Mozilla Welcomes Anonym: Privacy Preserving Digital Advertising
Mozilla Welcomes Anonym: Privacy Preserving Digital Advertising
Mozilla has acquired Anonym, a trailblazer in privacy-preserving digital advertising. This strategic acquisition enables Mozilla to help raise the bar for
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This sounds a whole lot like privacy sandbox.
You know, Google Topics.
The thing nobody wanted.And honestly, reading through the article here, I don't see many ways that it'll be much better. If advertisements are matched on your local machine, then data is still being amalgamated somewhere. This is similar to Google Topics and Microsoft Recall, two things people complain about. For good reason.
The online advertising industry is undergoing a significant transformation. With growing consumer concerns and increasing scrutiny from regulators, it’s evident that current data practices are excessive and unsustainable.
It's strange that Mozilla, a company that constantly positions itself as the ethical alternative to big tech, is saying "companies are being mandated out of unethical advertising."
Secure Environment: Data sets are matched in a highly secure environment
Without any further information, this means so very little. Is it done locally? On their servers? Who knows.
By combining Mozilla’s scale and trusted reputation with Anonym’s cutting-edge technology, we can enhance user privacy and advertising effectiveness, leveling the playing field for all stakeholders.
When advertising is the business, your attention is the product. Maybe I'm being too unkind to Mozilla here, but it's their press release and they can be as specific as they choose.
Anonym was founded with two core beliefs: First, that people have a fundamental right to privacy in online interactions...
This is the sort of meaningless fluff that you see at the front of every privacy policy, including that of the most invasive companies.
... and second, that digital advertising is critical for the sustainability of free content, services and experiences.
That's the only way to offer free services?! What about donation-based models? Maybe Mozilla could have set up something like what Brave has, except not based around a sketchy cryptocurrency.
In fact, GNU Taler exists for this very purpose.
Anonym was founded in 2022 by former Meta executives
Meta. The company known for loving user privacy.
I was hoping Mozilla would finally shut up about putting AI into everything, but in retrospect, maybe they should go back to that.
I'm reading through the Anonymco privacy policy. Some standouts:
We collect... IP address, social media user names, passwords and other security information,
Passwords?!
...your browsing and click history, including information about how you navigate within our Site and Services...
...We collect and verify resumes, employment eligibility, education, and employment history from job applicants. This includes information about your skills and qualifications for the position....
Okay, great, they know how employable you are
We may disclose Personal Information and any other information about you to government or law enforcement officials or private parties... to prevent or stop any illegal, unethical, or legally actionable activity...
They are leaving the door open to disclose your data to private mercenaries to prevent... Pre-crime, I think.
We use Google Analytics on the Site and Services to analyze how users use the Site and Services, and to provide advertisements to you on other websites.
THEY USE GOOGLE ON YOUR DATA.
This really sounds like Mozilla snapped up the first company with the right buzzwords that they could find, rather than looking for the best one. It sounds like a repeat of the OneRep privacy disaster, when they partnered with a corporation that sold people's data and used their ownership of it to basically demand ransom payments for its removal.
Passwords?!
Yeah, that and usernames are a big nope from me.
I'm not opposed to the idea of privacy-oriented advertising, but it needs to be:
- local only - no service, including Mozilla, can correlate me to ads being shown; advertisers and Mozilla can only know broad stats
- opt-in - ideally it would replace ads on websites, not add ads, and ad-block should continue to be effective; I'm willing to disable ad-block if a site opts-in to privacy-friendly ads (my concern is tracking, I don't mind them getting paid)
- auditable - I should be able to see why certain ads are being shown, and verify that none of that metadata leaves my computer
THEY USE GOOGLE ON YOUR DATA.
Again, big nope from me. I hope Mozilla significantly changes how they operate and only uses their talent to build something actually privacy-focused. That's a pretty big ask, so I'm not optimistic.
My hopes are not high. Right before FakeSpot got bought out by Mozilla, they changed their privacy policy to add a "we will sell your data if we get bought out" clause.
(As a Mozilla product now, FakeSpot still retains private data and the right to sell it to advertising companies. So, at least to me, Mozilla has been an adtech company since 2023.)
They at least have good ad-block support, so I'll continue using them as long as there's nothing better. I've switched my mobile browser to Mull, and I'll switch my desktop browser to Mullvad Browser if I need to (it's not in my Linux distro's repos, and I'm lazy).
LibreWolf is pretty good too. It's less like Tor than Mullvad Browser is, at least out of the box.
I use the Mullvad Browser flatpak, and it works like a charm. Also LibreWolf, love it.
It's so much worse than I thought, and I already hated it.
For a company who has a whole schtick going where they read and critique other companies' privacy policies, this is pretty ludicrous.
All I can do is tap on the little graphic I made from their last buyout (that literally made Mozilla into an data broker):
FakeSpot privacy lowlights (I can't tell if the image is linking correctly)
The wing of Mozilla that puts out press releases about invasive car companies seems to have no influence on the wing of Mozilla acquiring and injecting random crap into Firefox.
Is it done locally? On their servers? Who knows.
You know it's on their servers. 🙂 Otherwise they would be beating so much around the bush.
That’s the only way to offer free services?! What about donation-based models? Maybe Mozilla could have set up something like what Brave has, except not based around a sketchy cryptocurrency.
Please correct me if I'm mistaken, but I thought Brave only gave donatable tokens to users as a reward for watching ads... ads which Brave curated for the user based on their activity. It's just targeted ad revenue with extra steps.
At first blush, it seems to me that both Brave and Anonym want to be the middleman for targeted advertising. What am I missing?
I think you can add your own money into Brave to tip people extra.
And the biggest difference is...
- Brave sold itself on this as a feature since day one
- Brave had the audience who wanted this
- The Brave software is a known factor; what's going to happen to Firefox is unknown.
