On 11/16/2014 08:24 PM, Christopher wrote: > On Sun, Nov 16, 2014 at 6:46 AM, Mustafa Muhammad > <mustafaa.alhamdaani@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:mustafaa.alhamdaani@xxxxxxxxx>> > wrote: > > On Sat, Nov 15, 2014 at 4:25 PM, Lars Seipel <lars.seipel@xxxxxxxxx > <mailto:lars.seipel@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote: > > So Mozilla has recently gone live with its advertisement tiles on the > > "New Tab" page. Only newly created profiles get to see this stuff. > > > > On a pristine F21 install using Gnome, when first launching Firefox, > > users are presented with a number of tiles, depending on screen size. > > One of those is a so-called "sponsored" tile chosen from a range of > > available advertisements (e.g. for booking.com > <http://booking.com>, there's also one for the > > Snowden movie), apparently depending on geographical location. > > > > When this "feature" got originally announced[1], there was a > discussion > > on -devel if this kind of stuff is really appropriate for Fedora. > > > > Some time later Mozilla seemed to have canceled the feature, quoting > > "That’s not going to happen. That’s not who we are at Mozilla." as one > > of the reasons[2]. > > > > Apparently, they (again) reconsidered, pushing the feature to > nightlies > > a few months ago. Well, it now hit the stable branch and, therefore, > > Fedora. > > > > This is how Mozilla pitches the feature to advertisers[3]: > > > >> To support ad personalization, Mozilla created an internal data > system > >> that aggregates user information while stripping out personally > >> identifiable information. Mozilla can track impressions, clicks, > and the > >> number of ads a user hides or pins. Its advertising partners are also > >> privy to that data. > > > > Personally, I don't think that showing advertisements on the free > > software desktop is appropriate. Our users are supposed to be able to > > fully trust our software. That's one of our most-often touted > strenghts. > > I don't think the ability to "track impressions, clicks, and the > number > > of ads a user hides or pins" is something that is compatible with > that, > > regardless of this data being tied to "personally identifiable > > information" or not. > > > > Firefox's behaviour is probably nothing extraordinary on the other > > platforms Mozilla is targeting. Compared to the prevalent attitude of > > proprietary vendors, especially on mobile, it doesn't sound that bad > > anymore. I don't think that's a suitable scale for Fedora, though. > > > > From a user perspective, it's not that hard to disable the > feature. Upon > > first seeing that page a tooltip is shown to hint at the possibility. > > Users can choose between three modes, "Enhanced", "Classic" and > "Blank". > > Contrary to what is stated in the Mozilla kb[4], the only one that > > actually disables the ads is "Blank", which is equal to setting > the new > > tab page to about:blank. > > > > What does the community think of it? Is it okay for our flagship > > applications to carry ads and report tracking data? > > > > [1] > > > https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/ > > [2] > > > https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2014/05/09/new-tab-experiments/ > > [3] > > > http://www.adexchanger.com/online-advertising/mozilla-finally-releases-its-browser-ad-product-hints-at-programmatic-in-2015/ > > [4] > > > https://support.mozilla.org/de/kb/how-do-tiles-work-firefox#w_enhanced-tiles > > -- > > devel mailing list > > devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <mailto:devel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > > https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/devel > > Fedora Code of Conduct: http://fedoraproject.org/code-of-conduct > > The "ads" are not intrusive, they don't collect personally > identifiable data, and can be disabled with a selection from a button > on the start page! > See: > http://www.pcworld.com/article/2848017/how-to-get-rid-of-firefoxs-new-ads-on-the-new-tab-page.html > > I think the best way is to ship Firefox as is, if somebody doesn't > want to help the open source project generating some revenue using > these ads, he can disable them. > > > The framing of the concerns expressed here as people not wanting to > contribute back and help an open source project with revenue (through > this mechanism or otherwise), does not reflect the concerns raised. The > concerns raised are that the default configuration is an "opt-out" vs. > "opt-in" model of Firefox issuing network calls back to Mozilla's > servers, and Fedora's user base expects "opt-in" for these sorts of > things. It's not about not being willing to help the project out... it's > about not being able to vet that method of helping out prior to it > taking place. > > > When you use Google search engine in any browser, it is collecting > more data than this feature in Firefox. > > > This doesn't seem relevant to this discussion, unless Fedora browsers > are automatically, and without the user's explicit knowledge or > permission, navigating to Google's search engine, which (AFAICT) they > are not. Same happens with these tiles. No data is sent back to Mozilla unless you *choose* to click one of the promoted tiles.
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