Mozilla Labs Experiment Distills Your History Into Interests

interesting take. by stewsters · 2013-07-26 02:08 · Score: 5, Insightful

It makes sense if advertising companies were nice people, but please never turn this on by default. Most likely they will just add the info that you supply them to their trove of tracking data.

Re:interesting take. by Coryoth · 2013-07-26 02:20 · Score: 3, Interesting

It makes sense if advertising companies were nice people, but please never turn this on by default. Most likely they will just add the info that you supply them to their trove of tracking data.
It could work; it's not sending any data that couldn't be extracted from your history anyway (which they are largely getting now via blanket tracking) so it's not especially detrimental to the user. On the other hand it is essentially doing the data mining and summarisation that the advertisers are going to have to do on the client side ahead of time. Getting your product to do some of your compute work for you may be enough of a carrot to get advertisers to end up taking this is preference to all the raw data collected by pervasive tracking.

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Re:interesting take. by gstoddart · 2013-07-26 02:28 · Score: 2

It could work; it's not sending any data that couldn't be extracted from your history anyway (which they are largely getting now via blanket tracking) so it's not especially detrimental to the user.
Well, depending on how much you are blocking cookies and trying to keep information out of the hands of advertisers and other internet douchebags, you may feel differently.
If anything, I expect Mozilla to be leading in enabling privacy ... but if they're doing this, then they're just going down a road I disagree with.
How about you develop tools to keep my information out of the hands of those 3rd parties? Instead they just seem to be looking to become yet another broker of your information.

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Re:interesting take. by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:29 · Score: 2, Insightful

How about we eliminate the ability of our browsers to track and report on everything we do? Surely you can see the profound privacy concerns that arise when the browser is the main data gathering device? The marketing/data/ad companies that already try this kind of thing are not trustworthy and will still track visitors no matter what information Mozilla sells them or what agreement not to track they sign.
We don't need to worry about a website trying to track us and selling anything and everything they can find about us (which they will do anyway even if Mozilla is selling our information to all comers)? Now we need to worry about Firefox joining the 'spy on every user' landscape?
This type of approach means that not even a plug-in, add-on or extension can stop the intrusion into each Firefox user's privacy. Even our https & private browsing sessions will now be saved and sold by Mozilla.
I guess we don't need to worry about man-in-the-middle attacks when we have mozilla-in-the-browser doing it.
Re:interesting take. by KitFox · 2013-07-26 02:47 · Score: 4, Insightful

The use of Adblock and similar to help reduce (not remove) blanket tracking combined with this means that it becomes opt in and as a "product", the user is still valuable and thus still "fed" free stuff.
I think one of the more interesting considerations is that if this takes off and more militant anti-blanket-tracking occurs, perhaps we can have more control over what the advertisers try to decide about us. For example, a ferret owner researching baby food for a sick ferret is highly unlikely to want to get flooded with a massive number of "your new baby!" ads and coupons for diapers and cribs and wipes. (True story, mind you. Owned ferrets. Researched three baby food items from Google. Within a month, I could have saved thousands from all the discounts and coupons I was offered for baby stuff. Gah.)
Quite sure it won't stop advertisers from knowing when somebody is pregnant based on them buying blue rugs and lotion though.

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@Whee
Re:interesting take. by ComputerInsultant · 2013-07-26 02:57 · Score: 2, Insightful

The content and advertizing companies are already tracking us in ways that are frustrating and scary (https://panopticlick.eff.org/). This proposal is about making it easier for me to tell the advertizing companies what I want to see ads for. No more embarrassing ads about my fetishes when I visit amazon, firefox tells them what I want to see.

This could be a good thing.

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engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff
Re:interesting take. by gstoddart · 2013-07-26 03:01 · Score: 5, Insightful

This proposal is about making it easier for me to tell the advertizing companies what I want to see ads for.
I don't wish to see ads, and I block at my router and browser as many other things as possible.
You may think it's nice, but I believe this is a terrible idea -- it should be private by default and require action to make it send anything more.
The last thing I want is Mozilla deciding they're just like Google and Facebook and that my browsing history is their resource to be monetized.

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Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Re:interesting take. by cayenne8 · 2013-07-26 03:01 · Score: 1

Ok, maybe I'll have to turn in my associates geek card on this one...but...I didn't know websites could access and download my browsing history off my browser???
I know about cookies, and them trying to track your web travels, but can they really suck down my entire browsing history from my browser without my knowing or authorizing?

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Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Re:interesting take. by Coryoth · 2013-07-26 03:24 · Score: 3, Insightful

It could work; it's not sending any data that couldn't be extracted from your history anyway (which they are largely getting now via blanket tracking) so it's not especially detrimental to the user.
Well, depending on how much you are blocking cookies and trying to keep information out of the hands of advertisers and other internet douchebags, you may feel differently.
Mozilla has said this is something you can opt out of, so it's no worse than blocking cookies etc. (and, in fact, is probably easier).

How about you develop tools to keep my information out of the hands of those 3rd parties? Instead they just seem to be looking to become yet another broker of your information.
Looked at the right way, this is almost exactly that. Presume for a moment that it works (a big if) and advertisers take to using this instead of pervasive tracking. Now we're is a place where we have a single central point of data release to advertisers; you can turn it off; you can potentially drop in a plug in that publishes a hand-crafted/approved list of "interests" instead of mining your history for it; etc. If it works it does give more control to users over their privacy.
The reality is that information is currency these days, and people will mine for this sort of data because it is valuable. You won't have much luck just blocking everything because the incentives to find a way around whatever blocks are put in place are high. So, assuming information is going to be given, trying to give the user more control over what information is handed over seems like a good thing. I doubt this particular plan will actually work, but I expect something along these lines will happen eventually.

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Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Re:interesting take. by maden · 2013-07-26 03:27 · Score: 2

As far as I'm aware, recent browsers don't permit sites to access the history. I know of the history.previous / history.next, but these are only permissible when using local content such as plugins, or local webapps. But now that I think of it, couldn't a website load a bunch of web URLs in a hidden frame, and then analyze said URLs's CSS properties to see if they have been visited before? If that's possible, that would be a semi-transparent way to observe where the user hangs out on the internet, I suppose.
Re:interesting take. by Jane+Q.+Public · 2013-07-26 03:32 · Score: 1

"The use of Adblock and similar to help reduce (not remove) blanket tracking combined with this means that it becomes opt in and as a "product", the user is still valuable and thus still "fed" free stuff."
Precisely. This returns control to the user as it's completely opt-in.
Re:interesting take. by Ghostworks · 2013-07-26 03:34 · Score: 4, Informative

Yes, this is a more recent (on the scale of years) method: load a bunch of links, let the user's browser assign them properties based on whether they've been visited or not, then let the site's javascript read back the properties from DOM. This is in addition to more direct methods such as cookies (we know where you've been because some party we have an agreement with has been keeping a log for us), super-cookies (we know where you've been through cookie-like files from flashand other things that don't typically get cleared), and 1x1 pixel images images (we know where you've been because you've been phoning home to an image server with every page load).
Re:interesting take. by maden · 2013-07-26 03:59 · Score: 2

It seems to be fixed in most major browers, and I can't reproduce it locally on the lastest Firefox. This blog post talks about it a bit more.
Re:interesting take. by Ghostworks · 2013-07-26 04:00 · Score: 1

This parallels the Mozilla "ping" fiasco of a few years back. In that case, someone at Mozilla labs came to the conclusion that people were always going to be tracked somehow, and all the gyrations of cookies, 1x1 pixel images and so on was just producing a lot of waste traffic. If it's going to happen anyway, why not make the tracking process as technically-efficient as possible? Thus they proposed that each site could have a meta link for a server to "ping" with minimal packets on a page load. Naturally, this would be opt-out: optional because they don't believe that they are evil, and opt-out because if it was opt-in no one would do it. Of course, users objected, the internet got angry, and it never happened.
Now we have another proposal from Mozilla for making the user privacy/advertizing money trade-off slightly more efficient, but no more palatable. In theory there might be some benefit: sites wouldn't _have_ to collect browser history the old fashioned way, and maybe if enough people don't care enough to change, the advertizing wolves will jump on them while the rest of us pass merrily on our way. In practice, that won't happen: advertiser will use tracking cookies, images, history sniffing, _and_ web interests, and people who opt out will probably get a snarky message about how any given website is not available unless you upgrade to a modern browser and enable cookies, javascript, and web interests. Traffic will not decrease. CPU cycles and storage TB will not be saved. Users will have no more, and probably less control over their privacy. And as with every new web technology, you're only as free as your neighbors want to be.
There are other applications which would be valuable: a suggestion engine for movies as Netflix uses, for music as the iTunes "genius" feature uses, for products as Amazon uses, for friend's as Facebook uses, and for Dates as way too many sites use. In fact, in terms of making the web useful, suggestion engines are probably behind only search and the sheer act of being able to fetch data from another computer. But none of those are really what's being proposed here. All of those require deeper and more specialized connections than would be available through browser history. No, this proposal is just about going out of one's way technically to help advertisers, while in the long-run probably providing a net negative to the users and the internet infrastructure.
Re:interesting take. by Githaron · 2013-07-26 04:06 · Score: 2, Interesting

Without a proxy of some sort, how are you going to prevent websites from tracking you? At the very least, web servers need a IP address to send its content to on request. There is no way for the browser to disable the web server's ability to log that data request. If they can log the data, they can share that data with third-parties in order to get a better idea of the interests of those that IP address. If you want your sessions to persist across mutiple visits/requests from that website, some sort of session id needs to be sent from your browser and then you have the same senario.
As far as I know, most tracking is done via third-party cookies and javascript scripts that log your visits directly. The best you can do in that regard is block those cookies/scripts. Of course, if such a feature was on by default, the tracking/advertising agencies would simply require that the website owners send the information via the server-side and now everyone is worse off because there is nothing you can do about it.
Combine with some tech down the road, Firefox's solution might actually help. By reporting your interests to websites though your pre-processed browser history or manual settings, you decrease the incentive of advertising agencies of spending addtional resources tracking and computing your interests. After wide adoption, Firefox can then start blocking tracking cookies and scripts by default. They could also start onion routing through other Firefox users' browsers. While advertising agencies can still go through the previously mentioned backend route, why spend the resources organizing and developing such a network if they are already getting 99% or what they want unless that 1% is at least as valuable as the resources needed to be spend developing that system? With so much obfuscation it probably isn't worth it.
Re:interesting take. by RJFerret · 2013-07-26 04:10 · Score: 1

Websites are already tailored to users' interests, that's how we got there in the first place, we searched for what we were interested in, and that site came up. Duh. Other interests (my taste in porn) is not relevant to the transaction. I don't need to see sex toy ads (not that I ever see ads, thank you ad blocking Hosts file) when searching for some game or pastime for my niece.
People were creeped out when gmail came along "reading" your email to target specific ads based upon what other people wrote to you about. Imagine if all your fetishes started popping up alongside news sites when you were at the coffee shop?
Re:interesting take. by washort · 2013-07-26 04:45 · Score: 2, Insightful

The last thing I want is Mozilla deciding they're just like Google and Facebook and that my browsing history is their resource to be monetized.

This is Mozilla trying to build tools to let users monetize themselves if they so desire. Your browsing history is your resource. The experiment so far has been collecting this data and showing it to the user. The concept being explored now is whether to add a button for letting you send this data to a website. The idea is that this lets you share your interests with a site, without the site having to use tracking cookies to collect your browsing history (as Google and Facebook do).
Re:interesting take. by Stan92057 · 2013-07-26 05:11 · Score: 1

And your thoughts if this was Microsoft IE?

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Jack of all trades,master of none
Re:interesting take. by GameboyRMH · 2013-07-26 06:21 · Score: 1

I know I'd immediately set it to share None of My Interests with None of The Sites. And then I'd probably go into about:config and look at disabling the feature at a lower level just in case someone finds an exploit in it.

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"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Re:interesting take. by Ghostworks · 2013-07-26 07:42 · Score: 1

the problem has always been that you have to be of questionable morality to harvest this data, get data of probably low quality, and piss people off
It may not solve the "current" problem, since advertisers won't even use this if they don't feel it will help them - they already have their means. But that doesn't mean it's useless. Don't be myopic.
No one said it's useless. It's very useful, primarily to advertisers, who will definitely make use of it if it's available. And it aims to solve _exactly_ the "current problem" of advertising, couched in a language that presumes that there is surely some other use out there that we're going to presume is the primary use case once they figure out what it is. So far, their attempt to find another use case amounts to a news site that skips right to the sports section (or a site that knows that to you, news.tld really means news.tld/sports). At best (where the user is concerned) it's a solution in want of a problem. At worst, it's an attempt to obscure its primary purpose. And the morality of the purpose itself remains questionable.

Moreover, it could theoretically work for a lot more than just ads and marketing. It would basically permits third parties to be granted access to your data. So, for instance, you could grant your geolocation database to only certain mapping sites. Or your social media history only to a game site that will utilize it.
There are many applications that are appearing for this kind of information harvesting that aren't all malicious. Some of them are even exciting
Except that's not what's being proposed at all. It's a good idea that any data sharing should require explicit user approval on a party-by-party basis: history, geolocation data, anything. But they're not talking about parsing your geolocation or social connections or anything like that. Their proposal is not "sharing certain things with certain parties over the internet". That's pointlessly broad. They're talking about divining general categories of interests, Stumble-Upon-style, from your browser history -- the type of sites you'd like to see more of, and the stuff you're most likely to buy -- and sending that to designated parties. In other words, they propose giving you increased power to allow people to advertise to you. But, since they haven't fixed any other method of tracking, you don't have a corresponding increase in your power to disallow advertising. The benefits of this are 100% in the favorof the advertiser.

Um, they're proposing that you, the user, can tell sites what you want them to know. Nothing at all, or certain information for certain sites. This is an opt-in. It will be useless to we who don't want it. It will help those who aren't as hardline about ads.
Respectfully, no technology in the history of the web has actually panned out this way. The web as its consumed now is developer-skewed. Ultimately, you're looking to the developers to provide the medium, and often the content, for everything you consume. Your only ultimate freedom is to choose to participate on the developer's terms, or not. Everything else is either granted by a developer favor (perhaps because he actually cares about a democratized, user-empowered web), pried out of the service under false pretenses, or just a result of a blind spot. If the developers don't want to support IE8 anymore, they have the power to lock you out (unless you spoof the UA string). If they want to force javascript on a site that doesn't even need it, they can detect non-compliance and refuse to serve you (unless you run No-Script and essentially lie about having a browser that runs javascript). If they want to require GPS location from your phone and refuse to let you use their location-driven service otherwise, they can. This is generally in the name of offering a uniform experience (read: creating complex applications with minimal testing), but the fact of the matter is that you still lock people out of
Re:interesting take. by dveditz · 2013-07-26 12:40 · Score: 1

Why was ping a "Mozilla" fiasco? It was a WHATWG specification, never shipped enabled in a Firefox final release, but is currently supported by Chrome.
Re:interesting take. by Githaron · 2013-07-26 14:23 · Score: 1

You obviously did not read past my first sentence.
Re:interesting take. by ultranova · 2013-07-27 01:23 · Score: 1

The reality is that information is currency these days, and people will mine for this sort of data because it is valuable.

Knowledge is power, like it has always been.

You won't have much luck just blocking everything because the incentives to find a way around whatever blocks are put in place are high.

You won't have much luck just blocking everything because Mozilla, just like every other browser, leaks information like a sieve. And why wouldn't they? You're the product, the advertisers are the customers.

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Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Re:interesting take. by Elbart · 2013-07-27 01:50 · Score: 1

but is currently supported by Chrome.
Now that's a shocker.

Search and replace by chinton · 2013-07-26 02:10 · Score: 2, Insightful

s/article/ad/g

s/content/ad/g

Re:Search and replace by DougOtto · 2013-07-26 02:23 · Score: 4, Funny

I see what you sed there.

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Solving Unix problems since 1989...
Re:Search and replace by Salgak1 · 2013-07-26 02:41 · Score: 1

And it's a bit awk -ward. . .
Re:Search and replace by gstoddart · 2013-07-26 02:42 · Score: 4, Funny

It's all grep to me.

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Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Re:Search and replace by chinton · 2013-07-26 02:51 · Score: 4, Funny

Stop the puns or I'll have to bash someone.
Re:Search and replace by gstoddart · 2013-07-26 02:55 · Score: 2

go fsck yourself. ;-)
(OK, I do apologize for that, meant only in jest I assure you =)

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Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Re:Search and replace by Zordak · 2013-07-26 03:09 · Score: 1

zip it. Using that kind of language will kill the discussion.

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Today's Sesame Street was brought to you by the number e.
Re:Search and replace by chinton · 2013-07-26 03:29 · Score: 2

There are perls of wisdom in what I said. Stick that in your | and smoke it.
Re:Search and replace by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 03:34 · Score: 1

In addition to zipping it, he should bzip2.
Re:Search and replace by Darinbob · 2013-07-26 07:33 · Score: 1

Why the sudden runoff of puns?
Re:Search and replace by cjb658 · 2013-07-26 09:41 · Score: 1

I'd tell you to just ignore this thread, but it's too late, you've already reddit.

I don't want to live in a bubble by jarle.aase · 2013-07-26 02:11 · Score: 5, Insightful

And I definitely don't want my browser to spy on me. There are already too much of that going on.

Re:I don't want to live in a bubble by gl4ss · 2013-07-26 02:16 · Score: 1

And I definitely don't want my browser to spy on me.
There are already too much of that going on.
yeah.. everyone getting a newspaper that provided just news that didn't bother them.. that would be pretty fucked up.
what's even more fucked up though is mozilla thinking this would do anything. mozilla is a browser. such interests service could be provided by say facebook for whoever is interested and mozilla could just focus on building better filters.

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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Re:I don't want to live in a bubble by sirsky · 2013-07-26 03:03 · Score: 2

It's obvious who came up with this idea too. It certainly wasn't one of the developers thinking it would be "a good feature to add". It was some suit in an office that had this 'great idea', ran out and said "CODE THIS"!

How 'Bout No! by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:11 · Score: 1

How 'bout no!

Why do we continue to allow these nit wits to think that we are OK with them spying on us to bolster their profits?

You know that this is a bad idea... by TWX · 2013-07-26 02:12 · Score: 2

...I mean, Avenue Q already told us what the Internet is for...

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Do not look into laser with remaining eye.

Re:You know that this is a bad idea... by JanneM · 2013-07-26 02:22 · Score: 1

Yes - but what kind, right? There are many girls with cups and other specialities you may not want to stumble upon accidentally - or particularily be on the lookout for, interests depending.
Seriously, this kind of thing would be a good step toward a system where you will have control of what to release to sites and advertisers; and where you may actually want to do so, since it benefits you along with them.

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Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Re:You know that this is a bad idea... by gstoddart · 2013-07-26 02:45 · Score: 1

Seriously, this kind of thing would be a good step toward a system where you will have control of what to release to sites and advertisers
Tell you what, build me the "nothing at all", and let absolutely everything else require a positive action from me.
The only think I want sites to see is an http request for the page, and the only thing I want advertisers to see is absolutely nothing.

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Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Re:You know that this is a bad idea... by JanneM · 2013-07-26 12:12 · Score: 1

And that would be one feasible setting. I expect a fair number of people to choose to disclose nothing at all.
But if I am in control over what is disclosed, I would probably elect to show some information. Keywords on the kinds of thing I'm interested in and that sort of data. If I control the information flow I'd be happy to use it to get better, more relevant information back.

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Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.

This is the 'user agent' idea... by TheLoneGundam · 2013-07-26 02:12 · Score: 1

Once upon a time we were all going to have a 'user agent' that was local to our computer that performed all sorts of mediation for us, sort of an Arthur Treacher (look it up you young whippersnappers) role; this is one instance of that idea.

Re:This is the 'user agent' idea... by ComputerInsultant · 2013-07-26 02:48 · Score: 1

I would welcome a browser that mediates Fish and Chips http://www.arthurtreachersfranchising.com/

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engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff

time for sudo by nadaou · 2013-07-26 02:13 · Score: 1

apt-get install sensible-browser

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~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.

Re:time for sudo by gstoddart · 2013-07-26 02:34 · Score: 2

error: package could not be found

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Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Re:time for sudo by nadaou · 2013-07-26 13:09 · Score: 1

Oops, it's in the sensible-utils package.

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~.~
I'm a peripheral visionary.

A revolutionary idea by pipatron · 2013-07-26 02:14 · Score: 5, Insightful

I have a revolutiounary idea!

How about giving users the ability to visit different "web sitez" or what you call them, depending on their interest?

So for example, if I am interested in hockey, and live in Sweden, I could type in, say, "www.swehockey.se" in some sort of text input field in the browser.

This way, you wouldn't actually have to send any information at all to some unknown third party!

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c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */

Will this work? by auric_dude · 2013-07-26 02:15 · Score: 1

By creating several Firefox profiles and then browsing in private mode with no saving of history and and not allowing the setting of cookies be they third part or not may well be the way to go. Up to now Mozilla & Firefox were the good guys, but up to a few weeks ago so were the NSA, FBI, CIA and others.

Re:Will this work? by pipatron · 2013-07-26 02:21 · Score: 1

:D
up to a few weeks ago so were the NSA, FBI, CIA
There are few times I actually smile when I write a smiley, but this is one of them.

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c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
Re:Will this work? by gstoddart · 2013-07-26 02:23 · Score: 1

but up to a few weeks ago so were the NSA, FBI, CIA and others
Not really ... they've always been organizations willing to stomp on your rights and a few laws to achieve their own ends.
This has been true for decades. The only difference is now someone has confirmed it, but nothing at all changed with Snowden's revelations.

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Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Re:Will this work? by bagofbeans · 2013-07-26 04:25 · Score: 1

As something did change. Thanks to Justin Amash and others, we are now aware which 217 Representatives are ok with NSA violating the constitution, and which 205 Representatives are not.

Kinda missin' the point, guys... by pla · 2013-07-26 02:16 · Score: 5, Insightful

The idea is that your history is used to generate a set of interests which you can then share voluntarily with websites, hopefully discouraging blanket tracking advertising systems love to do now.

You guys just really don't fucking get it, do you?

I don't want to make it easier for you to target me with ads. I don't want to share personal information with you. I don't want to give you yet another way to track me ("Oh, look, Mr. 18-25YO woodworking rugby-watching green-tea-drinking VI-using lesbian-fetishist on FireFox-17-with-Flash-11.101 has come back to the site!"). I don't want to "build a relationship" with you. I don't want to get your newsletter. I don't have the least interest in the viability of your business model outside the ad revenue you won't get from me. I will answer any obligatory signup questions with completely bogus info, though the throwaway email address I give you will at least work - Once.

I will find you through Google. I will visit the pages on your site that I searched for in the first place. If you have a site that appeals to me in general, I may casually browse around for a while (though if I visited with a specific goal, probably not). I will block ads, cookies, most scripts, and tracking bugs the whole time.

Have a nice day.

Re:Kinda missin' the point, guys... by Seumas · 2013-07-26 02:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

Exactly this. Why in the hell would I want to share my set of interests with other websites?
I mean, I'm a middle aged American male. I like porn, videogames, and technology. That's hardly a secret and I don't care that some people know it -- but there's something sort of gross about just handing it over to some entity so they can better monetize me. Especially when I'm just old enough to still remember a time when people did shit on the internet for the sake of doing it or even back in the BBS days when sysops would pay tons of money and spend tons of their own time building communities and services just for the sake of helping people and offering services. Money be damned.
Now, every mommy-blogger and twitter-user absolutely has to plaster ads everywhere and make two pennies off the twelve people that visit their blog every few weeks.
I'm all about capitalism and competition surfacing from the free marketplace . . . and if your service has value to me, I'll be glad to pay a little for it if you give me a the option . . . but there is just something particularly off-putting about constantly being eye-spammed and tracked (or not, even) and monetized every second you are online.
Re:Kinda missin' the point, guys... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 02:32 · Score: 1

I will find you using Duck Duck Go. FTFY.
Re:Kinda missin' the point, guys... by Bucc5062 · 2013-07-26 02:33 · Score: 1

Oh, if only you were part of the 99%, not the 1%
In this case 99% of the users of the "Web" don't care about tracking, ads, what is captured or anything other than "does it work". They cannot be bothered turning this or that off or figuring out how to block ads. the 99% run apps on Facebook, click on ad links, and blithely share information to the underworld of marketers.
The 1% are those like yourself (and me to an extent), that don't want or need help finding things on the web. We don't like leaving bread crumbs, we are bothered by the notion of being tracked. I think this feature of Mozilla sucks, but as it will most likely be an opt out, not in approach it is just another "thing" to manage. The 1% have no real power to make these browser folks stop doing this type of crap.
What is sad is that as developers of the browser, they truly have the ability to shape how all this works. They are the toll keepers and can easily set up the access point to be all "opt-in" oriented. An open source product like FireFox does not need advertisements to survive so why do they help marketers troll for our data.
So Mr. 1%, I am with you, but one day it will get too complicated to manage all these tricks to keep my "privacy" and you, I, and the other 1% will be absorbed.

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Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
Re:Kinda missin' the point, guys... by Hatta · 2013-07-26 02:48 · Score: 1, Insightful

I don't want to make it easier for you to target me with ads.
I will find you through Google.
Huh?

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Re:Kinda missin' the point, guys... by MMC+Monster · 2013-07-26 02:53 · Score: 1

I mean, I'm a middle aged American male. I like porn, videogames, and technology. That's hardly a secret and I don't care that some people know it
Absolutely. You're an adult and it's the 21st century. You don't have to hide that you like technology. Long gone are the days when kids are beat up for this sort of thing.

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Re:Kinda missin' the point, guys... by Salgak1 · 2013-07-26 03:00 · Score: 1

And then, there's the retaliation. Someone WILL make a plug-in to hack this. Generating a random "interests" file for each new web-page accessed. Because the tracking is getting BEYOND ludicrous. At least with a randomizer, we might see something interesting from totally out of the blue. . .
As opposed to the current way of doing things. . .
Example, a pal of mine needed a new wiring harness for his tractor. Last week. He searched, found what he needed, and ordered. Interest complete. He's STILL getting targeted ads for wiring harnesses and similar parts.
Re:Kinda missin' the point, guys... by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 03:26 · Score: 1

If you loudly proclaim you don't want the site to ever get your money when you block all ads and tracking, then why would the site want you there? There needs to be some financial incentive. It'd be like sitting at a restaurant, partaking of their free water and bread, and then when it comes time to order you say you're not interested and leave.
Re:Kinda missin' the point, guys... by TheDarkMaster · 2013-07-26 03:41 · Score: 1

Hum, depends.

Today, the biggest problem I see with ads is the fact that the vast majority of them involves lies, misinformation or even attempts to install malware. I would not block then if the ad was honest and harmless (eg something like a simple-text ad "Hey, are you looking computers right? I can get some that interests you on my site" instead of a animated flash-ad "OH NO!!! YOUR PC IS INFECTED, INSTALL ME NOW FOR FIX IT!!!!!")

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Re:Kinda missin' the point, guys... by pla · 2013-07-26 04:50 · Score: 1

There needs to be some financial incentive.

No, really, there doesn't.

"Oh, what a cute little botfly larva! Sure, you can nom on my flesh for a few days, little guy!"

I suppose in the interests of accuracy, I probably shouldn't have said I don't care about your business model - More accurately, if your business model depends on people not noticing you parasitically extracting as much PII from them as you can, you can consider me openly hostile toward that.

It'd be like sitting at a restaurant, partaking of their free water and bread, and then when it comes time to order you say you're not interested and leave.

Yes, it would - If they stuck their bread-and-water table outside along a busy sidewalk with a huge sign reading "free bread and water", while a monkey hiding under the table did his best to steal change from your pocket.

then why would the site want you there?

I don't know, and don't particularly care. Put up a 100% paywall if you don't want me - I won't even bother trying BugMeNot to get in, I'll just consider you no longer part of the internet.

Which, flipness aside, actually answers your question, because so will the other 90% of visitors who may feel the same as I do but lack the technical skills to act on it. Which brings us back to botflies and monkeys.
Re:Kinda missin' the point, guys... by cant_get_a_good_nick · 2013-07-26 04:59 · Score: 1

I've been browsing more and more in Incognito mode... at least (in theory) my Google searches don't trigger a rash of new ads. I've a family member on my wife's side who needs medical treatment, and i make sure I hit incognito mode with the searches for info for them.
I hate that my searches on my phone now show up on my desktop. I hate that a joke query on my ipad for a porn site that happens to be close in name to a place i wanted to visit now ends up on my desktop google. I hate that google tried to tie desktop and browser with games and not mention their ulterior motive.
At my work, we were given a book "From Good to Great". Google is going "From Good to Corporate". Forget "Don't be evil".. try "Don't be a typical corporation"
Re:Kinda missin' the point, guys... by GodfatherofSoul · 2013-07-26 05:04 · Score: 1

This is the genius of it all. Take advantage of greed and the desperation people seem to have for their reality TV moment.

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Re:Kinda missin' the point, guys... by Doghouse13 · 2013-07-26 05:22 · Score: 1

Indeed. I don't want anyone collecting anything about what I do or don't decide to look at, and I certainly don't want them then going further by analysing it, sharing it and generally helping people I don't know and don't want to know to "tailor" my experience - however well-meaning the intent. When I'm on the net, I'm there because I want to be, for my reasons - not for the convenience of anyone else. Get off my lawn, Mozilla - stay out of my computer experience, and let me decide what I want to see, and when.
Re:Kinda missin' the point, guys... by Darinbob · 2013-07-26 07:35 · Score: 1

This is Mozilla. What you want is irrelevant to them.

I want a plugin to go with this. by intermodal · 2013-07-26 02:17 · Score: 1

One that completely randomizes what it sends to sites as my "interests" while simultaneously blocking whatever content that causes those servers to send.

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Re:I want a plugin to go with this. by pipatron · 2013-07-26 03:26 · Score: 1

Or it could be put to good use. For example, you could program the interest list to only show that you're very very interested in a particular political party during election time, as a way to spam your agenda to the advertisers and inflate some polls.
Or when I recently was looking for a very specific piece of hardware, second hand because it has not been manufactured for a long time. I could have programmed my "interest filter" to only show that hardware as my interest, maybe the ad-trawlers would've found it for me!
Ok, maybe this wasn't such a great idea after all.

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Fuck that ... by gstoddart · 2013-07-26 02:18 · Score: 1

Mozilla is proposing that the Firefox browser collects data on users' interests to pass on to websites
Tell you what Mozilla, if I want to give information to a web site, I'll give to them myself.
Don't start becoming advertising douchebags and enablers of assholes on the internet -- a web site should receive only what I tell them. I block their ads and cookies so they don't know anything more about me than necessary.
Don't become sellouts to the marketing idiots and people who want to track everything we do.

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Reverse it and I am in by paavo512 · 2013-07-26 02:23 · Score: 1

I would rather much like the opposite filter: I would let the website know that I'm not interested in stuff like sports news or royal births, and the website would then not include such things in its content or ads. Currently I am forced to search for interesting things among a lot of totally boring stuff.

Yes, I know this will never happen. Too bad.

Re:Reverse it and I am in by gstoddart · 2013-07-26 02:31 · Score: 1

I would rather much like the opposite filter: I would let the website know that I'm not interested in stuff like sports news or royal births, and the website would then not include such things in its content or ads.
Not me ... I want a plugin that makes advertisers want to show me stuff for all kinds of shit I'm not interested in. I want them to think I'm a 97 year old lesbian with a penchant for snuff, jasmine tea, and kittens.
And then I want to block their ads and cookies and ignore the fuckers.

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Lost at C:>. Found at C.

I already know what I'm interested in. by a_big_favor · 2013-07-26 02:23 · Score: 1

And I don't want to tell websites I like porn.

This is essentially what Google does. by Chalnoth · 2013-07-26 02:26 · Score: 1

Since it's already being done, why not? As long as it's optional, it shouldn't be an issue. You can manage your Google ad preferences here, by the way, including opting out of personalization altogether. Note that you have to be logged in either for editing your preferences or for Google to track you.

The only drawback here is that it will take a lot of engineering effort as well as time to get Firefox's preference estimates to come close to being as good as those of established ad companies.

Great idea by Dishwasha · 2013-07-26 02:33 · Score: 4, Insightful

I think it's absolutely awesome that Mozilla is helping websites to target me to only my stated interests. This will ensure that I can never be exposed to any other thoughts or ideas outside of my narrow viewpoints and will make sure that I never develop any new interests.

Chocolate ice cream by sugarmotor · 2013-07-26 02:36 · Score: 1

Like chocolate ice cream? Not a useful idea.

Here's a better idea. Let browsers send less, not more.

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http://stephan.sugarmotor.org

A tool to make people more insular by __aasehi2499 · 2013-07-26 02:43 · Score: 2

Is not a good thing. We are supposed to branch out and see different perspectives and have new experiences. We don't need any help in finding the things we know we are interested in and know a lot about. We need help in finding information that we are totally unaware of.

NO! by Ol+Olsoc · 2013-07-26 02:43 · Score: 3, Insightful

I remember times when I wanted to download some apps and drivers for a broken PC. I was using a Mac to get them. The website refused to allow me to download them, because I was using a Mac, therefore I would only want the OSX apps, and didn't need that driver. I ended up having to grab another PC to get the files I needed. That was just a simple act of determining what I needed by what browser I was using. Only it was completely wrong.

I don't want a personalized experience. I want to see and get what I need. And I don't need some website determining for me what I need.

I really, really don't need nor want personalized ads for things that I have already bought.

I have an idea - how about Firefaux adding a "I can haz Leave me teh Hell alone!" option that is the default? Then if we want some website to know that we have an obsession with Goatse and the PowerPuff Girls cartoons, we can let them have that knowledge, and can receive ads for Depends, laxatives, and Kidz Bop music CDs to improve our browsing experience.

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The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.

This will kill FF for me by pesho · 2013-07-26 02:46 · Score: 4, Insightful

The reason I go to the web is to find _new_ information. Having my browser railroad me into certain website, because of what some algorithm perceived to be my interest is defying the purpose of web browsing. What happened to discovering things you never heard of, developing new interests and broadening you horizons? Wasn't this one of the promises of the WWW? How did we even end up with the idea of using the vast sea if information at our disposal to make ourselves as narrow-minded as possible? I won't even comment on the breach of privacy that this entails. Many have already discussed it.

Re:This will kill FF for me by washort · 2013-07-26 04:48 · Score: 1

Having my browser railroad me into certain website, because of what some algorithm perceived to be my interest is defying the purpose of web browsing.

You didn't read the article, I think. The proposal is about finding ways for users to have the option to share information about themselves with a site, rather than the site having to use tracking cookies to collect your browsing history.

Amazing by Junior+J.+Junior+III · 2013-07-26 02:52 · Score: 2

Wow, now I can finally figure out what I am interested in! I never had any way of knowing this stuff before.

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I posted this to Mozilla by Bucc5062 · 2013-07-26 02:52 · Score: 1

I read through the blog and then posted this comment back.

Mozilla may need to explore the question are they a marketing firm or a browser developer group. I see no value in having you, Mozilla, actively assisting marketing and advertising companies by collecting, synthesizing, and regurgitating my browser activity to websites.
I already know my interests. I know my needs, and I do not need to be either "guided" to a targeted set of ads or have my interests displayed on a public device (be it phone or PC) for anyone to see, even it is my interest in unicorns and gnomes. More importantly I do not need my browser taking part in helping companies gather this information. At the least be neutral, at best, as toll keepers to the "information highway" protect my viewing habits by making information gathering an Opt-In, not an Opt-Out experience. You are not beholding to advertisers so why shill for them. They can try to track me, I don't need you to tell them where I go.
In short, a lousy idea and one not worthy of the fine product Firefox has become.
(I would guess your test group was not made up of slashdot members. Not one likes the idea and they are pretty clear bout how they feel.)

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Re:I posted this to Mozilla by Bucc5062 · 2013-07-26 06:08 · Score: 1

My first grammar nazi...after all these years.
Point taken. Writing at work puts a pressure to publish quickly. However, the intent was not to find ways to pat me on the back, but to encourage others to write directly to Mozzilla instead of bitching about the feature on /. A point lost on you.

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Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter

Re:Sorry, I have nothing to show you by ArcadeMan · 2013-07-26 02:52 · Score: 1

Yeah, but what kind of porn? Anal? Oral? Hentai? Furry? Tentacles? Racing cars? Homes? Fridge? Milk, eggs, coffee.

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Re:Sorry, I have nothing to show you by Anonymous Coward · 2013-07-26 03:03 · Score: 1

Yeah, but what kind of porn? Fridge? Milk, eggs, coffee.

You're either very strange, or you accidentally posted your shopping list

Obligatory Futurama Quote by tmosley · 2013-07-26 03:09 · Score: 1

"This guy sure loves porno!"

WTF by gr8_phk · 2013-07-26 03:10 · Score: 1

Why the fuck can a web site already slurp up my browsing history? Never mind the browser pre-processing it into interests for them, I don't want them to have it at all. Please Firefox devs, plug the holes instead of making them more useful to web sites.

We are not the target audience by Tweezak · 2013-07-26 03:40 · Score: 1

/. readers are not who they are trying to "help."

We all know many people who don't know the first thing about where to go to find what they are looking for. They don't even use google...they are generally using their ISPs homepage because that's what was set up when they got interweb. To these folks, the site with the biggest flashing ad claiming to have what they are after must be okay...right?

If this was an option in the browser that you had to opt-in to, fine. I certainly don't want it but it might help people who struggle to find their way around.

Mutually Assured Destruction by mindsofpsi · 2013-07-26 03:55 · Score: 1

Does the twisted logic behind this remind anyone else of MAD? I.e. Disarmament leads to war; nuclear buildup leads to peace. I actually think this a good idea. Your average person (outside of slashdot) thinks that ads are a great trade off for free websites, and no amount of nagging them about the panopticon society is going to change that. With this proposal, a least you get to keep most of your privacy. And, hey, no world war since the bomb. Unintuitive sometimes works.

Fuck off by Kamineko · 2013-07-26 03:55 · Score: 1

Kamineko writes "Kamineko is proposing that the Firefox browser fucks off. The proposal is designed to prevent websites personalizing content to visitors' tastes, regardless of sites sucking up a user's browsing history, as they do currently. 'Let's say Firefox fucks off' says Kamineko, a dude from the internet. 'As a user, I would have complete control over which of my interests are shared, and with which websites.'"

This is the result of an extended experiment. The idea is that Firefox fucks off and is just a web browser.

I'm creeped out enough by Google Ads by GodfatherofSoul · 2013-07-26 05:09 · Score: 1

Seeing some search I did 2 days ago now following me around the internet is like 1984. eBay has started pushing activity-based sales at you, so now every time I log in I see ads for the laptop I sold a year or two a go. And, I'm sure like most people we do innocuous searches all the time. I dig around for new house info, but I'm not seriously considering one any time soon.

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I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!

Don't call me, I'll call you. by Valdrax · 2013-07-26 05:10 · Score: 1

I can understand the distinction. It's pretty obvious because I share similar sentiments.

I don't want advertisers to push their products on me. I don't want to be made aware of something shiny that I could be spending my money on instead of saving towards my long-term goals. I don't want them to wear down the finite reserves of willpower that we all have against temptation by better finding the things that might tempt me. I don't want all their little neuromarketing tricks designed to guide me to just keep pushing that button for a reward. The last thing I want is for them to know me better and to exploit my weaknesses by constantly bombarding me with shiny things I want. It's annoying enough when they *fail* to attract my interest.

If I want something, and I've made the decision to seek it out, I want to find answers about the range of products myself. I want to pull down the information on my choices myself and make the most informed decision I can. I don't want anyone massaging or regulating the results to guide me towards a choice someone paid for me to see. I just want the facts -- reviews, product statistics, a comparison of what the trade-offs are.

In other words, don't call me, I'll call you.

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But I don't want to be walled in by msobkow · 2013-07-26 05:10 · Score: 1

I don't want to be walled in based on what I've looked at before. I like running across off-beat articles on websites that pique my curiosity. It's half the fun of surfing.

This proposal would try to decide what I'm "interested" in, and filter results and pages to that which I've seen before.

That wouldn't be much fun at all!

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I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.

Crazy Ivan by ThatsNotPudding · 2013-07-26 05:32 · Score: 2

How about an automated browser session or even just a tab that randomly visits sites soley based on a well-crafted list of interests tailored such that they cut across the classic advertising pigeon holes to the point of providing untargetable or irrelevant profiles to advertisers ('where do I put a Rodeo Clown passionate about 18th century German opera and the taxonomy of Indonesian arboreal fungus?').

At the very least, it would decrease their signal to noise ratio and serve up some mildly interesting adverts.

Re:Sorry, I have nothing to show you by ArcadeMan · 2013-07-26 05:36 · Score: 1

Here's the reference.

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A better idea by davydagger · 2013-07-26 06:41 · Score: 1

you can enter in your browser your intrests, which is transmitted in an Open format upon requests to web sites. You can whitelist/blacklist sites, and pick who gets to see what prefrences.

The average consumer will buy into this, because they like relivant ads, they like shoping, and they like consumerism.

Those who don't want to use it can just not use it.

So instead of guessing what your into, just have the user fill it out. Then ad companies can target you for what you like, want, and mabey even need. It ads a level of "consent", where they only know about you what you tell them, so you can keep track of it.

Problem: I'm smarter than a User Agent. by Bieeanda · 2013-07-26 07:00 · Score: 1

This is why I've been using Duckduckgo instead of going straight to Google. This is why I fucking hate going to Amazon: I don't need a website second-guessing what I'm looking for! I have disparate interests; I follow links to weird shit put up by friends and acquaintances; I am perfectly capable of navigating a web page and using CTRL+F to home in on what I'm looking for. Your 'helpful' user agent GETS IN MY FUCKING WAY.

I don't need my results pre-pruned to flatter my politics. If someone links me to the reviews for Tuscany whole milk on Amazon, that doesn't mean I want to buy dairy products over the Internet! 'Suggested' content is computerized guesswork with a signal-to-noise ratio that gets worse and worse because I keep poking around and following links because (holy shit, and god forbid!) I'm curious!

Re:Problem: I'm smarter than a User Agent. by scottbomb · 2013-07-27 07:46 · Score: 1

This. 100 times.

It does make sense? by SmallFurryCreature · 2013-07-26 07:38 · Score: 1

This ONLY makes sense if you think the way to stop rapists is for all women to freely have sex all the time with would be rapists.

For sane people, this makes no sense. If I do NOT want to be tracked, I do NOT want my browser to do it for me.

And if I wanted to feed my interests to websites, ALL that would be needed is a simple form which is used to fill an OPTIONAL header with whatever I wanted to add.

There is NO NEED to analyze my browsing behavior to get my interests UNLESS you are trying to get around the fact that I do NOT want to tell my interests. Here is my fucking interest, NO FUCKING ADS, how about that? That enough interest for you?

The problem is that it is TRIVIAL to allow uses to configure their own interests on a site. Google does it with news. The PROBLEM is that website owners and advertisers don't WANT to serve you with your interests, they want to sell you stuff that pays them well. So you might say you interest is in foreign news, and they service you travel ads. Did you say you had an interest in travel ads? No but that is what they want to sell, so that is what they will push.

The best example is modern television. I check the tv guide, I see the time the program I want to watch airs, what do they serve me with 5 minutes in? Ads for other shows that I could easily find in the TV guide but that I clearly don't want to see because I am right now obviously trying to watch the goddamn program they interrupted to show me stuff I don't want to see.

Note the above is NOT about commercials for products that pay for TV, it is ads for other programs or in the case of Discovery and the like, ads for the program I am watching right NOW!

That is how interested content providers are in what I want to see.

Youtube is another classic example, doesn't matter how long I been watching, logged in or not, the home screen contains NOTHING I want to watch or have ever watched. I might be dutch but since I NEVER watch Dutch TV stuff (if you want to know how retarded Dutch tv is, we gave the world big brother) why does it keep showing me stuff when I never ever watch it? Because they don't want to serve my interests, they want to sell me something.

You know what one my recent greatest discoveries has been? Home delivery from the supermarket. I go online, keep my grocery list and have it delivered once a week. My health has shot up as I only buy want I need when I take inventory of my cupboards and fridge (yes I have become my mother) and order just what is needed and what I want. No price upgrading, no special deals to tasty to pass that you grab out of habit but don't really like all that much. Helps a lot that I do this AFTER I had dinner. I get what I want and the supermarket serves me with what I am interested in AND they make LESS money of me... OOPS (well the delivery costs and the money I save from candy goes to more fresh stuff but since that stuff is less advertised presumably they are less interested in pushing it).

I might bother to tell a content provider what I want, if they actually then gave me what I want. Right now it is about as wise as telling a woman what you REALLY think about the size of her ass when she tells you she really wants to hear your opinion. Install an adblocker (slashdot account) and go single and tracking free and you will live a far happier life. Just ask everyone here.

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MMO Quests are like orgasms:

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I just don't get it by SmallFurryCreature · 2013-07-26 07:47 · Score: 1

Why would you WANT your browser to determine what you like? I KNOW what I like. If I want my browser or a website to know what I like, I will TELL THEM.

Why not record your dreams and have them send to everyone you know by default. No thanks, if I want you to know my dreams, I will TELL YOUR. And then ONLY the parts I want YOU in particular to know and not every fucking website.

Really, you are like saying how much easier it would be for a rape victim to have the rape happen at a time of their choosing then to have the rapist determine when they will be raped. How about not raping me to begin with?

I do not WANT Google or facebook to track me. Me doing the tracking for them instead does NOT fix this.

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MMO Quests are like orgasms:

You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

Re:Wow, you never heard of by Ol+Olsoc · 2013-07-26 14:06 · Score: 1

User-agent switcher?

Why no, I hadn't. I do know that there are ways to hide the browser type,. Bu teven though I am a astupid autistic fuckhead, I do know this. There is no reason that I should have to fuck with my browser because some asshole assumed that Mac gets only Mac, Windows only Windows. What kind of world view is it that thinks that it is at all acceptable to have to get one program to get another program to do something that should have been available in the first place. Maybe you have hours to futz with just trying to get something to work, to hell with actually doing work with it, but I don't. Your argument is invalid, and serves mainly to illustrate that assholes are out there that make a need for such shit in their inability to think.

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The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.

Enough already! by scottbomb · 2013-07-27 07:43 · Score: 1

Seriously, what the fuck?! Companies that do shit like this are only going to hurt themselves in the PR department. Just STOP. You don't need to know every fucking thing about me. It's none of your fucking business.

Fork of Firefox, Seamonkey, and Chromium by Slashdot+Humor · 2013-07-28 16:09 · Score: 1

We should combine and fork Firefox 22.0, Seamonkey 2.19, and Chromium 30.0.1578.3 to make a web browser that supports all Firefox add-ons, has the Mail, Composer, etc. of Seamonkey, and has the speed of Chromium/Chrome.

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Mozilla Labs Experiment Distills Your History Into Interests

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