB and everyone else, can fuck right off.
--
BMO
Re: fud (Score:5, Insightful)
Mno this is not a problem for adverts. It's only a problem for advertisers that want's to track users, nothing else.
Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm still waiting for integration of AdBlock plus. Being in the top 10 installed plugins means that users want this feature.
No, just no. I don't want some unknown person at some 3rd party company deciding which web sites are blocked or not. I wouldn't mind seeing them add a generic URL/IP blacklist which you can maintain yourself, or choose to integrate with a blacklisting service like AdBlock.
I'm not even against ads but I don't like being tracked by ads servers getting my IP address, my browser fingerprint ( https://panopticlick.eff.org/ [eff.org] ), and the page I was reading (referrer).
AdBlock doesn't do any of those things, all it does is prevent your browser from sending requests to specific IP's which the Adblock people have decided are serving ads. You'll need a scriptblocker to prevent a lot of those things, and for some of them (such as your browser UID) you'll need an additional plugin which masks or falsifies your browser string and referrer information. To block IP the only way to be sure you're hiding it is to make use of some sort of an anonymous proxy service, use Tor, a VPN, etc. And there's always the chance that the people serving ads switch up their IP which will bypass AdBlock until the maintainers discover the change and update their blacklist. (Yes, I know you can mange the blacklist yourself, but if you're an advanced enough user to do that reliably you can be even more effective and block it via hosts file and/or blackhole it at your edge router)
equestPolicy and NoScript are two more good plugins for controlling what info your browser gives to who.
NoScript is an awesome plugin, especially from a security viewpoint, but there is still a lot of information a web site can relay to advertisers without using scripts. And NoScript can be intimidating and confusing for novice users, who are often unsure which sites to allow permanently, and which to deny permanently. So I don't know that it would be a good thing to include in the default install either.
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the ad-supported model isn't ideal, and has been exploited by bad people. But the reality is that you get free content where the percentage of pixels on a page devoted to ads is typically much less than the percentage minutes of ads on free OTA television, and less than the percentage of inches in a $4.95 magazine. Oh boo-hoo.
When the ads come up on OTA television, I can get up and go to the bathroom or mute the TV and have a conversation with the person sitting next to me.
As for the $4.95 magazine (or the pay TV for that matter), I choose not to pay for the privilege of being advertised at. Ignoring that point, however, the ads on the $4.95 magazine do not pop up and block my page until I tear it away. It also most especially doesn't dance around the page forcing me to chase it in order to find the corner I can tear off to get rid of it. Most of the time, it also doesn't play obnoxious music or video at me when I turn to the page it's on, nor does it play animated blinking clashing colours to try to get my attention. Additionally, the ad I'm looking at in Time Magazine does not know that I also bought a subscription to Popular Science.
Advertisers would have a *lot* more sympathy if they'd stop with that kind of shenanigan. While I understand that the Internet is largely supported by advertising, and that if you choose not to have ads you either need a paywall or to lose money (I have a self-hosted blog running from one of my colocated servers that doesn't have ads), I also understand that advertising as it is today detracts from the overall user experience on the Internet. I would be more amenable to advertising if they'd stop being shitheads.
Re:Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what, the problems with their business model aren't my problem. If their business model requires I provide information to a 3rd party ... well, tough.
I'm not stealing their content, I'm viewing what they've made publicly available on the internet. If they want to go subscription only so I can't see it for free, well, I'll stop seeing their site. Such is life.
And I'm not breaking any social contract, and I'm not using their bandwidth, I'm using my bandwidth -- because I pay for my internet, and the amount I can access is metered. Arguably, the advertising asshats are using my bandwidth by putting all that extra crap I didn't request.
If a site serves their own advertising (and they're not Flash or otherwise annoying animated stuff), I won't block their ads. If they rely on 3rd parties I have absolutely no reason to trust, I will block everything which is a reference to an external site. Because I have no interest in providing information to those 3rd parties, because they provide nothing of value to me -- in fact they provide negative value by expecting me to give up information about myself in return to being marketed to.
It really is that simple.
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
If your ad-based business model isn't working, it's time to switch business models, not complain that it isn't working.
Social contract? What?
Are people who go changes the channel during a commercial break on TV stealing the TV shows? No. Is someone who only downloads the parts of a web page that they are interested in viewing stealing the content? No.
If you don't want your web server to behave as a web server, don't use a web server. The browser should act on behalf of the user and nobody else.
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the ad-supported model isn't ideal, and has been exploited by bad people. But the reality is that you get free content where the percentage of pixels on a page devoted to ads is typically much less than the percentage minutes of ads on free OTA television, and less than the percentage of inches in a $4.95 magazine. Oh boo-hoo.
I don't mind some ads as long as they don't overlay the content. But in the last 1-2 years, annoying popups that cover up the content I'm interested in have become pretty common. Those are more like stickers on every page you have to pull off before you can read your $4.95 magazine.
For me that was the reason to finally install NoScript. And no, I don't believe in your social contract. By visiting a website, I don't promise to watch everything there. Things that get too annoying I will ignore, or tell my browser to ignore them for me.
But we are getting a bit off topic:
The article was about tracking by third party cookies, and the associated worries about privacy intrusion. In that I agree with Mozilla, and the new default is only what I have had for years.
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
I am not opposed to ads. I'm opposed to ads using loud obnoxious flashing popup, popunder, Malware spewing crap that reminds me of the days of Geocities websites. The ad companies have done this to themselves, I have NO sympathy for them.
The rule of asshole applies here. Assholes are assholes, because they think they can get away with it. When people stop dealing with assholes, they become irate that they have no friends and whine about how everyone hates them and how the world is unfair to them. And they ruin it for the people who are doing things right. In short, assholes ruin things for everyone, including themselves, they just don't care, hence why they are assholes.
There isn't enough time or energy in this life for me to want to deal with assholes. I view assholes as damage and route around them. It they whine in the process, I don't care.
Re:fud (Score:4, Insightful)
Three things:
1) *I* break a social contract? Excuse me, but can I please have the right to decide what is being downloaded onto my computer myself?
I am not obliged to sit through 10 minutes of annoying commercials I do not want to see (looking at you, Disney DVDs!), and neither am I required to use extra bandwidth to download advertisements that I do not want to see.
2) you may as well argue that anyone blocking ads increases the value for the website: by removing themselves from the pool of people exposed to ads, they improve the click-through ratio.
3) It's not my job to support anyone else's business model. You're right to point out that it *is* a business model, and that blocking ads undermines it. Sure. There may be consequences. Sure. But I get to decide if I care about those consequences, not you.
(Pro-tip: if you do, you can turn off ad-blocking for the site, though that'll hurt their click-through ratio.)
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
But the reality is that you get free content where the percentage of pixels on a page devoted to ads is typically much less than the percentage minutes of ads on free OTA television, and less than the percentage of inches in a $4.95 magazine. Oh boo-hoo.
The reality is, we pay for that content. Someone somewhere is buying something they otherwise wouldn't have, and is paying enough extra to fund the creaton of that content. Since we're paying either way, it stands to reason that it will be more efficient if we pay for it directly and cut out the middle man AND we'll get more honest content, instead of that slanted towards getting the most clicks, and showing advertisers in a good light.
Ad supported content is crap all around. It's a nasty hack on capitalism that would have no reason to exist in an economy that serves the people, instead of the other way around.
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
steal their content by breaking the social contract
Is it stealing if I drive down the highway and don't read the billboards?
Re:fud (Score:4, Insightful)
But the reality is that you get free content where the percentage of pixels on a page devoted to ads is typically much less than the percentage minutes of ads on free OTA television
Cable TV started this way too..
Re:fud *indeed* (Score:5, Insightful)
Pssst - If your business model depends on annoying people - You don't get to claim the moral high-ground when people get annoyed. You simply vanish when they find a way to avoid you.
"Stop shooting me with that nerf gun!"
"But I get paid to do it - And you wouldn't want the toy stores, and the trucking companies, and Nerf itself, and and the plastic manufacturer, and the oil companies to go out of business would you???"
Re:fud (Score:4, Insightful)
If your ad-based business model isn't working, it's time to switch business models, not complain that it isn't working.
Yep. Is advertising a god-given-right? Thought not.
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
This reminds me of a passage I read recently... I think it was from Uncle Tom's Cabin. There's a slave, trying to get a third party to do something or other, and the slave tells the third party that they simply must do this thing, otherwise, the slaves master will beat him, and it will be the fault of the third party.
The people behind the propaganda embedded in these websites don't built houses, they don't plant food. They're middle men. Humanity has no need for them. It's been pretty clearly demonstrated that people in information technology are capable of putting middle men out of business. It's so easy we do it in our spare time.
You want reality? That's reality.
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what, the problems with their business model aren't my problem. If their business model requires I provide information to a 3rd party ... well, tough.
This is a point that gets lost in a lot of discussions about pervasive tracking on the internet and the necessity of advertising. Your business model does not have a right to exist. People seem to forget this. This is what regulations are for. If a business model is unethical, it should not exist. Just because ponzi schemes are a business model that works for some people, does not mean that that business model should exist. Tracking users without permission is unethical.
Besides, the internet existed before there were any ads. And, it existed before pervasive tracking. Nature hates a vacuum, especially when there is money to be made. Another form of advertising / monetization scheme will take the place of the completely unethical and, frankly, irresponsible, one that we have now.
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Insightful)
And this isn't going to stop ads... it just going to stop them from tracking you.
Realistically this won't stop them from tracking you either, it will just escalate the arms race. Which isn't necessarily bad, but lets not fool ourselves into thinking this is going to make tracking stop.
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
Arguably, the advertising asshats are using my bandwidth by putting all that extra crap I didn't request.
Hear, hear!
You want me to be unable to block your ads or your tracking? Then give me the option of broadband for FREE instead of having to pay for it. Otherwise, fuck off, I'll keep using NoScript and AdBlock+ and FlashBlock and anything else I can get my hands on to keep control over what gets on my screen and what gets run on my hardware. You don't like it? Tough shit.
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
These are not new privacy expectations, People just didn't realize they had to be explicitly spelled out on the internet.
Re: fud (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: fud (Score:5, Insightful)
Less content?
I feel like there was MUCH more content on the web 10 years ago. Now everything is crosslinked or reposted.
Less content. If ad blocking can stop the existence of link aggregators like oddee and their ilk the practice will have done the web a great service.
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
no awareness of reality or real business.
Fuck your "business". I remember a different web. I remember a web that actually HAD content. It might not have been as polished. It might not have been as social. But there was untold original content. I remember a web where if someone put up a list of things, they just put up a list. On one page. They didn't string it out over several pages for ad impressions. I remember being curious about something simple, querying %searchengine%, and being able to glean the answer from the results. I didn't have to click through for the benefit of someone's metrics. Your "business" has enabled nothing great that I have ever seen. Your "business" makes the web uglier, noisier, and less helpful. Your "business" introduces lame presentation formats and (thanks to insecure hosting) opens my less knowledgeable friends and family to malware infections that they probably wouldn't encounter on their own.
You say your business pays for the web? Guess what. If the entire advertising industry were to dry up tonight, there would still be people putting things on the web tomorrow. Next week. Next month. Next year. Because people want to express themselves. The bar might be set a little higher. Content producers might have to pony up a bit to be heard. But content will still be produced.
If every bit of O.C. disappeared overnight, how long do you think people would stay online looking at your ads?
Business.
Re:Excellent (Score:4, Insightful)
> if he changes it by accident everything will be broken and he won't know why.
If that is the case, "you're doing it wrong". There are so many ways to fix that without simply denying the option to everyone:
1) hide the option behind "advanced" options, requiring more clicks to get to. There's a reason for a GUI rather than having people hack .ini files.
2) providing explicit documentation, at the location of the control, explaining the effects. Maybe even a test-drive URL showing the difference.
3) providing a "first-time mulligan" when javascript is blocked... a "you have javascript disabled and this page uses it. want to re-enable it?" type of event.
I'm confident I haven't fully explored the solution space here...
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
The most insidious thing the advertisers do is act as malware vectors with the heaps of untrusted javascript they sling around with wild abandon. As soon as they show that they care about my security I might take an interest in seeing their ads to help them out with their financial security. That's a worthwhile social contract to have. One which they can't be bothered to hold up.
Re:fud (Score:5, Insightful)
"No, they are also afraid of us getting a less diverse Internet experience.
The only time I want your "internet" to differ from mine is when I actively log in."
What kind of nonsense is this?
The only difference here is whether somebody accepts cookies or not in their own browser. It's kind of like choosing which sources of email are spam and which are not. YOU get to choose.
Frankly, I have never once heard any of the advertisers credibly argue that they want either "diversity" or "conformity". What they want is to control what you see in your own home.
The internet is NOT about me having "the same experience" as you. It's about me having the freedom to do what the hell I want. If YOU want to see the same things, including all the same ads, as everybody else, then you can choose that. But stay the hell out of MY computer!
But that isn't really it, either. In fact, we have proof that this isn't about "having the same experience" at all. It's about information gathering and targeted ads. Blocking the cookies means they don't get to make your experience different from everybody else's.
You missed the point. (Score:3, Insightful)
The point made by the qualifier "when I actively log in." If someone wants an internet that is being manipulated by third parties, they can always uniquely identify themselves (by logging in, turning on cookies, etc.).
I don't want my experience shaped by the assumptions of marketers. I want the internet to be a reference. I want ads that are context based, not audience based.
Imagine if you walked in to a movie advertised as an action flick, and the PatronScan3000 determined that because the audience was 75% female, a romantic comedy would go over better. That's BS. But it is exactly what the internet is becoming, with the content that you are shown constantly being manipulated by the "analysis" of your preferences -- analysis that I assure you is quite crude.
Or better yet, imagine if online dictionaries started hiding alternate definitions based on what they know about your habits and interests, you know, to provide you with a more "streamlined" experience.
Re:fud (Score:4, Insightful)
If you bother to take a deep dive into reality, there are tens-of-thousands of long-tail websites that rely on advertising to remain online and perhaps even pay salaries.
I run a long-tail website, a free online game with about a thousand players. Been doing that for over 12 years. Never had a single banner ad anywhere.
You can run a small website without advertisement. For my game, player donations keep it running, and they are much higher than I would've ever thought. For a site with less interaction and shorter visits like an online magazine, that probably won't work, but I still challenge your assumption that advertisement is the only way to finance the long-tail websites. It isn't. There are many other ways.
But the ad industry works both ways. It not only sells us to their advertisement customers, it also sells itself to their customers by convincing them that advertisement is necessary, beneficial, or the only way to get paid anymore in this world.
And on that, you need to remember rule #1: Spammers lie.
Re: fud (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean the same site where I leave the box checked, because they're the only site I've ever seen that has the decency to ask me?