Firefox will show ads on the new tab page based on browsing history

http://www.geeksnack.com/2015/05/22/firefox-will-show-ads-based-on-your-browsing-history/

by jumpwah • 11 years ago

65 107 11 years ago

nodata2• 11 years ago

Bye Firefox.

Edit: "We promise to put you first and never sell your personal data. What else do you want for the Web?" -- https://twitter.com/firefox/status/461550580729536512

Don't collect my personal data.

FooBarWidget7• 11 years ago

Yeah, time to switch to Google Chrome. It's made by a party that will never collect personal data, certainly not make it their entire core business.

Oh wait...

Ok, serious mode. For years people have been complaining that Mozilla is too dependent on funding from Google. This is a way for Mozilla to fund itself without depending on Google. But that's not good either?

Maybe Mozilla should start nagging people for donations, Wikipedia-style? But that's not good either: lots of people complain about Wikipedia's yearly "begging" and say they would prefer to see ads instead.

What would you have them do?

ama7295• 11 years ago

But that's not good either?

Indeed, it's not a binary decision, there are other ways than just sell you user's data.

For starter, Google (and now Yahoo) were giving hundreds of millions every year. What did Mozilla do with that?

nautical• 11 years ago

Do you have ideas on how else to continue development process ?

elorant• 11 years ago

Well you know the saying. When something is free, you're the product.

Personally I don't mind. I love Firefox and the work they've done all these years and if that's the only way to keep them afloat then so be it. I just hope the implementation won't be too intrusive.

pserwylo• 11 years ago

Not always. If something is free, and it is a commercial company offering it, then you are probably the product.

But if the offering is from a not for profit company, a charity, or volunteers building something open source for their enjoyment and to contribute to the community, then you are not the product.

As for Mozilla, I'll leave you to make up your mind. I tend to agree with you and I love Mozilla too (but hope that Iceweasel doesn't have this :)

hiamnew• 11 years ago

There is a whole cosmos of FLOSS software that utterly destroys that argument.

icebraining7• 11 years ago

The data is collected in the browser, same as it ever was. The history is not sent to Mozilla's servers - it's the browser that locally chooses and fetches the tiles.

The tiles are grouped based on multiple servers, so the fact that your browser requested a specific tile doesn't directly tell them which site you actually visited.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1120311

nodata2• 11 years ago

Mozilla has done a disastrous job of communicating this, I hope they post something soon.

Their last blog entry is from 18 May: https://blog.mozilla.org/

Edit: they have a different blog here that mentions it: https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/

pdkl952• 11 years ago

It just leaks which category of sites I've been visits.

Why is it so hard to understand that leaking any bits not necessary for the retrieval and presentation of the link I clicked on is absolutely unacceptable? Anything that sends data that could not be learned form the server logs is spyware and will be treated as such.

Some companies like to claim that this spying is necessary because the data is useful. I'm sure it is, just like I'm sure a thief find the goods they stole to be useful. For similar reasons claims - like your explanation of this firefox misfeature - relating to the amount of bits leaked are not actualy a defense.

anilgulecha• 11 years ago

You can look at it thisway -- Firefox was funding it's own development by off-shoring it's ads to Google/Bing in exchange for funds. Maybe the world becomes better with Mozilla directly serving ads than it's partners.

Of course, I'll be going with the adblocked community version which will be released, with or without Mozilla's backing.

kropotkinlives2• 11 years ago

For once, it appears Microsoft are the only browser vendor moving in the right direction and that is scary.

FooBarWidget7• 11 years ago

They can afford it because they have lots of cash from Windows and Office sales.

kibibu• 11 years ago

It's happened in the past. I still have positive memories of IE4 - at least compared to the horror of Netscape 4

kropotkinlives2• 11 years ago

Fair point! I'd forgotten about Netscape 4 and eternal Bus Errors on the SPARCstation 20 I had back then :(

rockdoe• 11 years ago

You mean the guys that torpedoed DNT and are sabotaging WebRTC standardization?

vegancap2• 11 years ago

They're a business, just like anyone else. Unless we all start throwing thousands of donations at them, they have to find ways to monetise to keep up the awesome work they do. If it's both relevant and intuitive, then no harm done. Remember, your browsing history isn't exactly a big secret. That's why incognito modes exist in most browsers.

melicerte• 11 years ago

I understand nothing is free and my privacy matters. For that reason, I'm willing to make donations, even on a regular basis, instead of having ads.

lmorchard6• 11 years ago

Great, here you go! https://sendto.mozilla.org

dannypgh2• 11 years ago

Firefox isn't a business, it's an open source/free software project. Mozilla is a nonprofit entity which pays some people to work on it. This is an important distinction, no?

vegancap2• 11 years ago

Not particularly, they still have to gain some form of revenue to keep their core ventures. Their revenue in 2012 for example was $311 million.

gillianseed• 11 years ago

Mozilla is a nonprofit entity which pays some people to work on it.

Mozilla now consists of the non-profit Mozilla Foundation and the for-profit Mozilla corporation subsidiary.

raziel2p• 11 years ago

The article says Mozilla are "doing a Google" with this, but I can't remember ever seeing this sort of thing in Chrome or Chromium.

romanovcode• 11 years ago

The problem is that nobody is funding Firefox and they need money to continue development.

If any of you "goodbye firefox" have a better idea feel free to speak up. Also, you can leave firefox for google, but it collects way more data anyway.

Maybe Microsoft Edge will be good so Windows users can just use default browser.

TheLogothete• 11 years ago

Isn't that integrated with MSN.com?

bad_user• 11 years ago

You're joking, right? Windows now phones home even with your "encryption" keys, Bing search is integrated into the start panel and you're somehow hoping that a still closed source IExplorer will better respect your privacy. My sarcasm detector must be malfunctioning.

ama7295• 11 years ago

Who in their right mind would push such a thing? How can they think it'll will win them any user? I have no words.

FooBarWidget7• 11 years ago

This isn't about winning users. It's about not dying. Web browsers are one of the most complicated pieces of software in human history. Skilled developers cost money, lots of money.

sfink3• 11 years ago

I doubt it. I'm guessing this won't bring in significant money for a while at least, and it'll lose users in the short term. Monetizing search, as with the Google now Yahoo deal, is where the money for developers comes from. This only makes sense if the goal is to shake things up. What its chances of success there are, and how positive that outcome would be, is still an unknown in my head. But Mozilla only exists to have an impact on the Web, so it kind of makes sense.

(I work for Mozilla, but have no special insight into this initiative.)

realusername• 11 years ago

I had nothing against the sponsoring in the new tab screen but this is a bit different. There is so much potential for backfire if they don't do it properly. But at the end, how is that different from Google who is also putting ads by analyzing your entire web history. The main problem is that it's quite hard to finance their business, they are trying to do new stuff in every direction to depend less on Google (new search partners, Read-it-later, Firefox OS...) but it's not an easy task.

FooBarWidget7• 11 years ago

Apparently, it's different from Google by showing ads without selling your personal information. Firefox fetches ads without sharing your history. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1120311

vdaniuk7• 11 years ago

Google doesn't sell your personal information, it provides access to your eyeballs.

sayhello2• 11 years ago

Engineer on the Tiles team at Mozilla here.

We're trying to create a new way for ads to be targeted. In the classical model, the server tracks wherever you've been on the internet.

Basically, to show you relevant ads, at least one entity needs to know where you've been.

What we're trying to achieve is similar, except there is no tracking. Most of the decisioning (e.g. which sites similar to the target group have you been on before?) is made in Firefox.

The ad server will send many ads based on a user's geo (as determined by IP address) and locale (browser language, e.g. en-US). This package will include more Tiles (some are sponsored, some are not) than Firefox will decide to show.

While we do get data based on the impressions and other interactions with the Tile, we only get the strict minimum needed to compute our counts.

And on the topic of IP addresses, we consider that sensitive information. We only keep the raw data for a very short while (7 days).

The only thing that is kept for longer is the aggregate data, e.g. how many impressions tile X did on day Y.

storrgie• 11 years ago

Can I simply ask 'why'? It seems like if Firefox has no method of guaranteeing that an add will be placed, there is no financial gain for the mozilla foundation.

Why would you even perceptually compromise user privacy. You have to realize there are many using your browser with expectations of privacy. If you perceptually damage this notion, you're going to loose mind share.

If this goes into firefox, I'll be looking for an alternative.

cmdrfred2• 11 years ago

I stopped using firefox about 5 years ago. Adblock + Chrome is the best browser I've ever used.

mukundmr• 11 years ago

That doesn't stop Google from reading your URL history.

cmdrfred2• 11 years ago

I don't particularly care, If I need anonymity i use tor. P.S. Are you so sure Firefox won't be doing any tracking for 'advertising purposes'?

davout• 11 years ago

Bye FF

Confiks• 11 years ago

Maybe the more relevant page is Mozilla's own announcement, instead of some random site. See https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/05/21/help-test...

I think Mozilla needs to do a better job explaining why there is "no tracking involved in delivering Tiles". They now just state that, with no information on how it's implemented, and people will get scared if they don't hear specifics. I can imagine this being implemented without tracking, by simply downloading all advertisements and doing the ad selection on the client. The ad may then of course not 'phone home'.

They also state that if you have Do Not Track enabled, these new tiles will be disabled "as we believe that most DNT early adopters are seeking to opt out of all advertising experiences". You can also opt out of them by using the cog at the new tab screen.

Still, I don't really like this development.

icebraining7• 11 years ago

They have information in the Bug Tracker, though it's in a more technical language. A plain version is definitively important.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1120311

thristian• 11 years ago

A better blog-post to link to would be https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2015/05/21/providi... which links to an infographic describing how user privacy is protected:

https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/files/2015/05/How-...

For people who don't like infographics, there's also a textual description: https://blog.mozilla.org/privacy/2015/05/21/putting-our-data...

ama7295• 11 years ago

From your first link:

This is still one of our early steps towards our goal of improving the state of digital advertising for the Web – delivering greater transparency for advertisers, better, more relevant content experiences and, above all, greater control for Firefox users.

At least one would hope they could be honest in their goal, I don't think anybody care about the state of digital advertising except marketers.

RobertoG• 11 years ago

Are we sure they will be collecting data?

You could get personalize advertisements without collecting the data: the browser has your history, it made some kind of profiling (categorize you), and then it request advertisement for your profile.

rfk2• 11 years ago

Indeed, the whole point of this (and all the verbiage about "respecting user privacy") is that the browser will do the analysis locally without sending history data back to Mozilla.

impostervt• 11 years ago

Cached page:

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:http://...

vdaniuk7• 11 years ago

Good. Non-profits with proven track records such as Mozilla are the only entities I trust to run an ethical ad network. While I care about privacy and have ghostery, ublock and eff privacy badger installed, I'll be making an exception for Mozilla.

As usual, I am disappointed with the HN hive-mind myopia regarding web ads, privacy and non-profits efforts to compete.

Also, Mozilla is respecting Do Not Track setting of Firefox users:

"* Note: if you set DNT=1, it is possible that you may not be receiving Suggested Tiles. You can very simply enable them on the new tab page with the cogwheel. We made the decision to opt users out of all sponsored Tiles experiences if they have DNT=1 quite early on, as we believe that most DNT early adopters are seeking to opt out of all advertising experiences. However, it’s important to understand that no tracking is involved in delivering Tiles."

belorn• 11 years ago

Couldn't iceweasel just change the default so the ads are not shown? It is free software and they already got experience to do changes to the code in order to change the name and icon.

binarymax2• 11 years ago

I hate ads. I love Mozilla. I understand Mozilla needs the money. I don't mind supporting them with cash. Why not have a freemium option for folks to subscribe to Firefox and hide the ads?

icebraining7• 11 years ago

You have. Disable the feature (yes, it's easy to disable) and donate.

binarymax2• 11 years ago

I do donate :) My point is show a message that says 'Subscribe to hide these ads' or something similar. The process you describe is not ideal for most uses who might not even know they can donate. Remove the friction.

kozukumi2• 11 years ago

Freemium wouldn't work. There will be unofficial builds available with this kind of stuff removed available for free within hours of the official release.

They could charge for services such as sync but again that is going to be difficult Chrome does it for free.

I think Mozilla need to seriously look at how they are spending their money as it seems to be pretty insane some of their outgoings.

I know they are trying to diverge from just being a browser with things like Firefox OS but we all know that isn't going to ever be a real competitor to iOS and Android. Even in developing nations I think people are more likely to go with a dirt cheap Windows Phone when Windows 10 is out over a Firefox phone. One thing Windows Phone does really well is run great on very low powered devices. I can't ever see Firefox OS getting above 0.x market share.

Perhaps Mozilla is just too big now? Do they need to scale back to save money? Can they survive on a donations alone?

cJ0th• 11 years ago

Freemium wouldn't work. There will be unofficial builds available with this kind of stuff removed available for free within hours of the official release.

But how is "Firefox with ads" going to work then? Firefox is still open source after all. Someone will remove the bit of code enabling ads, gives it a fancy new name and eventually a critical mass will switch to this browser.

sfink3• 11 years ago

Freemium wouldn't work. There will be unofficial builds available with this kind of stuff removed available for free within hours of the official release.

Why? Anyone who would go to the bother of downloading a separate build (and worrying about whether it'll update itself properly) can surely click on the gear in the top right corner of the new tab page and uncheck a checkbox? (Or be like me and keep the new tab page blissfully blank. Far less distracting.)

I highly doubt the revenue from the ads will be significant compared to what Mozilla gets from Yahoo, at least not for a long time. This isn't about revenue; it's more like the old Firefox sync thing where it avoided sending unencrypted data anywhere. You could only decrypt client-side. Similarly, this is about trying out an ad model where the privacy-sensitive data stays client-side.

Perhaps it'll do better than old Sync did?

(full disclosure: I work for Mozilla on the JS engine. Sadly, though, I'm not one of those world-class JIT geniuses mentioned elsewhere in this thread. In fact, I'm a complete idiot. Please don't tell them.)

(And no, we can't survive on donations alone.)

cpeterso3• 11 years ago

I'd like to see a "Firefox subscription", a monthly automatic donation model like NPR and PBS use. Give people who "subscribe" a custom Firefox theme to show off that they're supporters (like KQED bumper stickers on Volvos ;).

kozukumi2• 11 years ago

Sigh. I was worried this would happen. I know Mozilla need to make money and with their market share shrinking that is getting harder but these kind of "features" put me off wanting to use Firefox all together. I would rather use Chromium over a version of Firefox with targeted advertising built in.

For now at least it looks like being able to disable it is still possible but I cannot find any mention if disabling this also disables the whole analysing my history bit?

icebraining7• 11 years ago

There's no real analysis of your history, it's just selecting the top visited links (using existing code, which is used to show you the current tiles of visited sites).

nnrocks• 11 years ago

Finally, I got someone who is respecting privacy instead of moneybag.

octatoan• 11 years ago

I think we need a Firefox Edge similar to what happened with ABP.

mmcru• 11 years ago

what a terrible change. i've spent the last week developing two firefox addons; now i regret that, because i'll never use a browser with embedded advertising.

sfink3• 11 years ago

Ok, then turn off the embedded advertising. Your users are going to continue seeing ads all over the web no matter what browser they use, and in fact will be tracked by advertisers (less so if they take steps to avoid it, but that's up to them.)

learnstats2• 11 years ago

Is there a project to make a decent browser that doesn't have any intention of making a profit or selling out its users, and has governance appropriate to make that a reality?

It seems like this is necessary. If I can contribute to that, pre-existing or not, I will start today.

There are 3 billion web users: between us we must have enough altruism and skill to compete with this.

icebraining7• 11 years ago

I'm pretty sure the browsers by suckless won't ever show ads; not sure if you consider them decent, though.

http://surf.suckless.org/

hsivonen• 11 years ago

Relevant: http://ed.agadak.net/2015/04/whys-and-hows-of-suggested-tile...

Key quote: "to summarize, Firefox makes generic encrypted cookieless requests to get enough data to decide locally in Firefox whether content should be added to the new tab page."

uzero• 11 years ago

It's not about where the processing happens or what data is actually transmitted, it's about them pulling this type of shit without clearly asking my permission. And it's not an excuse that Google and others are doing similar things. If you try to win users by publicly saying you're "fighting for privacy", you will be held against higher standards.

Mozilla failed really badly here and honestly I'm not sure if they can ever win back my trust after this. Even though I've read through the tech docs released and I know it's not like they are sending your history all over, it's the way they decided to do this that undermined all their efforts so far.

RobAley2• 11 years ago

Could you be more specific about the particular aspects of the "way they decided to do this" that you are objecting to? As a privacy advocate, I can't see anything particuarly objectionable in their methodology.

oliv__• 11 years ago

...and I'm done with Firefox.

lmorchard6• 11 years ago

FWIW, I work at Mozilla, but I don't work on this particular project. But, I care because I <3 the web.

What I think a lot of folks are missing here is that this is an attempt to change how ads are done. Whether you like it or not, ads are how most of the web gets funded right now.

Yes, funding Mozilla would be nice. Even better would be if ads on the web in general were less intrusive and better respected privacy.

One of the things this does not do is send your browsing history to remote servers. Instead, the remote server sends you a pile of ads roughly based on your location & language. The browser decides locally what to show. That's a big change, shifting the bulk of the sensitive stuff to your own computer instead of black boxes in the cloud.

This isn't just your usual "slap a banner on it" ad network used in all the free mobile apps. And, if the model works in the browser, it might work on the web too.

_up2• 11 years ago

Why not go further and give the money earned with ads in firefox to the user. Who can then use this to directly buy webservices. This could also automaticly be brokered by the browser. This could make webservices a comodity and give back power to the user.

digitalzombie• 11 years ago

I'm okay with this.

I love firefox and was the first few when netscape open Mozilla and I jumped on board and ditch IE5.

So far I trust Mozilla more so than Google or Microsoft on browser software.

TheLoneWolfling• 11 years ago

And FF forks will gain traction, and so the cycle continues.

I personally switched over to Pale Moon when the whole UI "update" happened, and it's looking more and more as though I made the right choice.

visarga• 11 years ago

Bad idea. I hate even the website icons from the new tab page. They sometimes show sites I don't want to advertise (xxx). They make "new tab" work slower and I never feel inclined to click on them.

Now they are trying to stuff even more slowness inducing ads in the new tab - that means - exactly the moment you wan to to something ELSE.

That's the problem - when you open a tab, you don't really want to see the ads. When you search on Google, you might want to see the ads.

Firefox will show ads on the new tab page based on browsing history

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