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IAB Urges People To Stop "Mozilla From Hijacking the Internet"

hypnosec writes "In its latest attempt to stop Mozilla from going ahead with its proposed default blocking of third-party cookies in Firefox, the Interactive Advertising Bureau took out a full page ad urging users to stop 'Mozilla from hijacking the Internet.' Through the advert, IAB has claimed that the Firefox maker wants to be the 'judge and jury' when it comes to business models on the web. According to the IAB, Mozilla wants to eliminate the cookies which enable online advertisers to reach the right audience. IAB notes that 'If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience.'"

499 comments

  1. fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    They're just afraid of losing their revenue. Cowards.

    1. Re:fud by pipatron · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, they are also afraid of us getting a less diverse Internet experience.

      The only time I want your "internet" to differ from mine is when I actively log in.

      --
      c++; /* this makes c bigger but returns the old value */
    2. Re:fud by realityimpaired · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Awww... muffin....

      Maybe they shouldn't have started using full screen flash ads that you have to click through in order to get rid of, or auto-playing noise.... if they'd stayed relatively innocuous, most Internet users probably wouldn't have bothered to find ways to get rid of them.

    3. Re:fud by plover · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, they are also afraid of us getting a less diverse Internet experience.

      De more dey advertise, di-verse it gets!

      Thank you, I'll be here all the week. Tip your servers.

      --
      John
    4. Re:fud by SpicyBrownMustard · · Score: 5, Informative
      > They're just afraid of losing their revenue. Cowards.

      Yeah, there you go. The selfish knee-jerk ad-hating with no awareness of reality or real business.

      Yes, the ad-supported model isn't ideal, and has been exploited by bad people. But the reality is that you get free content where the percentage of pixels on a page devoted to ads is typically much less than the percentage minutes of ads on free OTA television, and less than the percentage of inches in a $4.95 magazine. Oh boo-hoo.

      If you bother to take a deep dive into reality, there are tens-of-thousands of long-tail websites that rely on advertising to remain online and perhaps even pay salaries. They also pay hosting providers who happen have people working for them. Those hosting providers also have their own vendors, and so on. The economic ecosystem extends far beyond that website on which you run ad-blocker and steal their content by breaking the social contract of using their bandwidth and consuming their content in exchange for seeing their ads.

      Yeah, this won't be a popular response. But it's true.

    5. Re: fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Mno this is not a problem for adverts. It's only a problem for advertisers that want's to track users, nothing else.

    6. Re:fud by realityimpaired · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, the ad-supported model isn't ideal, and has been exploited by bad people. But the reality is that you get free content where the percentage of pixels on a page devoted to ads is typically much less than the percentage minutes of ads on free OTA television, and less than the percentage of inches in a $4.95 magazine. Oh boo-hoo.

      When the ads come up on OTA television, I can get up and go to the bathroom or mute the TV and have a conversation with the person sitting next to me.

      As for the $4.95 magazine (or the pay TV for that matter), I choose not to pay for the privilege of being advertised at. Ignoring that point, however, the ads on the $4.95 magazine do not pop up and block my page until I tear it away. It also most especially doesn't dance around the page forcing me to chase it in order to find the corner I can tear off to get rid of it. Most of the time, it also doesn't play obnoxious music or video at me when I turn to the page it's on, nor does it play animated blinking clashing colours to try to get my attention. Additionally, the ad I'm looking at in Time Magazine does not know that I also bought a subscription to Popular Science.

      Advertisers would have a *lot* more sympathy if they'd stop with that kind of shenanigan. While I understand that the Internet is largely supported by advertising, and that if you choose not to have ads you either need a paywall or to lose money (I have a self-hosted blog running from one of my colocated servers that doesn't have ads), I also understand that advertising as it is today detracts from the overall user experience on the Internet. I would be more amenable to advertising if they'd stop being shitheads.

    7. Re:fud by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If you bother to take a deep dive into reality, there are tens-of-thousands of long-tail websites that rely on advertising to remain online and perhaps even pay salaries.

      You know what, the problems with their business model aren't my problem. If their business model requires I provide information to a 3rd party ... well, tough.

      The economic ecosystem extends far beyond that website on which you run ad-blocker and steal their content by breaking the social contract of using their bandwidth and consuming their content in exchange for seeing their ads.

      I'm not stealing their content, I'm viewing what they've made publicly available on the internet. If they want to go subscription only so I can't see it for free, well, I'll stop seeing their site. Such is life.

      And I'm not breaking any social contract, and I'm not using their bandwidth, I'm using my bandwidth -- because I pay for my internet, and the amount I can access is metered. Arguably, the advertising asshats are using my bandwidth by putting all that extra crap I didn't request.

      If a site serves their own advertising (and they're not Flash or otherwise annoying animated stuff), I won't block their ads. If they rely on 3rd parties I have absolutely no reason to trust, I will block everything which is a reference to an external site. Because I have no interest in providing information to those 3rd parties, because they provide nothing of value to me -- in fact they provide negative value by expecting me to give up information about myself in return to being marketed to.

      It really is that simple.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    8. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      ad-hating with no awareness of reality or real business

      If your ad-based business model isn't working, it's time to switch business models, not complain that it isn't working.

      steal their content by breaking the social contract of using their bandwidth and consuming their content in exchange for seeing their ads.

      Social contract? What?

      Are people who go changes the channel during a commercial break on TV stealing the TV shows? No. Is someone who only downloads the parts of a web page that they are interested in viewing stealing the content? No.

      If you don't want your web server to behave as a web server, don't use a web server. The browser should act on behalf of the user and nobody else.

    9. Re:fud by Lonewolf666 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Yes, the ad-supported model isn't ideal, and has been exploited by bad people. But the reality is that you get free content where the percentage of pixels on a page devoted to ads is typically much less than the percentage minutes of ads on free OTA television, and less than the percentage of inches in a $4.95 magazine. Oh boo-hoo.

      I don't mind some ads as long as they don't overlay the content. But in the last 1-2 years, annoying popups that cover up the content I'm interested in have become pretty common. Those are more like stickers on every page you have to pull off before you can read your $4.95 magazine.

      For me that was the reason to finally install NoScript. And no, I don't believe in your social contract. By visiting a website, I don't promise to watch everything there. Things that get too annoying I will ignore, or tell my browser to ignore them for me.

      But we are getting a bit off topic:
      The article was about tracking by third party cookies, and the associated worries about privacy intrusion. In that I agree with Mozilla, and the new default is only what I have had for years.

      --
      C - the footgun of programming languages
    10. Re:fud by Notabadguy · · Score: 3, Funny

      Having never snorted hot coffee onto my keyboard before, I'll mark that one off my bucket list now....

    11. Re:fud by Archangel+Michael · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I am not opposed to ads. I'm opposed to ads using loud obnoxious flashing popup, popunder, Malware spewing crap that reminds me of the days of Geocities websites. The ad companies have done this to themselves, I have NO sympathy for them.

      The rule of asshole applies here. Assholes are assholes, because they think they can get away with it. When people stop dealing with assholes, they become irate that they have no friends and whine about how everyone hates them and how the world is unfair to them. And they ruin it for the people who are doing things right. In short, assholes ruin things for everyone, including themselves, they just don't care, hence why they are assholes.

      There isn't enough time or energy in this life for me to want to deal with assholes. I view assholes as damage and route around them. It they whine in the process, I don't care.

      --
      Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
    12. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But it's true

      Maybe it's true, but you miss the real problems: obnoxious ads and tracking.

      - Obnoxiousity
      When ads where just non-animated Gifs, I didn't care, they didn't bother me. Then they started getting animated (Gifs), then turned to Flashy things that were bigger, even more animated, sometimes with sound (arg !). Then started the underhanded behaviours: full screen, pop under, etc. Whatever. Everything to get you to click even mistakingly (which is especially stupid). Now we even have movies that run besides your page...

      This is BAD.

      Once and for all, the advertisers should real the studies on human behaviour: movement attracts attention, that's true. But they also make it very difficult to read the text that I come to read, to such a point that it decreases the value of the page, and the probability that I'll come again. They also push further the "banner-blindness" phenomenon.

      - Tracking
      Must I really develop the problems that it creates? It's treated regularly on /.

      To my opinion, this is more than a slippery slope. It's downright dangerous.

      So, for me it's Adblock, noscript, and a whole range of other plugins. Too much Ad killed the Ad.

      And I don't think we'll be able to come back, advertisers are too stupid. This poses the pb of moneying the thousands of sites that currently rely on ads. I'm not sure what the answer is. Possibly a small monthly sum -provided by your ISP fee- divided amongst the visited sites? But who would handle the system?

    13. Re:fud by rioki · · Score: 3

      1. make website with great content
      2. put contextual adds based on the content (no tracking)
      3. ???
      4. profit

      When was tracking mandatory for placing adds? I honestly think advertisers are missing the point with tracking.

    14. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Three things:

      1) *I* break a social contract? Excuse me, but can I please have the right to decide what is being downloaded onto my computer myself?
      I am not obliged to sit through 10 minutes of annoying commercials I do not want to see (looking at you, Disney DVDs!), and neither am I required to use extra bandwidth to download advertisements that I do not want to see.

      2) you may as well argue that anyone blocking ads increases the value for the website: by removing themselves from the pool of people exposed to ads, they improve the click-through ratio.

      3) It's not my job to support anyone else's business model. You're right to point out that it *is* a business model, and that blocking ads undermines it. Sure. There may be consequences. Sure. But I get to decide if I care about those consequences, not you.
      (Pro-tip: if you do, you can turn off ad-blocking for the site, though that'll hurt their click-through ratio.)

    15. Re:fud by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful

      But the reality is that you get free content where the percentage of pixels on a page devoted to ads is typically much less than the percentage minutes of ads on free OTA television, and less than the percentage of inches in a $4.95 magazine. Oh boo-hoo.

      The reality is, we pay for that content. Someone somewhere is buying something they otherwise wouldn't have, and is paying enough extra to fund the creaton of that content. Since we're paying either way, it stands to reason that it will be more efficient if we pay for it directly and cut out the middle man AND we'll get more honest content, instead of that slanted towards getting the most clicks, and showing advertisers in a good light.

      Ad supported content is crap all around. It's a nasty hack on capitalism that would have no reason to exist in an economy that serves the people, instead of the other way around.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    16. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Mafia also employs people and supports the auto business by buying expensive cars, the jewelers, etc. We must not support something simply because they employ x people. That's called whoring.

    17. Re:fud by paiute · · Score: 4, Insightful

      steal their content by breaking the social contract

      Is it stealing if I drive down the highway and don't read the billboards?

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    18. Re: fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      It's a problem for the ecosystem because un targeted ads earn web sites considerably less money than targeted ads. Less revenue means fewer employees and less content.

    19. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Amen!

    20. Re:fud by nschubach · · Score: 3, Insightful

      But the reality is that you get free content where the percentage of pixels on a page devoted to ads is typically much less than the percentage minutes of ads on free OTA television

      Cable TV started this way too..

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    21. Re:fud by paiute · · Score: 1

      I view assholes as damage and route around them. It they whine in the process, I don't care.

      Until the assholes buy some DC lobbyists.

      --
      If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
    22. Re: fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Says the commenter on the ad supported web site.

    23. Re:fud by Joce640k · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ad-hating with no awareness of reality or real business

      If your ad-based business model isn't working, it's time to switch business models, not complain that it isn't working.

      Yep. Is advertising a god-given-right? Thought not.

      --
      No sig today...
    24. Re:fud by MightyMartian · · Score: 2

      I agree with Bill Hicks. Marketers are evil.

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    25. Re:fud by Mordok-DestroyerOfWo · · Score: 5, Funny

      No, they are also afraid of us getting a less diverse Internet experience.

      De more dey advertise, di-verse it gets!

      Thank you, I'll be here all the week. Tip your servers.

      I just tipped my servers. I lost a lot of virtual machines but it was totally worth it.

      --
      "Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
    26. Re:fud by interkin3tic · · Score: 2

      That was a very eloquent defense of ads. I'm sure there were more eloquent defenses of the horse and buggy industry a century ago. We certainly lost some things by transitioning to cars. The climate change for one, a faster pace, more deaths due to accidents...

      Trying to shame people into viewing ads is going to change a few people's minds, but it's still a dead industry. The changes may not be good, but they're still going to happen.

    27. Re:fud by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This reminds me of a passage I read recently... I think it was from Uncle Tom's Cabin. There's a slave, trying to get a third party to do something or other, and the slave tells the third party that they simply must do this thing, otherwise, the slaves master will beat him, and it will be the fault of the third party.

      The people behind the propaganda embedded in these websites don't built houses, they don't plant food. They're middle men. Humanity has no need for them. It's been pretty clearly demonstrated that people in information technology are capable of putting middle men out of business. It's so easy we do it in our spare time.

      You want reality? That's reality.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    28. Re: fud by lister+king+of+smeg · · Score: 3, Informative

      Says the commenter on the ad supported web site.

      you mean the same site that lets me turn off advertising by clicking a check box on the home page?

      --
      ---Saying gnome 3 is better than windows 8 not so much a compliment as it is damning with light praise.
    29. Re:fud by Trepidity · · Score: 4, Informative

      But we are getting a bit off topic:

      The article was about tracking by third party cookies, and the associated worries about privacy intrusion. In that I agree with Mozilla, and the new default is only what I have had for years.

      Yes, I think it's worth remembering that this move is not about ad-blocking, just third-party-cookie blocking. Mozilla is not going to ship AdBlock by default or anything. A site can show whatever ads they want, 1st-party or 3rd-party. They can also store 1st-party cookies. What will no longer work by default is 3rd-party cookies, because they are used to track people around the 'net as they browse between different sites, which lets companies build centralized dossiers of people's browsing habits. Those are used for multiple things, and ad-targeting is only one of them. Some of the companies also act as data brokers and outright sell the collected profiles, without anonymizing the data.

    30. Re:fud by SniffTheGlove · · Score: 2

      Too bloody right!!!

    31. Re:fud by tapspace · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You know what, the problems with their business model aren't my problem. If their business model requires I provide information to a 3rd party ... well, tough.

      This is a point that gets lost in a lot of discussions about pervasive tracking on the internet and the necessity of advertising. Your business model does not have a right to exist. People seem to forget this. This is what regulations are for. If a business model is unethical, it should not exist. Just because ponzi schemes are a business model that works for some people, does not mean that that business model should exist. Tracking users without permission is unethical.

      Besides, the internet existed before there were any ads. And, it existed before pervasive tracking. Nature hates a vacuum, especially when there is money to be made. Another form of advertising / monetization scheme will take the place of the completely unethical and, frankly, irresponsible, one that we have now.

    32. Re:fud by fustakrakich · · Score: 1

      Tip your servers.

      But not too far, or they'll fall over..

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    33. Re:fud by fustakrakich · · Score: 2

      Yeah, this won't be a popular response. But it's true.

      Who cares if it's true? They serve up malware and spyware, and clog the tubes. Fuck them.

      --
      “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
    34. Re:fud by kheldan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Arguably, the advertising asshats are using my bandwidth by putting all that extra crap I didn't request.

      Hear, hear!
      You want me to be unable to block your ads or your tracking? Then give me the option of broadband for FREE instead of having to pay for it. Otherwise, fuck off, I'll keep using NoScript and AdBlock+ and FlashBlock and anything else I can get my hands on to keep control over what gets on my screen and what gets run on my hardware. You don't like it? Tough shit.

      --
      Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
    35. Re:fud by pnutjam · · Score: 1

      Every month I get a stack of coupons in the mail. The front of the letter advertises that your stack may have $100 in it. I have seen someone receive a check for $100 made out to cash in their bundle.

      I open the envelope and peek in the front or riffle the coupons to check for a check before throwing the stack away. Am I "breaking the social contract"?

      If you have to make up concepts like "social contract" or "experience diversity" you may be a con artist dressed up as a marketing professional...

    36. Re:fud by SQLGuru · · Score: 1

      They don't realize that local storage is available without using cookies.......

    37. Re:fud by pnutjam · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Neither of those ads report back that Joe Schmoe looked at me for 14 seconds and the next article he read or show he watched was whatever.

      These are not new privacy expectations, People just didn't realize they had to be explicitly spelled out on the internet.

    38. Re:fud by Gavrielkay · · Score: 1

      Actually you're using both your bandwidth and theirs. Many hosts meter served pages and tie their billing in some fashion to the amount of data going out.

      I think advertisers made themselves even more hated than in other forms of media and they'll get zero sympathy from users over browser defaults. But don't delude yourself that you're not depriving someone of revenue while consuming resources they've got to pay for.

    39. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The only thing better than ads targeted at your content is ads targeted at the user.

      The problem is at what point is privacy more important than efficiency and effectiveness? In a purely logical argument, privacy is an emotional aspect, which has no weight in any logical argument, but in the real world, people have emotions, so it is practical to give it value.

    40. Re:fud by camperdave · · Score: 5, Funny

      Tip your servers.

      I tried that, and it pulled the power cord out. Curse you for ruining my uptime!

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    41. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tip cows instead - those don't have mechanical hard drives.

    42. Re:fud by Anne+Thwacks · · Score: 0
      Is it stealing if I drive down the highway and don't read the billboards?

      YES

      --
      Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
    43. Re: fud by interval1066 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Then they need to find a different business model 'cause I'm not pleased by this one. Mozilla is doing the right thing here, the IAB is just trying to spread FUD.

      --
      Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
    44. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They are using their bandwidth. They choose to serve the requests. It really is their choice. They are to wall their sites behind an agreement or a subscription, or to detect whether ads are being requested, or serving their own ads, or any number of alternatives.

    45. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know what, the problems with their business model aren't my problem.

      Its even worse than that: We, as website visitors have got nothing to do with their business.

      That we hear from them at all is because quite a few of them have got no problem with hopping on the chair of a website-owner they deliver their goods to, impersonate them(!) and from that position start to make all kinds of demands about how we as visitors owe it to "them" (the website-owner) to look at all that third-party advertisement content.

      Its so obvious a ploy that its almost embarrassing. :-\

      We are not their customers and have never been. Their only customer is the website-owner, and he's probably too smart to alienate his customers by yelling at them and making demands like that.

      'Cause that is all those advertisement-brokers have done and very vocally keep doing so: Demanding we actively support any-and-all choice they make, no questions asked.

      When then some of us stood up and asked "but what about our choices ?" we where treated like criminals, and still are.

      I started to activily block advertisements when they started to drown out (and worse) the content I was actually visiting the page for.

      As for third-party cookie blocking ? Personally I would like to be able to block all third-party content.

      In regard to that, does anyone know if (some version of) FF allows a plugin to intercept all outgoing requests (preferrably with info to which element sourced it, so I could let "anchour" request thru (user initiated), but nothing else) so I can filter it myself ? Cause page-scraping is, as far as I'm concerned, definatily not the wal to go (JS obsfucation and content-adding capabilities anyone ?)

    46. Re:fud by Pieroxy · · Score: 2

      What will no longer work by default is 3rd-party cookies, because they are used to track people around the 'net as they browse between different sites, which lets companies build centralized dossiers of people's browsing habits.

      Unfortunately, they are not used by just that. There are plenty of other scenarios that work with 3rd parties cookies and will be broken if not. One example is the use of a CDN (Akamai, etc.) which quickly point out the need for a subdomain. So your traffic through Akamai will go through a domain and your direct traffic will go through a subdomain. All of a sudden, one JS file that used to store a cookie cannot do it anymore... And your entire website is broken.

      The problem with this is that changing something that big will invariably break plenty of websites. And the only ones to suffer from this will be Mozilla as people will quickly learn to go through other browsers because "Mozilla is b0rked".

    47. Re:fud by Pieroxy · · Score: 1

      steal their content by breaking the social contract

      Is it stealing if I drive down the highway and don't read the billboards?

      No, but try to cover them with a white fabric and we'll see how long you'll hold it on.

    48. Re: fud by xerxesVII · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Less content?

      I feel like there was MUCH more content on the web 10 years ago. Now everything is crosslinked or reposted.

      Less content. If ad blocking can stop the existence of link aggregators like oddee and their ilk the practice will have done the web a great service.

      --
      "We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
    49. Re:fud by cavreader · · Score: 0

      Without the advertising based revenue you will see nothing but pay walls. Once this happens you will have to fend off the morons who think asking them to pay for content equates to censorship. If cookies really upset your universe you can tighten up your browser settings and move on with your life.

    50. Re: fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They could (gasp) actively find an audience through actual marketing. tracking is the lazy way to do it.

    51. Re:fud by jxander · · Score: 2

      Ad supported as a concept is fine. There are plenty of sites that I enjoy, which have unobtrusive ads. I whitelist them to make sure they're getting enough ad hits to stay afloat.

      However the vast majority of ad-supported websites are so obnoxious that the entire sites become unusable without adblock and noscript. I recently got a refresher in this, through Steam's built-in browser. Wanted to do a quick search for an in-game item.. the wiki to which I was directed had full-screen pop up ads completely obscure the page I was trying to read. And not just once. And not a burst all at once. But a steady drip feed of 3 or 4 full page disruptions, about 10 seconds apart. Just enough time to close one, start reading and- BUY GAMESTOP GAMES LOL ... so you close it, try to find your place in the text, ah there we are. Start to read aga-ANOTHER FULL PAGE AD.

      If sites want to exist on ad revenue, fine. But they have to handle their part of the bargain gracefully, or I'll handle it for them.

      --
      This signature is false.
    52. Re:fud by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      In regard to that, does anyone know if (some version of) FF allows a plugin to intercept all outgoing requests

      I'm sure it's not 100% exhaustive, and I doubt it's 100% effective ... but NoScript + AdBlockPlus + DoNotTrackMe + the setting to not accept 3rd party cookies + the setting to ask me for every cookie is what I've got in Firefox.

      In Chrome I've got ScriptSafe + DoNotTrackMe + AdBlockPlus.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    53. Re: fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The full-page takeovers are rarely targeted by cookies and served to every visitor of a page... so, there might be more of those as a result

    54. Re:fud by xerxesVII · · Score: 5, Insightful

      no awareness of reality or real business.

      Fuck your "business". I remember a different web. I remember a web that actually HAD content. It might not have been as polished. It might not have been as social. But there was untold original content. I remember a web where if someone put up a list of things, they just put up a list. On one page. They didn't string it out over several pages for ad impressions. I remember being curious about something simple, querying %searchengine%, and being able to glean the answer from the results. I didn't have to click through for the benefit of someone's metrics. Your "business" has enabled nothing great that I have ever seen. Your "business" makes the web uglier, noisier, and less helpful. Your "business" introduces lame presentation formats and (thanks to insecure hosting) opens my less knowledgeable friends and family to malware infections that they probably wouldn't encounter on their own.

      You say your business pays for the web? Guess what. If the entire advertising industry were to dry up tonight, there would still be people putting things on the web tomorrow. Next week. Next month. Next year. Because people want to express themselves. The bar might be set a little higher. Content producers might have to pony up a bit to be heard. But content will still be produced.

      If every bit of O.C. disappeared overnight, how long do you think people would stay online looking at your ads?

      Business.

      --
      "We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." - Douglas Adams
    55. Re:fud by wiredlogic · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The most insidious thing the advertisers do is act as malware vectors with the heaps of untrusted javascript they sling around with wild abandon. As soon as they show that they care about my security I might take an interest in seeing their ads to help them out with their financial security. That's a worthwhile social contract to have. One which they can't be bothered to hold up.

      --
      I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
    56. Re:fud by nabsltd · · Score: 5, Informative

      The problem with this is that changing something that big will invariably break plenty of websites. And the only ones to suffer from this will be Mozilla as people will quickly learn to go through other browsers because "Mozilla is b0rked".

      This option exists right now, but isn't the default. Many Firefox users set this option right now and don't have any issues.

      If you need a third-party cookie for your website to function correctly, you're doing it wrong.

    57. Re:fud by mdielmann · · Score: 2

      Without the advertising based revenue you will see nothing but pay walls. Once this happens you will have to fend off the morons who think asking them to pay for content equates to censorship. If cookies really upset your universe you can tighten up your browser settings and move on with your life.

      And if you're too ignorant about the issue to make a decision, the makers of your browser may also make a decision on how they handle it. Such as Mozilla is doing now.

      Don't be fooled, all browsers take a stance on this decision, one way or another. Mozilla is just the first to take this stance. We'll see how popular it is.

      --
      Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
    58. Re:fud by Desirsar · · Score: 0

      Don't feel sad, 'cause two of out three ain't bad. (And I'm conceding the "faster pace" to even get you to two...)

    59. Re:fud by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "No, they are also afraid of us getting a less diverse Internet experience.

      The only time I want your "internet" to differ from mine is when I actively log in."

      What kind of nonsense is this?

      The only difference here is whether somebody accepts cookies or not in their own browser. It's kind of like choosing which sources of email are spam and which are not. YOU get to choose.

      Frankly, I have never once heard any of the advertisers credibly argue that they want either "diversity" or "conformity". What they want is to control what you see in your own home.

      The internet is NOT about me having "the same experience" as you. It's about me having the freedom to do what the hell I want. If YOU want to see the same things, including all the same ads, as everybody else, then you can choose that. But stay the hell out of MY computer!

      But that isn't really it, either. In fact, we have proof that this isn't about "having the same experience" at all. It's about information gathering and targeted ads. Blocking the cookies means they don't get to make your experience different from everybody else's.

    60. Re:fud by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 1

      But the reality is that you get free content...

      Ad-supported is not free. Advertisers raise their prices to pay for that ad space, and buyers pay those higher prices. It ends up working rather like a tax.

      --
      Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
      You cannot wash away blood with blood
    61. Re:fud by tapspace · · Score: 2

      I'm sorry, what? A business model can somehow "not have a right to exist"? I hate to break it to you, but business models don't have rights. People, individuals have rights.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_device

      How is a business owner just supposed to "not track" someone? You realize every time you pay with a Credit card, that's tracked, right?

      An unethical part of the credit card industry. I don't have a huge problem with those records being kept, but they should not be shared or sold without consent, just like medical data. In an ideal world, that data would have a lifetime, probably around 2 years, after which it is truely, actually destroyed.

      You have a right to browse Websites. You have a right to use whatever user-agent you want.

      And likewise, I have a right to send those Set-Cookie headers. You can honor them or not.

      Despite your completely arbitrary assertion, there is nothing unethical about keeping logs of activity sent to ones own server, or requesting -- not even forcing, but politely asking via a Set-Cookie header -- that a customer identify themselves with a unique token. It is ethical because it is completely voluntary. If you don't want the tracking, don't send the Cookie header in your request. It's really as simple as that.

      You are not seeing the big picture. Your technical understanding of the WWW is not completely wrong, but it is pretty outdated. The tracking mechanisms we're starting to see are going FAR beyond just cookies. But, even that is not the real problem. The real problem is that this data, especially when combined from many sources, provides an almost complete trace of our lives. The profit comes at the detriment of our privacy, one of the greatest things we have in the USA. We may very well see the unraveling of our republic in pursuit of profit. Things can, and very well might, get Orwellian very fast.

      It's not just one small piece of the picture that is unethical, nor am I somehow philosophically totally opposed to keeping records. It's the vast amount of data companies are harvesting and keeping that is unethical. It's the sharing of all this data without true user consent that is unethical. It's the unreadable and tricky TOSes buried in every website that are unethical. It's the preservation of this data probably forever that is unethical. It is the wanton carelessness with which this data is stored, transmitted and shared that is unethical. It's the government getting their grubby hands on this data to then also store it forever that is unethical (in this case, pretty much illegal). This information is our very lives. It deserves dignity, because that is what American is supposed to stand for: the dignity of the individual. Because, that is what is right and ethical. And, to believe that we can't fix this with regulations is to believe that we are a limp-wristed and ineffectual nation. To believe that this is the only way we can have the internet is to be too lazy to solve the really challenging problems of our time. To let our ancestors and descendants down. Tackling the hard societal problems is what we are called to do in a democracy. To just waive our hands and say "it's impossible" is to surrender.

    62. Re:fud by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 2

      Actually, they're afraid of us getting a more diverse Internet experience. They're terrified that we might see something other than their carefully cultivated "experience". Ironically, that seems like it would be to their favor. I've inadvertently Googled for something that turned out to be a high-paying adword and saw nothing but ads for that category for months afterward (until I cleared my browser cookies, actually). I'd think it'd be in their best interest to show me something else - anything else - than the same stupid ad for something I'm not remotely interested in.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    63. Re:fud by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      If you bother to take a deep dive into reality, there are tens-of-thousands of long-tail websites that rely on advertising to remain online and perhaps even pay salaries.

      And if some of them vanish, I'll simply stop going to them. This isn't nearly as complicated as some people seem to make it out to be.

      by breaking the social contract

      I signed no contract; they're the ones who made their website available and made attempt to block me from accessing it. All I'm doing is blocking certain types of content locally.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    64. Re:fud by HiThere · · Score: 1

      When I remember back to before lots of web based advertising, I remember a better internet. Perhaps it's because my interests don't align well with LOLCats, but they ARE my interests.

      P.S.: Ads are occasionally so annoying that I uninstalled Flash, after installing it. Usually, however, I just don't go to sites that try to annoy me with it. (OTOH, I also consider Flash to be a severe security hole, which is another reason I uninstalled it. So it's not all down to annoyance with ads.)

      P.P.S.: You kids! Get off my lawn!

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    65. Re:fud by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      In a purely logical argument, privacy is an emotional aspect, which has no weight in any logical argument

      That makes no sense. There is nothing illogical about desiring privacy anymore than there is anything illogical about desiring money or desiring to be efficient.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    66. Re:fud by FireFury03 · · Score: 1

      Yes, the ad-supported model isn't ideal, and has been exploited by bad people. But the reality is that you get free content where the percentage of pixels on a page devoted to ads is typically much less than the percentage minutes of ads on free OTA television, and less than the percentage of inches in a $4.95 magazine. Oh boo-hoo.

      The "free" OTA television I watch has no ads - it is funded through my taxes. If I want, I can pay extra for "pay TV" - that costs more than my TV licence for less content, *and* includes adverts. Please forgive me if I don't take the pay TV providers up on their "generous" offer.

      Magazines do indeed often include advertising. And I don't mind that at all - the advertising sits there on the page, to be either looked at or ignored as the reader sees fit. It doesn't flash multi-colours distractingly all the time the reader is trying to read the article, it doesn't play loud music as soon as you open the magazine, it doesn't sit there using the CPU that you need for something else you're doing at the same time, or running down your battery when you're not plugged into the mains, it doesn't require me to do something to get rid of the advert before I can actually read the article. Nor does it report back to the advertiser how long I looked at the ad, what other ads I looked at, what things I've previously bought after seeing adverts, what other magazines I read, etc.

      I am perfectly happy for web pages to have adverts - I recognise that the web hosts need to get an income from somewhere, and I don't mind some static adverts sitting unobtrusively to the side of the article I'm reading. You can even target them to the subject that the page is discussing - hell, I've actually found these types of ads useful on occasion since they sometimes advertise things highly relevant to the subject matter at hand.

      What is _not_ cool with me is being downright obnoxious to get me to view the advert instead of the article; and what isn't cool is collecting data about me. And advertisers *know* they are doing stuff that really pisses people off - they started off with popups and popunders, which pissed everyone off to the point that they invented popup blockers. Then they figured out how to get around the popup blockers *knowing full well that people enabled them because they found popups obnoxious*, so the popub blockers were improved. Then they started using floating objects within the page to get a popup-like effect, even though they have been repeatedly shown that people don't like popups at all and will go to lengths to stop them. So now people are blocking the advertising completely - that's entirely the advertisers' own fault. If they had stuck to magazine-style static adverts that you could either read or ignore without having to actively dismiss them to read the article then almost no one would bother to do any ad blocking at all.

      However you cut it, under 1 in every 10000 adverts is ever going to be useful to me. If I get to see that 1 advert and ignore the other 9999 without any effort then that's good for the advertiser since they get my business from that 1 ad, and its good for me coz I've been informed about something useful. If I have to actively do something to get rid of those 9999 irrelevant adverts then I'm sorry but it just isn't worth my effort to make sure than the 1 interesting ad gets through so the advertiser loses out.

      The economic ecosystem extends far beyond that website on which you run ad-blocker and steal their content by breaking the social contract of using their bandwidth and consuming their content in exchange for seeing their ads.

      Firstly, no one is stealing any content - the content owner still has their content, I haven't removed it from their posession. Even doing what the media industry does and equating "stealing" with "copyright infringement" doesn't help you here - the content was put on the web freely, there were no technical restrictions stopping me accessing

    67. Re:fud by Zalbik · · Score: 1

      The economic ecosystem extends far beyond that website on which you run ad-blocker and steal their content by breaking the social contract of using their bandwidth and consuming their content in exchange for seeing their ads.

      Those words don't mean what you think they mean.

      Have you considered applying to the RIAA or MPAA?

      Seriously? Steal their content? So apparently you are saying that if I visit a site with ad-blocker on, that sites content and IP is actually removed from the internet. Wow. I didn't know I had that power. Time to piss off those Reddit twerps.

      And sorry, there is no "social contract". Companies pay to advertise on the internet on the assumption that I am going to watch their ads and give a damn. I make no agreement to this whatsoever, social or otherwise.

      I'm guessing you also say:
      - people with a PVR who fast-forward commercials
      - people who mute the volume during commercials
      - people who get up and make popcorn during commercials
      - people who don't answer telemarketing calls
      are also breaking an "implied social contract"

      If you bother to take a deep dive into reality, there are tens-of-thousands of long-tail websites that rely on advertising to remain online and perhaps even pay salaries....

      Just because a company employs people doesn't mean I have to agree with or support their business model.

      The internet was a perfectly reasonable place before all these ad-spewing sites came along. It'll survive long after they are gone.

    68. Re:fud by HiThere · · Score: 1

      You don't really want to block all non-site pages. Some web pages host content from different sites. Additionally, some sites host ads on their own site. So that's (probably) the wrong place to cut.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    69. Re:fud by Arker · · Score: 1

      I do not object to advertising qua advertising. Not at all.

      I DO object to just about every aspect of how it's being done currently. They are whining about third party cookies? Firefox SHOULD kill their third party javascript! Ads that require your browser to run around the net begging a dozen different servers for Reveton every so many seconds, interrupting your ability to read a simple column in the process, should not be tolerated.

      --
      =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
      Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
    70. Re:fud by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Well, to be honest most of the "clogging of the tubes" is done by NetFlix et al. I've got to grant you the other two, however.

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    71. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      >If a site serves their own advertising (and they're not Flash or otherwise annoying animated stuff), I won't block their ads
      this

      Not to mention the number of pages that take forever to become visible because doubleclick is being slow.

    72. Re:fud by steveg · · Score: 2

      I think either you or I misread what he said.

      "Your business model does not have a right to exist," is not the same as saying "Your business model should not be allowed to exist." It's saying, "Your business model does not possess any entitlement that requires anyone else to protect its existence."

      The question of whether a given business model is ethical is still pertinent, but it's not the same question.

      You're not really disagreeing with him, you're just going off in another direction.

      --
      Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
    73. Re:fud by Dutchmang · · Score: 1

      Don't go ad hominem, don't go ad hominem. Ok I can't help myself, you are the stupidest person on the internet today, AC.

      --
      I'm looking over the wall, and they're looking at me!
    74. Re:fud by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      You aren't very good at trolling. Maybe you should give it up.

    75. Re:fud by gstoddart · · Score: 2

      You don't really want to block all non-site pages

      Oh, yes I do. Allow me to be explicit -- I don't want anything from a domain which isn't the one I'm visiting, period.

      Some web pages host content from different sites.

      If that's the content I want, I'll go there, but when I make a request to www.example.org, www.happyfunadvertising.com and www.wherethecontentreallyis.com aren't what I'm visiting and can piss off. If what I really wanted was www.wherethecontentreallyis.com, WTF am I doing at www.example.com if you bring nothing of value to the table?

      Additionally, some sites host ads on their own site. So that's (probably) the wrong place to cut.

      When sites host their own ads, I can at least respect that -- they know and bear the cost of serving those ads. Unless they have really obnoxious ads, I don't usually try to block self-served ads.

      When they just throw in a link that says "and go grab whatever this guy over here has at the end of this link" -- well, they don't know what the ads are, don't much care, and don't have to serve any of it. I don't trust the advertisers, and have no way of knowing if you've got malicious crap in there. I'm sure as hell not granting you a cookie and the ability to run scripts.

      Sometimes it reminds me of the bad old days where a page took forever to load because the external crap (usually ads) was taking forever. If I block your external shit, I don't have that problem.

      I ABSOLUTELY want to block all content on a web page which didn't originate in the domain I'm visiting. Sites relying on all of their cross site stuff for advertising and content -- well, cross site stuff is a security and privacy hole, and involves pulling in from sources I don't necessarily even want to trust.

      And I'll trust an advertising agency when I'm filling in the hole they've all graciously climbed into -- until then, I won't trust them at all. And I certainly won't help them gather more information about me than I can avoid.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    76. Re: fud by Karljohan · · Score: 1

      You could think that, but you would be wrong. Privacy is an important pillar in any functioning democracy. Read up on historical event to see this proven again and again.

    77. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Zing!

    78. Re:fud by diamondmagic · · Score: 0

      The Web is fairly well-defined. If there's another mechanism that a user can be identified by, the same conclusion applies: Stop sending personally identifiable information. If the user agent is actually leaking information where it's not intended to be leaked, that's a security hole and a bug, you can't fault a website for using it to track you, and the solution is engineering, not force.

      Somehow it is unethical to use your own time and resources to collect publicly available data? Or even if I didn't ask for any data, just data of my own that I've accumulated... Somehow, I'd have to dig up my financial records and destroy them after two years. Which is a rather arbitrary number, isn't it? Certainly in violation of records-keeping requirements for taxes. I'm not allowed to know what transactions I've made if they're more than two years old, really? It's my data. What you're proposing is criminalizing possession of one's own belongings! I don't think I've heard this before.

      There is no surrender. This is a solution in search of a problem. Your solution doesn't stop the Government spying (compelled under threat of violence). It does, however, empower the Government to order people around on how they operate. It would require some sort of audit system in place. There'd be arbitrary and unevenly enforced rules on what would be "acceptable" and what is "unethical". And of course, how are we so sure that these are the rules that would be enforced? Government audits means mandatory government access to your data, which is far worse.

    79. Re:fud by sjames · · Score: 1

      They mean diverse from what you chose to see, naturally.

    80. Re:fud by sjames · · Score: 1

      And Mozilla isn't doing anything to harm that. They're just taking popular measures to keep the ad people from acting like creepy stalkers, boo hoo hoo.

    81. Re:fud by plover · · Score: 4, Interesting

      You're close to the IAB's point.

      If you don't accept their cookies, they will send you totally random ads - feminine hygiene products, mayonnaise, Mall of America, etc. The chances are that you will be interested in less than 5% of them. If you take their cookies, they will follow you from Slashdot, Apple, and Honda, then send you an ad for a car with an iPhone interface. At least there is a higher chance you'd be interested, or at least not completely pissed off at the stupid ads.

      They don't want to send you ads for stupid or irrelevant stuff, because that's worse than a waste of bandwidth - it may drive you to seek out an ad blocker.

      A big part of their problem is their history of sending crap ads that used the same cookie technology.

      What might work better is an "anonymous cookie" technology. Instead of sending you a personally identifiable ID, let them access a special "topical cookie area" that has a finite set of pre-defined categories with a finite set of ratings (low/medium/high), and your surfing habits would change the levels of the topics. Slashdot might boost a TECH cookie to "high", and lower your other cookies slightly. Visiting Kimberly-Clark would boost your HOUSEHOLD cookie. Ford would boost your CAR interest. Advertisers could look only at that shared pool of topical cookies and decide which ads to show you. There are lots of details to work out, of course, but it could help preserve anonymity while not completely shutting out targeted ads.

      --
      John
    82. Re:fud by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      I'd be more nervous if that hadn't been the default setting for Safari on Mac and iOS for years.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    83. Re:fud by sjames · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, what? A business model can somehow "not have a right to exist"? I hate to break it to you, but business models don't have rights. People, individuals have rights.

      Right, business models have no rights. One right that they do not have is the right to exist. How is that confusing?

      How is a business owner just supposed to "not track" someone?

      The data is not an intelligent entity that assembles itself you know. You can not track people by not making an effort to track them. You may need to be able to see that I actually did buy the item I'm trying to return from you, that's fine. You need to know how much you sold, that's fine. You do NOT need to compare your transactions with everyone else on the block correlated with your security camera footage to track me. You do not need to correlate that with my browser history to decide what prompted me to stop by yesterday. You do not need to check what underwear I have on or gas me and give me a rectal exam..

    84. Re:fud by sjames · · Score: 1

      That's the part of the social contract the ADVERTISERS want to break. The part that says I am not obligated to play along.

    85. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wait until they're asleep, less impact.

    86. Re:fud by sjames · · Score: 1

      As someone who may be in the car next to you, I appreciate that you don't read the billboards.

    87. Re:fud by Tom · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you bother to take a deep dive into reality, there are tens-of-thousands of long-tail websites that rely on advertising to remain online and perhaps even pay salaries.

      I run a long-tail website, a free online game with about a thousand players. Been doing that for over 12 years. Never had a single banner ad anywhere.

      You can run a small website without advertisement. For my game, player donations keep it running, and they are much higher than I would've ever thought. For a site with less interaction and shorter visits like an online magazine, that probably won't work, but I still challenge your assumption that advertisement is the only way to finance the long-tail websites. It isn't. There are many other ways.

      But the ad industry works both ways. It not only sells us to their advertisement customers, it also sells itself to their customers by convincing them that advertisement is necessary, beneficial, or the only way to get paid anymore in this world.

      And on that, you need to remember rule #1: Spammers lie.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    88. Re:fud by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      If their business model requires I provide information to a 3rd party ... well, tough.

      And this doesn't even prevent that. There's no reason in the world why, say, Google couldn't provide them with an API call to report user activities on a server-to-server basis. As far as I can tell, they're just pissed that they'll have to start doing the work instead of asking my browser to please be a dear and do it all for them.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    89. Re:fud by XcepticZP · · Score: 1
      You're contradicting yourself now.

      "Your business model does not have a right to exist," is not the same as saying "Your business model should not be allowed to exist." It's saying, "Your business model does not possess any entitlement that requires anyone else to protect its existence."

      And:

      This is what regulations are for.

      Either way, regulations are not really required because if it's really morally wrong it's probably already covered by the existence of property rights.

    90. Re: fud by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You mean the same site where I leave the box checked, because they're the only site I've ever seen that has the decency to ask me?

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    91. Re:fud by cavreader · · Score: 1

      Listen sport I am ignorant about a lot of things but I started my programming and system design career over 25 years ago so I am perfectly capable of making an informed decision when it comes to choosing a browser. My first decision was made more than a few years ago was to not even use Firefox. Never needed to use it professionally or personally. However, in regards to this article isn't Firefox an Open Source system. All you need to do is download the code, remove the things you don't want or like, build, and deploy. Catastrophe avoided.

    92. Re:fud by HexaByte · · Score: 1

      This is why I now use an add-in that disables all flash unless and until I activate it. Along with ghostery, DoNotTrackMe, adblock plus....

      --
      HexaByte - he's a square and a half!
    93. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Try the waitress and tip your veal.

    94. Re:fud by msobkow · · Score: 1

      It wouldn't really degrade the relevance of their ads, seeing as I'm interested in 0% of them now.

      Hello, AdBlock Plus...

      --
      I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
    95. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You don't really want to block all non-site pages.

      All ? Probably not. But its a good starting point. After that anyone can implement his own favorite method, it being whitelists, blacklists or any other method that you can do with some scripting.

      The idea is to have the possibility to do such filtering.

      So that's (probably) the wrong place to cut.

      Be my guest and come up with a beter idea. Up until that moment I'm going to hold on to this one. :-)

    96. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... the social contract of using their bandwidth ...

      I pay an ISP to receive 40GB of data a month so I call it my bandwidth and I'll decide what I want to download. Hint: It's not irrelevant adverts and their bug-ridden scripts.

      ... consuming their content in exchange for seeing their ads ...

      When I go to the 'Ford' web-site I would love to see car adverts. When I go to 'Microsoft' I want to see other office suites advertized. You think those companies want to help the competition? Even MSNBC can put diet products on their articles about bulimia, 'The biggest loser', obesity epidemic, cooking shows, junk foods. I get upset when their pages simply alternate adverts between women's dresses, makeup, hair-care products, perfume. That is not relevant to me or a diverse experience. And that sentiment applies to all service-only web-sites.

    97. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Visiting Kimberly-Clark would boost your HOUSEHOLD cookie. Ford would boost your CAR interest. Advertisers could look only at that shared pool of topical cookies and decide which ads to show you. There are lots of details to work out, of course, but it could help preserve anonymity

      I have no reason to give these fuckers any info. Better targeted ads, more relevant to me ? I don't want that. I don't want to help professional manipulators manipulate me, I want them to have as little information as possible, so that I can still have a chance of drawing my own conclusions.

      The reason advertising is a billion dollar business is because these fuckers can and will manipulate your choices no matter how smart and informed you think you are. Advertising works, and the consumer is paying for it. If I need unbiased information, I know where to get it. Manufacturers need to provide that info instead of sales hype and the market will be efficient, we will get better cheaper goods without the advertising middle man.

    98. Re:fud by longk · · Score: 1

      If you've been paying attention you would know that ad networks are failing at what you're describing. The degree of targeting that they're able to accomplish is far far less than what they've been promising for more than a decade now. Companies that have a clue, like Amazon and Google, are themselves shifting to spam-like solutions rather than targeted advertising. Why? Because it's more effective (sadly.)

      Being anti-mozilla here is just part of keeping up appearances for those ad agencies that are behind of the curve.

    99. Re: fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We make problems for all advertisers.

      We don't merely block cookies - we run adblockers too of course. Track me all you like - I don't get to see your ads . . .

    100. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If you take their cookies, they will follow you from Slashdot, Apple, and Honda, then send you an ad for a car with an iPhone interface.

      And Depends...

    101. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      While I understand that the Internet is largely supported by advertising,

      Not the interesting part. The web started without ads, and was good in those days too. If all web ads were outlawed outright, we'd get a smaller web. But the most interesting parts would remain.

      I block cookies. I block java/javascript/flash. I block ad servers and images in common "ad sizes". Someone looses revenue and I couldn't care less about that. those I do care about can put up a donation link or something.

    102. Re:fud by LihTox · · Score: 1

      This idea that blocking ads is "stealing content"...very interesting. Suppose instead of blocking ads, I made a list of every company that advertised to me on the web and personally boycotted each one. Where would that fall on the ethical scale?

    103. Re:fud by Zaelath · · Score: 1

      Yeah, this.

      I was ok with web 1.0 ads, but dancing screaming flash ads and javascript are the equivalent of those shouty ads that stupid people think are effective because they're "memorable".

      99% of my web browsing is now through a noscript filter, and even sites I go to regularly usually only get on the temporary whitelist, and nothing that doesn't enable local functionality I want gets approved, so there's no Google analytics from my brower.

      The IAB are like small children that ask for more and more and more until you eventually crack and refuse to give them anything at all.

    104. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      " That's a worthwhile social contract to have" No it's not. Think about. YOU didn't ask for them to come and mix their crap into your browsing information stream. They weren't invited in the first place. Now you want to enshrine their place in that stream through a social contract? Why? Because they agree to "behave" and only pollute the stream a little bit?

      No. They have no business inserting themselves in my datafeed in the first place, and they don't deserve a social contract. They deserve to disappear, and good riddance cannot come soon enough.

    105. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's spelled ads. You know, shortened from the word ADvertisement?

    106. Re:fud by mdielmann · · Score: 1

      Listen sport I am ignorant about a lot of things but I started my programming and system design career over 25 years ago so I am perfectly capable of making an informed decision when it comes to choosing a browser. My first decision was made more than a few years ago was to not even use Firefox. Never needed to use it professionally or personally. However, in regards to this article isn't Firefox an Open Source system. All you need to do is download the code, remove the things you don't want or like, build, and deploy. Catastrophe avoided.

      Good, then you probably know about about:config. You won't even have to change the source code. I'm sure the setting is in there. My mom, on the other hand, doesn't, nor should she. And I doubt she even knows about 3rd-party cookies, and I certainly am not interested in trying to explain it to her. OTOH, I know she's interested in privacy, but has no idea about the details of the html protocols. Not unlike the majority of web users. Are they not entitled to a reasonable degree of privacy?

      Likewise, the majority of people in North America don't know how to drive standard, or stop faster or more safely than ABS allows. I suppose their safety doesn't matter, too.

      --
      Sure I'm paranoid, but am I paranoid enough?
    107. Re:fud by plover · · Score: 1

      The shouty ads that stupid people find memorable? Hate to disappoint you, but you see them because they work.

      Half the people watching them may have a below average IQ. But the money they're willing to spend is perfectly legitimate, and can be collected by anyone with a low enough moral threshold. Even if you deliberately limit your advertising to only the stupid half of the populous, that's still a shitload of customers.

      STATISTICS! APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE FOREHEAD!

      --
      John
    108. Re:fud by plover · · Score: 1

      I allow some content delivery sites, simply because a lot of sites are built that way. Akamai is a clever way to efficiently deliver cacheable media, like pictures, across the country quickly. And sites like Vimeo host their javascript stuff in a separate domain named vimeocdn. I find allowing a few selected exceptions delivers 95%+ of the web, and still effectively manages my perceived risk of javascript exploits.

      --
      John
    109. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's a fair response, but invites counter responses to point out that the kind presumption of existence your business model seems to have is not valid or viable.

      If it starves then it starves, and allowing it to integrate itself into the spine of the internet means that its death will necessitate new growth and new limbs. That will hurt us, but it will hurt us a lot less than it will hurt you, so to speak.

    110. Re:fud by Zaelath · · Score: 1

      They work for a limited definition of work; that definition being they create more sales than they cost.

      Hence they work because they cost next to nothing to make, and to an extent because they're rare (if they were all shouty ads people would have a remote that had a mute button as large as their fist).

      Besides, if the Venn diagram of "stupid people" and "people that enjoy being shouted at" was a single circle, these people would have massive multinational conglomerates, not niche businesses that turn enough profit to keep those horrible ads on the air for a few years.

      Statistics my arse, you offer none.

    111. Re:fud by plover · · Score: 1

      Middle men know how to sell things to maximize the profits of the thing makers. It's been a valuable service to thing makers everywhere, even if you don't appreciate what they do or how they do it. Will the Internet make them obsolete? Probably not, because the thing makers still generally suck at marketing.

      If the world had unlimited resources and money, and there was no competition for products, they'd be useless. But it doesn't, so they aren't. You don't have to like them or even believe they do any good, but they obviously can sell themselves to people who can't sell there own wares, so you'll be dealing with them for a long time to come.

      --
      John
    112. Re:fud by alonsoac · · Score: 1

      Free content is not necessarily a good thing. There are too many sites which just make up useless content in order to have a place to show the ads and make money. I think it is much worse to waste time reading what ends up being useless content than seeing ads around a good article.

    113. Re:fud by c-A-d · · Score: 1

      I'd like to know where and when I signed said contract and I would like to see it so I can have my signature verified....

      --
      some karma... and kinda lukewarm about it.
    114. Re:fud by cyborg_zx · · Score: 1

      The people behind the propaganda embedded in these websites don't built houses, they don't plant food. They're middle men. Humanity has no need for them. It's been pretty clearly demonstrated that people in information technology are capable of putting middle men out of business. It's so easy we do it in our spare time.

      I've never been able to articulate it before but this is probably why I hate people in advertising so much.

      They're full of such self importance for a role in society that is entirely unnecessary other than to serve itself.

    115. Re:fud by coastwalker · · Score: 1

      Agree, If I want targeted ads from a vendor I will enable their cookie, otherwise they can fuck off. NoScript is also essential in Firefox and should be built in as well.

      --
      Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
    116. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      EXACTLY! If the ads were static and not in colors that make your eyes bleed and give you headaches, people wouldn't mind so much. The trouble is that the advertisers went way to far. And then went farther and farther! Thats exactly why script and ad blocking is so popular today.

      And now when Firefox is gonna do what it's users want, the idiots are doing their best to fight it. They have only themselves to blame.

    117. Re:fud by Gavrielkay · · Score: 1

      Yes, but it doesn't change the fact that viewing someone's pages is using their bandwidth. It was the denial that I was commenting on, not the validity of third party cookies and all.

    118. Re:fud by StenD · · Score: 1

      They don't want to send you ads for stupid or irrelevant stuff, because that's worse than a waste of bandwidth - it may drive you to seek out an ad blocker.

      I was driven to use ad blockers, in part, because of "relevant" ads. I don't want ads "relevant" to me, I want them to be relevant to the web site I visit. Only if I choose to tell the web site that I do or do not want a category of ad do I want the ads to be tuned to me.

    119. Re:fud by steveg · · Score: 1

      Did I?

      Where did I discuss regulations?

      I'm not sure where "morally wrong" and "property rights" are related, or why existence of property rights would affect a need (or not) for regulation.

      --
      Ignorance killed the cat. Curiosity was framed.
    120. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You touch on this in your blog but don't specifically mention it (and I think it would only strengthen your argument if you did): the ads served to you by the webcomic weren't likely to make you buy those products BECAUSE YOU ALREADY HAD (you mention that you'd already bought the exact chair the ad showed you and that you were already a customer of the mobile provider). That's the thing that makes no sense to me about targeted ads, when I surf without ad block, all I see are ads for things I've recently looked at and either purchased or decided not to purchase.

    121. Re:fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Go Mozilla, I'm with you all the way.

    122. Re:fud by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      It makes me so angry I just want to punch a monkey.

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
    123. Re: fud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      coming soon to your neighborhood: Google Fiber - internet so fast and cheap it may as well be free! brought to you by Good Guy Google, the search, er.. advertising giant. wait, Google isn't giving us cheap internet out of the goodness of their hearts? they're really an advertising company and just want to sell us to other relevant advertisers??

      when it is difficult for you to see where the profit is involved in a transaction, the most likely reason is that *you* are the product being sold.

    124. Re:fud by Desirsar · · Score: 1

      You aren't very good at making a point, but we'll be more entertained if you keep trying anyway.

      "Climate change" doesn't need humans, or their egos thinking that it does.

    125. Re:fud by plover · · Score: 1

      They work for a limited definition of work; that definition being they create more sales than they cost.

      But that's the entire point. When the score is kept in money, the only thing that counts for those people is more money. If shouty ads get them more money, it works. Not "limited definition of work", but "I now have more money than I spent, therefore it completely worked."

      There are major side effects to their advertising tactics: at least half of us think the sellers are unethical, we think their products are stupid and useless junk, the advertisers are prostitutes, and we think people who buy their products are gullible and stupid. The important thing to understand is that they don't care what we think. We are not their target audience, and never have been. Neither you nor I would ever buy a homeopathic "remedy", or a turnip twaddler, or a hairpiece organizer. But enough people do respond to these ads that they make millions of dollars off of them.

      Think of them as polluters. Instead of spewing chemicals into a stream, they spew noise onto our televisions.

      Discovery Channel had a short-lived series called "PitchMen" (Billy Mays, the star, died after filming the first season, and his backup basically sucked.) It was about a guy whose entire schtick was to market this stuff by shouting. While the products were mostly uninteresting junk, what was actually interesting was the information about the sales. Each day the commercials aired, the call centers took orders for tens of thousands of products. If he agreed to shout for your $20 piece of junk, you were almost guaranteed half a million dollars in sales. Every week it was another powerful demonstration that shouting "works", at least when your goal is to make money.

      --
      John
    126. Re: fud by dmarti · · Score: 1

      But for the medium as a whole, targeting costs revenue.

      http://zgp.org/targeted-advertising-considered-harmful/

      The less targetable a medium is, the more valuable it is.

  2. Hmm--they're for sale too. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So it's not just ICANN that's gone commercial.

  3. Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the advertisers are bitching that you are taking over the internet, you know you're doing it right. Keep up the good work Mozilla.

    1. Re:Excellent by plover · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Wait a minute. A couple of days ago the kerfluffle on Slashdot was that Mozilla removed the "disable JavaScript" option from the options screen of Firefox 23.0. I thought that made them evil. Now, they're going to disable third party cookies, so now that makes them good again? I'm so confused.

      Why can't they be more like Microsoft, so we can just hate on them 24 x 7?

      --
      John
    2. Re:Excellent by Saint+Gerbil · · Score: 5, Insightful

      From TFA: "This particular feature would block all third party cookies by default and users would need to decide for themselves which cookies will be allowed on their systems and which won’t be."

      Heaven forbid people will be allow to decide for themselves ?!?!

    3. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Why was I forced to google to find out wtf the IAB is? I'm not an MBA and have nothing to do with the ad industry, and I imagine few other slashdotters do either. It's the international Advertising Bureau.

      BTW, good mods on the parent post. The IAB is afraid of us taking OUR internet BACK.

    4. Re:Excellent by MitchDev · · Score: 3, Funny

      Dear IAB, please die, and fast. We're sick of you and your obnoxious ads.

    5. Re:Excellent by bhagwad · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Did it not occur to Mozilla that people may want to see ads as gratitude for free content? For example, I've had the option to disable ads on Slashdot for years now. But I know they need revenue to keep this free site up that I enjoy everyday so I don't mind.

    6. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Wait a minute. A couple of days ago the kerfluffle on Slashdot was that Mozilla removed the "disable JavaScript" option from the options screen of Firefox 23.0. I thought that made them evil. Now, they're going to disable third party cookies, so now that makes them good again? I'm so confused.

      Mozilla removed the menu option to disable Javascript. They aren't removing the option to disable/enable 3rd party cookies, they're just changing what it's set to when you first install it.

      Personally, I run NoScript so the Java thing doesn't affect me, and already turn off 3rd party cookies.

    7. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I just did a fresh upgrade to ubuntu 13.4, as I was configuring firefox I noticed the "disable Javascript" option is still there...

    8. Re:Excellent by ElectricTurtle · · Score: 5, Informative

      Don't worry, when Dice rolls out the 'new slashdot' that won't be an option anymore. And there will be more ads.

      --
      I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
    9. Re: Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What does this have to do with showing ads? Nothing at all!

    10. Re:Excellent by srmalloy · · Score: 5, Informative

      Blocking third-party cookies doesn't stop companies from including advertisements on web pages. What it does is stop companies from being able to collect data that tells them "From our tracking cookies, you went to sites X, Y, and Z, so we should show you advertisements for this group of products because we think that you will be more likely to respond to them than advertisements from that group of products.

    11. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey guess what, if you do want to see all those ads, in the full malware laden glory, then by all means "enable" them.

      This is for those users that are clueless, but hate the ads - 99.8% of all internet users fall into this category.

      Be glad you're among the .2% then.

    12. Re:Excellent by Charliemopps · · Score: 5, Informative

      Hopefully no-one. When I started surfing there weren't any ads... NONE. Pages were made by people that cared about the topics they were writing about. And this isn't going to stop ads... it just going to stop them from tracking you. The add can still be there, you can still click on it if you want their crap.

    13. Re:Excellent by thaylin · · Score: 1

      we already pay for most content that matters. Nothing says a website has to serve you content if you dont accept their cookie.

      --
      When you cant win, ad hominem.
    14. Re:Excellent by The+MAZZTer · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You can probably still disable JavaScript through about:config. But for Joe Average that option is unlikely to be something he WANTS to change, and if he changes it by accident everything will be broken and he won't know why. It'll look like Firefox is a bad browser to him.

    15. Re:Excellent by intermodal · · Score: 1

      It probably did occur to them, and then when they finished laughing and picked themselves up off the floor, they started considering serious ideas again.

      --
      In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
    16. Re:Excellent by Notabadguy · · Score: 3, Informative

      You seem to be confused.

      Mozilla isn't making ads go away. They will remain. However, they will no longer be invasive or able to track you. Ads will pay for content like they always have.

    17. Re:Excellent by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      Since the rise of the advertising gods, the "content" of the internet has primarily fallen into the hyper-uninformative type like top-ten lists with "fair use" google image searched images slapped next to each. That's not to say there isn't content that I value, but the squeeze for advertising dollars seems to me to have made content worse and not better.

    18. Re:Excellent by Nadaka · · Score: 3, Informative

      Most savvy users use noscript in firefox to control who is allowed to run javascript, rather than disabling it entirely and breaking most modern websites.

    19. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Personally, I run NoScript so the Java thing doesn't affect me, and already turn off 3rd party cookies.

      Owe, my brain.

    20. Re:Excellent by Idimmu+Xul · · Score: 0

      You realise that a lot of websites require advertising revenue in order to function. Where do you think the hosting fees and journalist salaries come from?

      --
      The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
    21. Re: Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But they won't pay as much, so either there will be more of them or they will more annoying/obtrusive.

    22. Re:Excellent by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      Ditto, the ads on Slashdot are normally pretty discrete. I've occasionally thrown them a few bucks in subscriptions too. Been hanging around for over a decade, I'd miss it if it went away.The WP crowd have also done a good job keeping ads out and funding it as a charity. Regardless what the ass-hats say about WP it really is a great example of a large group of people coming together and building something useful but it simply wouldn't exists without thousands or ordinary people throwing $10 in the jar every now and then.

      I can't be bothered using any kind of ad-block, I just go somewhere else if I find the ads too intrusive. They're tracking my habits anyway so I might as well embed a clue for them.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    23. Re:Excellent by jazman_777 · · Score: 1

      There was a little dev, who had a little TRex, right in the middle of his forehead
      When he was good, he was very very good,
      And when he was bad he was horrid.

      --
      Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
    24. Re:Excellent by Jherek+Carnelian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      And this isn't going to stop ads... it just going to stop them from tracking you.

      Realistically this won't stop them from tracking you either, it will just escalate the arms race. Which isn't necessarily bad, but lets not fool ourselves into thinking this is going to make tracking stop.

    25. Re:Excellent by Jawnn · · Score: 2

      Most of the stuff that is ad-supported is crap. At best they are things that I might pay for, if they were not cluttered with ads and riddled with attempts to violate my privacy. Read that again, IAB. I would _pay_ for good content. No, not as much as you think, but pay I would. No, not for crap, but for useful content. Figure it out. There's a way to make money off of me. Spying on me isn't it.

    26. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Should have renamed the choice EcmaScript instead. Joe Average knows that "Java is Bad!" but EcmaScript?

    27. Re:Excellent by flimflammer · · Score: 1

      This has absolutely nothing to do with showing advertisements. They're free as always to show advertisements, even after this change.

    28. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I agree. I am getting a bit tired of cookies. For example, Elevations Credit Union Colorado, uses cookies extensively in their security system. Generally, I flush my cookies every once and awhile. Whenever I try to log in, security kicks in and says that I don't have their cookie. I then have to request that a code is sent to me, next, I have to enter the code and "Register" my computer. (Install cookie.) then get on with my banking. DUMB. If a Bank or Credit Union wants that kind of security, they should just go ahead and make some kind of application that assures security. Perhaps it could check what town I am in based on my IP address or something. There has to be a better way. Mostly, I use Firefox because it "Feels" safer than Safari. It seems more reliable.

    29. Re:Excellent by tbetz · · Score: 1

      You mean, of course, "Javascript", not "Java". NoScript is actually a better solution than the browser implementing a global Javascript switch, because one can easily use it enable Javasdcript selectively by domain.

    30. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, I suppose we'd go back to the early days of the internet, without all the blinky shit, and just having the content that we wanted, with no clue as to where to buy $_item that we just can't live without.

    31. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, well then! If it's true for you, then it must be true for everybody.

    32. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Umm, you must be new here, I'll fill you in (the short and dirty). Story comes in, the slashdotters read the title. If the title is interesting, and an immediate argument fills their head, then they read the comments. If a commenter hasn't already stated their argument (and sometimes even if they already have), they pound out their part of the argument, feel that their voice has been heard, and then hit the back button on their browser. At that point, they read further down the main page, and repeat the whole process.

      Now, NOWHERE in any of that is there a "remembering" to any of it, or a "caring" in fact. It's all about feeling superior, and that your voice has been heard. Nothing gets solved on Slashdot, it never will. This site is a site like all the rest that are trying to sustain a very nice living for more than one person, by generating site hits, that generate a reason for some advertiser to give them money to put an ad on the site too.

      If anyone put into action that which they state on slashdot, then slashdot would go out of business for lack of news that sucks.

    33. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Cookies is only one of the things they can use to track you. Every time you see those annoying +1 links, they can already track you even if you don't lick on them. They can easily track you via 3rd party pictures/media, scripts your browser load on a website and the IP address that requests those contents.

      Even your web browser setting/plug-ins offers enough of a signature for a site to track.

    34. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But it's the iOS philosophy!!!1one

      Tell you what: Why don't I just go the next step, and create a big round rubber-padded tablet with one single red button on it, saying "MAGIC", and *nothing* else, which, when drooled all over, will do exactly what we want you to think you want us to want you to want? Which is... mostly... to give us all your money.

      We think that's what you want, right?

    35. Re:Excellent by waynedunham9024 · · Score: 1

      Amen to that. Now as soon as Mozilla gets the 50kvolt add on where anytime an advertiser tries to push an ad at you they receive 50kvolt back through their server I'll be happy. The same needs to be done for phones too. Telemarketer........50kvolts back through their switchboard!!

    36. Re:Excellent by sabt-pestnu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      > if he changes it by accident everything will be broken and he won't know why.

      If that is the case, "you're doing it wrong". There are so many ways to fix that without simply denying the option to everyone:

      1) hide the option behind "advanced" options, requiring more clicks to get to. There's a reason for a GUI rather than having people hack .ini files.
      2) providing explicit documentation, at the location of the control, explaining the effects. Maybe even a test-drive URL showing the difference.
      3) providing a "first-time mulligan" when javascript is blocked... a "you have javascript disabled and this page uses it. want to re-enable it?" type of event.

      I'm confident I haven't fully explored the solution space here...

    37. Re:Excellent by Russ1642 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Java. Javascript. NOBODY CARES.

    38. Re:Excellent by digitalchinky · · Score: 1

      Just to be clear, Mozilla removed the menu option to disable Javascript and also flipped the setting back to "on" for those of us that had it turned off.

      It's a bit of a self destructive path they are on by doing things like this, I'm about ready to jump ship.

    39. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Don't let the door hit you on your paranoid ass on the way out.

    40. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not going to stop you from getting adverts. It might also force publishers to block Firefox users from their sites.

    41. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      what exactly is about:config if not the advanced options?

    42. Re:Excellent by cayenne8 · · Score: 1

      Who is going to PAY for YOUR internet? I don't mean the connection, I mean the content. Please consider this.

      Funny...I was on the web near the beginning..'92 - '93 or so...and you rarely saw an ad then. Yet, content grew and grew and grew before I ever saw an ad.

      The internet and its sub category, the web, wasn't built for commerce or anything but allowing peer-to-peer computer networking.

      What happened and came along after that, just evolved, but if ad driven sites went away, there would still be content provided by those that have those interests, etc.

      Like others have said, no one has a responsibility to keep anyone's business model running for them....

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    43. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mind you, they have it anyway from the web bugs. The ad cookies can just carry more data, more easily parsed.

    44. Re:Excellent by adiposity · · Score: 2

      about:config is "advanced."

    45. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      about:config *is* the advanced options.

    46. Re:Excellent by bjoswald · · Score: 1

      Agreed. The advertising industry has become a cancer; from benign to malignant.

    47. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Would you like the reporters at the New York times to make their content available to for free, because they care?

    48. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > they will no longer be invasive or able to track you. Ads will pay for content like they always have.

      The argument is that ads will be less relevant to the users, which will make them even less valuable to advertisers than they already are, putting even more pressure on providers of quality content to pay their employees (and yes, make a profit).

      And you can still prevent tracking if you choose to.

    49. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1) The option is hidden behind "advanced options", just more advanced ones than those listed on the advanced tab of the options menu. Go to the about:config page and type javascript.enabled in the search box. Now double click the javascript.enabled option to set it to False.

      2) No one reads documentation. You don't read it when building an Ikea cabinet, you don't read it when you buy a new car, and you absolutely never read it when you install or use software. before you will ever touch the documentation you will google it and you will find your answer on an obscure forum after an hour when you could have looked at the documentation and found what you needed in minutes.

      3) That's... actually a good idea.

    50. Re:Excellent by Tom · · Score: 1

      This. If they fight you, they are afraid. And we've got them afraid to the price of a full-page ad. That's a small victory, but it is a victory.

      Keep it up. Next step: Built-in adblocker, default enabled.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    51. Re:Excellent by DrGamez · · Score: 1

      Little known fact: the internet was only available after doubleclick decided to host the first websites. Look it up.

    52. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most of the stuff that is ad-supported is crap.

      Umm... Like slashdot?

    53. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not sure who gets offended more: Java people having their language confused with Javascript, or Javascript people having their language confused with Java.

    54. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      *sigh*

      Mozilla removed disable javascript because idiots would turn it off and not turn it back on, thus ensuring millions of bug reports to the thousands of websites that require it, Google specifically. Since script would be off, there is no way for the website to tell people to turn it back on since they can't identify that script has been turned off.

      Likewise with cookies, Cookies have always been bad/evil/stupid. View the HTTP headers for any site you visit, you will see hundreds of useless cookies passed back and forth. The amount of cookies that are actually used (eg by doubleclick) are actually very few. The problem here is that cookies have always been a way to XSS into the users browser. Persistant data is specific to the website, that is exactly how it should work, not be sent to third party sites. Cookies were never supposed to be used for what they are used for.

      It would please me to no end if document.write and document.innerHTML DOM functions would be depreciated, since this is basically how advertisers keep letting malware into websites in the first place. They should stick to creating the elements or create iframes and chain it that way if it's needed. document.write is 99% of there reason sites with ads are slow.

    55. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      1) hide the option behind "advanced" options, requiring more clicks to get to. There's a reason for a GUI rather than having people hack .ini files.

      about:config actually is the "advanced options".

    56. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They rarely do.

    57. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > 1) hide the option behind "advanced" options, requiring more clicks to get to. There's a reason for a GUI rather than having people hack .ini files.

      It is, if you consider about:config to be advanced options. I do.

      https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/957322

    58. Re:Excellent by vlueboy · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and seeing how condescending the first run warning is for about config, you will be either scared or very mad.
      I was appaled the first time I was forced to chase that away with "I'll be good. I promise!" I still am. It's more annoying than the gmail chat popup failure msg that goes "Grrrrr, looks like you have a popup blocker and I can't open your chat window"
      The windows registry is immensely more hazardous, and it never treated anyone like that. Seriously, if our PC is so hostile now, what can we expect AI to do to us... Well it yell at pebcak users and make threats?

    59. Re:Excellent by LordVader717 · · Score: 1

      To be fair though back in them days people who made websites usually got it paid for by their University or company. They wrote about topics they pursued as a hobby and consequently lacked professionalism.

    60. Re:Excellent by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Taking over? Taking BACK!

    61. Re:Excellent by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

      What? No... Most sites were either BBS's or something resembling a blog... Fan sites for different TV shows like the Simpsons, webcams pointed at various interesting or uninteresting objects or just picture archives.

    62. Re:Excellent by Yvanhoe · · Score: 1

      Because doing the right thing consistently is much harder than doing the evil things consistently. We have much higher standards for Mozilla than we have for Microsoft.

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
    63. Re:Excellent by LordVader717 · · Score: 1

      The wording was confusing, sorry. I meant the costs for the servers, which usually belonged to a University. In their spare time geeks would write about geeky stuff like TV shows or Bonsai gardening, but as a reliable resource content was pretty scarce. As soon as privately hosted content became common you started to see ads.

    64. Re:Excellent by samwichse · · Score: 1

      Is it just me, or is that alpha a huge improvement to the Slashdot homepage?

      Seriously.

      As to ads... I already run noscript, so I never even bothered to check the "No advertising" box for being a contributor.

    65. Re:Excellent by ElectricTurtle · · Score: 1

      It's just you. I have no desire for Slashdot to look like Every Tech Blog Ever(TM) with metric fucktons of wasted white space by design. Who cares though? We've got to appeal to everybody who thinks 720 pixels is HIGH resolution on their postage stamp screens.

      --
      I support the Slashcott and will not be reading or commenting from 2/10/14 to 2/17/14. Beta is steaming pile of dog shit
  4. Ten Bleeding Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Oh, the poor ad industry. Who is going to stop them tracking on us, spying on us, and ramming unwanted crap down our throats with their gaudy, distracting banner ads?

    Take your violins elsewhere. You won't find sympathy on the Internet.

    1. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by kilfarsnar · · Score: 5, Interesting

      IAB notes that 'If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience.'"

      I love it when they try to make it sound like the ads are there for our benefit. Gosh, I wouldn't want to have a less diverse Internet experience!

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
    2. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by MitchDev · · Score: 2

      Oh, the poor ad industry. Who is going to stop them tracking on us, spying on us, and ramming unwanted crap down our throats with their gaudy, distracting banner ads?

      Who do they think they are, the American Government, spying on us like that...

    3. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by Jah-Wren+Ryel · · Score: 4, Funny

      I love it when they try to make it sound like the ads are there for our benefit. Gosh, I wouldn't want to have a less diverse Internet experience!

      Hey, I only watch the superbowl for the advertisements just like I only browse the web for the advertisements!

      --
      When information is power, privacy is freedom.
    4. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Funny

      Hey, I only watch the superbowl for the advertisements just like I only browse the web for the advertisements!

      And you only watch porn for the riveting plots and insightful commentary too, right? ;-)

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    5. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by fractoid · · Score: 1

      They probably actually think that the tracking of ads, at least, is good for us. "Hey if they disable browser tracking, the full page click through ads that they see are going to be totally irrelevant! That would really suck for them."

      --
      Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
    6. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 1

      Hey, I only watch the superbowl for the advertisements just like I only browse the web for the advertisements!

      And you only watch porn for the riveting plots and insightful commentary too, right? ;-)

      You forgot about the anatomy lessons for high-schoolers.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    7. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by IamTheRealMike · · Score: 0

      Well, yes. There's actually something to that position, isn't there.

      Let's ignore that such a policy would break all kinds of random non-ad stuff that requires third party cookies, like, say, their own Persona service. Perhaps Mozilla think that doing this will simply make advertising go away entirely and the web will suddenly become a utopia of clean, modern web design with no annoying ads. Er, no. Fail. What will happen is advertising on the web will look like it did some years ago when every ad was for annoying crappy web games because those happen to monetize consistency well across all audiences, and I'll never see any ads for stuff that might actually be useful. There won't suddenly be less ads, if anything you'd expect there to be more because each ad will give a lower return.

      Firefox already provides a setting to disable third party cookies. They're welcome to help people understand what this setting does and what the effects of enabling it would be. But killing this part of the HTTP specification for everyone by default won't help users. It will make a bad situation worse.

    8. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by Type44Q · · Score: 1

      He only visits TPB for the ads...

    9. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by JenovaSynthesis · · Score: 1

      Amen! The reason why ad blockers became so prevalent was because ads became more and more obnoxious popping up over the content and blocking us from seeing it or annoying (not to mention bandwidth wasting) Flash animations and seizure-inducing flashes to grab our attention.

      And now the IAB tells us that a "diverse internet experience" requires them to be assholes. No thank you. Because the more obnoxious and intrusive an ad is, the less likely I am to click on it, buy the product, or utilize the service.

      --
      Anonymous Cowards generally receive no replies because you're a coward and I'm a bitch :)
    10. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Wrong. Everybody watches pr0n for the ads. It's always the ads.

    11. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's also nice how they equate "blocked by default" to "elimination".

    12. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      Wrong. Everybody watches pr0n for the ads. It's always the ads.

      I'm not sure where you watch porn ... but ads?

      "Oh baby, yeah, that's it ... and now, a word from our sponsor ... crap, where was I again?"

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    13. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You forgot about the music! That's the best part!

    14. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bow Chicka Wow wow!

    15. Re:Ten Bleeding Hearts by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      disclosure: i work in adtech.

      most of the free content sites make their money almost exclusively through advertising, and most of that advertising uses cookies and tracking information to justify their CPM (price) numbers. If you make the tracking information impossible to get for firefox, then it might as well be impossible for IE and chrome as well, because no Advertiser is going to pay a premium if roughly 20% of their viewers can't be accounted for in their demographic metrics.

      Unless you are talking about the top 2% of the sites on the internet, most content based sites are really just scraping by, and even a slight hit on their ability to charge a decent CPM could be life or death. There are a lot of possibilities for unintended consequences.

      So here's my prediction. You kill the cookie for demographic targeting, and you will *increase* not decrease the amount of display advertising. These sites will still have to make their money to keep the lights on, they can't charge as much if the demographic targeting is not as accurate as it once was, so they will probably go shotgun style, spray and pray, with their display advertising.

      I would suspect you will see much more "run of site" ads, where the advertiser takes over all of the banner/background content for some period of time. A lot more mini banner ads running down the side of the page. maybe even more embedded in the text flow (i hated that, and I was glad to see it fall out of favor...it will probably come back). You will see a lot more intrusive advertising. Corner Peels, expanding pencil ads, etc...anything to maintain their sales.

      If you think "Sponsored" sections will make up some of the slack, you'll be disappointed to know that sponsorships don't sell well enough to make up the difference, as there are only so many premium advertisers that will pay for sponsorships.

      I would also guess that there will be a massive increase in "Natural Adversing", which is a fancy new name for "payola". Expect to see a growth in the number of fake articles being passed off as content. Expect to see even more affiliate marketing invading social news sites. Expect to never see an honest product review on the internet. Expect even more fake bloggers and/or fake comments. Even more astroturfing.

      "but wait, i use {adblock|noscript|hosts|whatever} i'll never see these ads", yeah...you've just declared war on one of the key pillars of their revenue stream...when it was just the techies using adblock, it was fine, they could ignore 3% "breakage"...but now the game is on. watch for adhosting companies to start hosting the content you want. dynamic URL for content paths, AdBlock detection will become much more intrusive...reading content with adblock on will become as much of a pain in the ass as finding a valid coupon code on retailmenot.

      Will all of this happen? I dunno, it's just a wild ass guess...but you've got to be crazy to believe that *none* of this will happen...

  5. Queer definition of "hijacking" by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Apparently what they mean by "Mozilla is hijacking the Internet" is "Mozilla is preventing *us* from hijacking the Internet".

    1. Re:Queer definition of "hijacking" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think this means I would like several copies of that software please.

    2. Re:Queer definition of "hijacking" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And don't forget, that information goes straight to the government as well. And in a few years, when dildos are declared an illegal vice item ex post factor, the government will expose you as a pervert if you dare publicly complain about your 80% Obama-tax rate put in place during his forth consecutive term after he leads the military intelligence coup. For your own good, citizen.

      -- Ethanol-fueled

      Of course, you probably didn't mind when your information was going to Bush's government. That's ok, becuz, y'know, Bush is a Repuhblikhan, right? And O-bah-mer isn't.

    3. Re:Queer definition of "hijacking" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The IAB and all the other disgusting low life tracking scums need to give some more consideration to the creatures they track. Any critter being tracked, once they feel cornered if not before, will turn on the tracker in order to discourage or otherwise eliminate the problem. So things like Firefox etc that help to hide the trail and/or block the tracker are simply a desirable tool, even if they don't do the job completely enough. Once the damn poachers get through Firefox onto my computer, then they are trespassers.

      Firefox should ask them if they would like them to have ad blocking etc built in instead of an add on. Proper script blocking, no auto-load flash, better tracker blocking, better flash cookie cleansing, etc, etc, etc. Lots of things Firefox does now that makes it too easy on the trackers/marketers at least till several add ons and an adjusted hosts file is employed by the user.

    4. Re:Queer definition of "hijacking" by Nadaka · · Score: 3, Funny

      Uh... wow. that is the strangest mix of liberal and conservative conspiracy insanity I have seen in a long time.

    5. Re:Queer definition of "hijacking" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sandy Hook did 9/11!

    6. Re:Queer definition of "hijacking" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... conspiracy insanity ...

      My first thought was exactly the GP post. The IAB claims making users choose to share their web-clicks is 'hijacking'. Then the same argument means forcing users to always share their web-clicks is still hijacking. This is a "what I want is more important than what you want" or a "Do as I say, not do as I do" attitude.

  6. They are a business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and as such will act on what they believe will increase their market share. This basically means that they will do what the users want as often as possible, which on the internet includes not loading every cookie from every third-party on earth. It's not their fault that humans hate businesses.

    1. Re:They are a business by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's not their fault that humans hate businesses.

      Of course it is. If they weren't sociopaths we wouldn't hate them.

    2. Re:They are a business by future+assassin · · Score: 2

      Its not our fault their business can fail so easily if one point of the business is removed.

      --
      by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
  7. Full retard by gander666 · · Score: 1

    I think the IAB went full retard with that one...

    --
    Suppose you were an idiot and suppose you were a member of Congress ... but I repeat myself. - Mark T
    1. Re:Full retard by gmuslera · · Score: 1

      No,you just are not the target of that campaign, there are enough retards that will buy that claim. To put an example Now Windows 8.1 will use what is in your local disk to give you targetted ads. Remember Microsoft campaign of don't get scroogled? Probably the people that will install Windows 8.1 but complained about google's invasion of privacy fits pretty well into that category.

    2. Re:Full retard by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      Thank you for this post. I really haven't paid much attention to Windows 8 and what's going on with it(I am win7x64 myself but only because I game). Due to your post I have done some research and am going back to Linux ASAP and using a windows image for my gaming.

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
  8. Dear Advertisers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Fuck off.

    A culling of all the aggregation sites that only exist to serve adverts is well over due. Perhaps search engines will become useful again, rather than wading through expertly placed placeholder pages for shit like Gawker, CNET, ask et al.

    1. Re:Dear Advertisers by zakkie · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Well I run a site (see "homepage" link) that wasn't made for advertising, but it has allowed me, for a brief time at least, to devote my time to researching the information and purchasing materials for researching the information. Much of what you see on the site is online through my effort first. A whole lot is parsed by me from low-quality images that can't be searched, OCRd or otherwise rendered (see what I did there?) useful for people requiring answers. I tried to behave as respectfully towards my users as I could - no extraneous pages to click through, no annoying ads, and I made the decision to serve only text ads. I guess I'm SOL for now, but it would be nice not to be hated for just trying to make ends meet and doing what I love.

      From my point of view, the advertisers are the problem for another reason - they have ridiculously high demands for honouring payments, like not only must a user click, they must complete so and so action or the click doesn't count (which leads to ever more prominent, gaudy ads to try and bait users to click), extremely low revenue if the metric is views rather than clicks, etc. There is also zero transparency from their side - a click is valid or not on their say-so alone.

      Hopefully this will push ads towards a more peaceful and unobtrusive pay-to-display model - as per any other medium that has ads at all.

    2. Re:Dear Advertisers by ak3ldama · · Score: 1
      This...

      The current situation is as though every business I walked into had a trash can sitting there with a camera on top. And on that trash can was a friendly google ads logo.
      Businesses, and I mean website operators, need to learn that there are other ways of operating. They need to be empowered to decide to do things differenlty. We as consumers need to speak up. We need to say that we like our trash cans just being trash cans that do not watch and observe everywhere we go and what trash we put in them.

      --
      "but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
    3. Re:Dear Advertisers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mozilla is a gem in a sea of shit helping us to prevent you from hijacking the internet with your endless shit. If I'm looking for something what ass-hole from hell thought it's a good idea to pop-up crap over the items I'm considering. That's why adblock and other very helpfull code became desired. Because some friends kid when visiting looked up bikes doen't mean next time I go on line I want a fucken bike or anything to do with them. Restrict the stupid ads to out-of-the-way small banners or boxes that don't show dancing fucken monkies or follow the mouse around and the internet will become a better experence. Otherwise fuck-off.

    4. Re:Dear Advertisers by abuelos84 · · Score: 1

      Fair Enough.
      I don't believe the type of ads you describe are near the annoying crap we *do* hate.
      And I'm assuming you don't spy on your readers browsing habits, right?

      --
      -- Counting backwards since 1984!
    5. Re:Dear Advertisers by Tom · · Score: 1

      Well I run a site (see "homepage" link) that wasn't made for advertising, but it has allowed me, for a brief time at least, to devote my time to researching the information and purchasing materials for researching the information.

      I've been running a free online game for over 12 years. I take donations from my players, and the amount that people are donating still surprise me. It pays the hosting fees and then some.

      There are ways other than advertisement. I'm not saying the model would work for you, but I've experimented with various business models, and my experience is that if you do something that is of value to people, you can get their money by simply asking for it and being an honest, open person. I sold a piece of software a few years ago and let people decide their own price. Wasn't to my disadvantage, almost half of the people paid more than my minimum asking price. I think Humble Bundle made a similar experience a while ago.

      Just a thought, I haven't looked at your site, but experimenting with other models might work for you and allow you to move away from advertisement.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  9. "Mozilla From Hijacking the Internet" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who the fuck put you in charge of spying my preferences? I already block third party cookies so Fuck you IAB.. Unreal how far these idiots will go to create propaganda..

    1. Re:"Mozilla From Hijacking the Internet" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      u wat

  10. Self-regulatory by Imagix · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Interesting phrase "Right now consumers have control over whether they receive interest-based ads through the Digital Advertising Alliance’s self-regulatory program." Yep, and here's the consumers' response to how well your "self-regulatory" program works. It doesn't. Since the DAA isn't acting in a desirable manner, the consumers are doing this instead. If the advertisers were less obnoxious (and big brother-ish) then the consumers wouldn't resort to drastic measures. Also (as noted in the summary), Mozilla appears to be "default blocking" of third-party cookies. If the consumers found that the benefits of the more "relevant and diverse Internet experience" were worth it, they can still turn them on. Opt-in instead of Opt-Out. Oh, what, nobody would opt-in? Wonder why....

    1. Re:Self-regulatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah... I think it more likely they will decide to opt out of the browser in favor of one that "just works."

    2. Re:Self-regulatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mozilla appears to be "default blocking" of third-party cookies. If the consumers found that the benefits of the more "relevant and diverse Internet experience" were worth it, they can still turn them on. Opt-in instead of Opt-Out. Oh, what, nobody would opt-in? Wonder why....

      Indeed, have they finally got over the other hissy fit they were having over IE's latest opt out by default approach?

    3. Re:Self-regulatory by alexgieg · · Score: 1

      Yeah... I think it more likely they will decide to opt out of the browser in favor of one that "just works."

      Like Safari, which already does this?

      --
      Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
    4. Re:Self-regulatory by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Informative

      Like Safari, which already does this?

      You have either not used Safari much, or you haven't looked closely at it.

      Do you know how effective the blocking of 3rd party cookies in Safari is? It isn't. It's useless because people found ways to circumvent it quite a while ago and it's never been fixed.

      Don't believe me? Clear all of the cookies from Safari, and then visit one website of your choosing. Now, count the number of cookies you have. You'll notice you've got several 3rd party cookies that failed to be blocked.

      So, no Safari doesn't already do this -- they have a setting which looks like it should, but my direct experience with it is that it is completely ineffective at doing any blocking of 3rd party stuff.

      I wish it did work better, but the reality is, it doesn't. In fact, it doesn't appear to work at all.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    5. Re:Self-regulatory by alexgieg · · Score: 2

      You have either not used Safari much, or you haven't looked closely at it.

      That's correct. I rarely use it, only when web developing, and I found interesting that it came set to block 3rd party cookies by default, but I haven't tested whether it works or not. It seems then that Firefox will indeed be the first to actually achieve this. Thanks for the correction!

      --
      Conservatism: (n.) love of the existing evils. Liberalism: (n.) desire to substitute new evils for the existing ones.
    6. Re:Self-regulatory by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Consumers have control over whether they receive interest-based ads, or indeed ads at all, through the use of ad-blocking software.

  11. I....... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Fail to see a problem.

    1. Re:I....... by camperdave · · Score: 1

      I....... Fail to see a problem.

      That's because you've got third party cookie blocking turned on.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
  12. Yeah cry me a river by eclectro · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Frankly I'm tired of abusive advertising, and entities that disrespect rules and privacy is one of them.

    --
    Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
    1. Re:Yeah cry me a river by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Frankly I'm tired of abusive advertising, and entities that disrespect rules and privacy is one of them" BUT i am also tired of the other kind of "entities that disrespect rules" (those that use the content for free disrespecting the only rule the providers set - don't block ads because that's how we survive) - and no, it's not a "human right" to steal from content providers that way just because you can...

    2. Re:Yeah cry me a river by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Its a universal right not human, so if your cat or dog can do it its cool too.

  13. okay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    yeah I'll get right on that

  14. i wonder... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    what AdBusters think of this.

  15. I'm happy with that.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "IAB notes that 'If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience"

    I'd rather have a less relevant and diverse internet experience when it comes to marketing to me.

    1. Re:I'm happy with that.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm wondering how they could manage to be less relevant than they are WITH cookie tracking.

      And by the very definition of what it's *intended* to do, these directed marketing measures will reduce the diversity of the internet for me, so quite what they're on about here escapes me.

    2. Re:I'm happy with that.. by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      I was thinking the same thing, "tailoring" ads to "diversify" your experience sounds like an oxymoron to me.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  16. Fork it then. by stewsters · · Score: 4, Funny

    Firefox is just an open source browser. If you don't like what they are doing, make a fork called Ad-Fox.
    Here:
    https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Developer_Guide/Source_Code/Mercurial

    1. Re:Fork it then. by MightyYar · · Score: 2

      Oooo! Or a version with all security fixes backed out!

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:Fork it then. by Honclfibr · · Score: 2

      Don't you mean Diverse-Internet-Experience-Fox?

    3. Re:Fork it then. by Zinho · · Score: 2

      DIE-Fox?

      --
      "Space Exploration is not endless circles in low earth orbit." -Buzz Aldrin
    4. Re:Fork it then. by samwichse · · Score: 1

      But don't let the name scare you, it's just "That Fox" in German.

  17. Full page ad? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Full page ad where? The article doesn't mention either. Kinda important when discussing said full page ad, no?

  18. My Response by Bigbutt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    http://it.slashdot.org/story/13/08/12/2011245/new-attack-uses-attackers-own-ad-network-to-deliver-android-malware

    There are too many stories of ads delivering malware or otherwise compromising someone's computer. If we can reduce the number of systems that are added to a C&C network, we'll all be that much better off.

    Of course, for the tin foil hat folks, big brother is watching out for you. :)

    [John]

    --
    Shit better not happen!
    1. Re:My Response by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      By the way I put [John] in the body of my post because my name is [John]. Just wanted to make people aware of that if you didn't know it already. Wouldn't want people to read my post without knowing my name is [John]. After all, my post is so very much more special than all the other posts here on slashdot that don't have names in the body.

      [John]

  19. I don't know what's worse... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    That they're actually trying to say that changing a default setting to a more secure option is taking control away from users or that a large portion of people who find out about this will believe them...

    1. Re:I don't know what's worse... by SuricouRaven · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The next logical step would be legal harassment, either via lobbying efforts ("Senator, Mozilla's block could cost the US advertising industry hundreds of millions, and potentially tens of billions lost off the economy due to decreased purchasing!") or direct attacks (Sue the Mozilla foundation for interference in contract).

  20. Acronyms by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Read the headline and thought why on earth would Allied Irish Banks say that Mozilla is highjacking the Internet. Then read TFA :-O

  21. Getting rid of cookies is okay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Netscape created this cookie mess, it's about time someoen took a stand against cookies and Mozilla is the perfect organization.

    Get this advertisers: no one wants a personalized visit to pages on the web.

    Ads went from text only, to static banners, to animated banners, to Flash-based banners, to multiple banners, to inline graphics, and now with HTML 5 they can even bypass a browser's setting not to show graphics or animations.

    Most don't want personalized ads, in fact, most hate ads.

    1. Re:Getting rid of cookies is okay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      no one wants a personalized visit to pages on the web.

      You don't want to log into a website?

    2. Re:Getting rid of cookies is okay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the argument is not about the ads them selves but the tracking of the people happening by the ads. just because the ads are targeted to the visitors does not make them any more likely to be clicked on. plus there is an easier way to target your advertisements.

      target the content on the site your advertising on. if a user is on that site they definitely have a reason to be thus you could advertise things on that site that are related to the content on that site and thus you still have targeting advertisements.

      now re read the above paragraph and think how that would ever require tracking a user? it also negates your "oh noes the inter webs will suck" argument as there are still advertisements, ads that one could argue would be more targeted to the end consumer that may need them.

      as an aside that is how it is done in print or TV, ads that are related to the content being provided. it was only the internet that allowed the ad companies to track you and they seem to think that this is whats needed to survive, but many companies have been succeeding with content targeted ads in print and radio and tv for centuries!

      thus any argument for the AD companies and tracking holds no weight at all the companies could actually do some WORK and target to the content as they have always done rather than use automated lazy scripts to follow you around.

      personally if they want my money they can work for it like everyone else because i work for my own money

    3. Re:Getting rid of cookies is okay by samwichse · · Score: 1

      Now wait a minute, let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

      I don't want personalized ads, but I do want personalized pages on the web.

      A big example... forums that track which threads you've clicked on and ones with unread posts are in bold. And flag ones you've replied in with a little icon. Also, I'm not sure how you would stay logged-on to a site without cookies?

      If there's a better way, I'd love to know what it is.

      All that said, I absolutely have been blocking 3rd party cookies for years now.

      Sam

  22. Hijacking, yeah sure by Stumbles · · Score: 1

    Mozilla's decision to have ad blocking on by default is the right choice. The only reason the IAB does not like this; people are lazy and often run software with whatever the defaults. There are many, many reports of ad servers coughing up ads linked to malware and said servers being compromised in other ways. The short of it is this; Mozilla has the balls to do the right thing by defaulting that attack vector to off and I salute them. The IAB really has nothing to worry about. There are still plenty of users out there that will install anything, run as root and a host of other insecure activities so their ads will still be seen. The IAB can make any claims they like but that does not mean if my grandma had wheels would she be a wagon.

    --
    My karma is not a Chameleon.
    1. Re:Hijacking, yeah sure by c0d3g33k · · Score: 2

      Nice post, but not relevant - TFA (and TFS) was about blocking 3rd party cookies, not ads. Turning off 3rd party cookies by default makes it more difficult to track you across the internet (ostensibly to present you with targeted advertising) - it does nothing to eliminate the advertising itself. That would still have to happen via addons or other means.

  23. Too cute for my own good by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

    Yeah! I, for one, like going to a site I've never been to and being served women's clothing ads because one time a year ago I clicked on an ideeli ad because it had a cute supermodel.

    --
    (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
  24. Send feedback? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The IAB advertisement includes the text:

    Send an email to StopMozilla@aboutads.info to tell Mozilla you don’t want them hijacking cookies on the Internet.

    Provided they actually read any text in emails to that address, I don't see why you couldn't send email in support of Mozilla instead.

    1. Re:Send feedback? by crashcy · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't do that. I'm sure at some point the IAB will announce "we've received thousands of e-mails" with zero mention if they are all telling them to go fuck themselves. And I wouldn't expect any news site to think twice about publishing their article about the massive outcry at StopMozzilla@aboutads.info. No, if you want to support Mozilla, switch your browser to Mozilla, tell your friends to switch, switch your families' computers or anyone else that you provide any kind of computer advice to.

    2. Re:Send feedback? by Man+Eating+Duck · · Score: 1

      The IAB advertisement includes the text:

      Send an email to StopMozilla@aboutads.info to tell Mozilla you don’t want them hijacking cookies on the Internet.

      Provided they actually read any text in emails to that address, I don't see why you couldn't send email in support of Mozilla instead.

      Don't do that.

      They'll probably just count emails and use that number further on, after having gotten the address included in every spammer list in existence. They don't request that you write something interesting in that mail.

      --
      Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors! :)
    3. Re:Send feedback? by Sir_Eptishous · · Score: 1

      I sent an email supporting Mozillas decsion...

      Here is the canned reply:
      "Thank you for your interest in helping to stop Mozilla's cookie blocking plans.

      Used transparently and responsibly, cookies improve the relevancy of the online experience and ultimately generate the enhanced publisher revenue that supports a diverse consumer content experience. That's why the DAA believes that Mozilla's "judge and jury" approach for cookie blocking isn't right for the marketplace or the consumer experience - especially when robust transparency and control mechanisms for interest-based ads are already available at www.aboutads.info.

      As our campaign moves forward, the DAA will provide updates about how our industry is working to address this very important issue for the future of the consumer-facing Internet.

      Follow us on Twitter: @daausa"

      --
      We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
  25. What is the IAB? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    Note that the IAB is the Interactive Advertising Bureau, so there is your grain of salt.

  26. Bad Writing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Interesting

    Who is the IAB? Why do they matter?

    I clicked the link and at least I found out who the hell the IAB was. I still don't know why they matter.

  27. "Less Relevant and Diverse" by CanHasDIY · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience."

    1) No, you dicks will just come up with some new way to spy on us, and we'll come up with a new workaround. So it goes.

    2) I'll believe that targeted advertising delivers a 'relevant and diverse experience' the day the ads show me stuff I want to buy but haven't yet, instead of stuff I just fucking bought; as it stands, most "targeted ads" are essentially a redux of the contents of your last Amazon shopping cart.

    --
    An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    1. Re:"Less Relevant and Diverse" by MightyYar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      2) I'll believe that targeted advertising delivers a 'relevant and diverse experience' the day the ads show me stuff I want to buy but haven't yet, instead of stuff I just fucking bought; as it stands, most "targeted ads" are essentially a redux of the contents of your last Amazon shopping cart.

      This is so true. "You just purchased a washing machine. You might like... a washing machine." It probably works for books, movies, and toilet paper - but it's really funny when you buy something big-ticket.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:"Less Relevant and Diverse" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was shopping for a weather balloon, and a 3rd-party ad for breast enlargement popped up. I fscking fell out of my chair laughing.

    3. Re:"Less Relevant and Diverse" by mrbester · · Score: 1

      I clicked a link for a turkey fat fryer once on Amazon because I was amazed such a thing existed. For a month afterward I was bombarded with mails and ads trying to flog me one. I suspect that even if I had bought one at the time I'd have still got mails trying to flog me another...

      --
      "Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
    4. Re:"Less Relevant and Diverse" by retchdog · · Score: 1

      Doesn't really work with books either. Yesterday, I spend half an hour looking for the best book on, say, Chinese history, and today I get ads trying to sell me the rejects I passed over.

      Maybe it works on people who buy Danielle Steel novels and Twilight.

      --
      "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
    5. Re:"Less Relevant and Diverse" by crashcy · · Score: 1

      No, you were recorded as an "on the fence consumer". The only thing remaining for you to make a purchasing decision was complete turkey fat fryer immersion. Surely if your inbox, weather report, news feed, and pr0n all featured banners and videos of turkey fat, you would jump into that greasy purchase.

    6. Re:"Less Relevant and Diverse" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've only once bought something through a advertisement. It was a Track IR 3 Pro device in 2005, the ads for it where on flightsimulator websites(so website relevant) and it caught my eye, looked up some videos and info and figured yes I would like this.

      Other then that, nothing. Also I live in a ad-free internet now, unless offcourse a host is willing to take the risk and host on his own domain, if he or she does that then im completely fine with it.

  28. *hugs* Mozilla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "I can not think of any circumstances in which advertising would not be an evil."
    - Arnold Toynbee

  29. Mozilla is saving the Internet by FuzzNugget · · Score: 5, Insightful

    From being hijacked by advertisers.

  30. It's full of stars - I mean people. by fahrbot-bot · · Score: 2

    IAB notes that 'If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience.'

    Well, someone will get less relevant, but I don't think it will be the consumers...

    --
    It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
  31. IAB? by jeromef · · Score: 2

    For a moment I though IAB what the IAB...

    1. Re:IAB? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fucking slashdot editor morons!

  32. installing firefox now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    time to support them, and go back to their browser.
    goodbye chrome.

    1. Re:installing firefox now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      time to support them, and go back to their browser.
      goodbye chrome.

      Why, because they made the "Accept 3rd party cookies" box un-checked by default? Your logic is horribly flawed. Keep in mind that you can't disable JavaScript anymore unless you manually hack your config file, they removed that option from the menu completely. So they no longer default to accept 3rd party cookies which might allow advertisers to track you a little better, but make it very difficult for average users to shut off Javascript, which is most likely the largest malware attack vector currently in existence. Sorry, but I'm still going to warn people away from the Fox until they get their priorities straightened out.

  33. One concern.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Right now, it is fairly easy to block cookies and scrips from third party websites. I simply block cookies and don't enable scripts from domains other than the one I am visiting.

    If more people start doing this, the websites will just start serving the cookies and scripts for those advertisers, making it harder to block. It will be possible, but to me, it seems it would become much more of a chore to sift through, read, and ultimately block the "offending" bits of the advertising networks.

    That said, this full page ad is just the advertisers not wanting to do a whole lot of work to make their shit work again. Of course, they will eventually fix it, and try to offer that as an upgraded feature of their service to websites. Ugh...

  34. Reminds me of another ad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    My towns newspaper had a full page ad in it from an advertisment agency a while back. It had a picture of North Korea, the "country without advertisment". Basically what they claimed was that, without ads, we would become like them.

    1. Re:Reminds me of another ad by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      It's hard to imagine how a 65ft billboard of their Deal Reader every half-mile is not "advertisement".

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:Reminds me of another ad by kilfarsnar · · Score: 1

      My towns newspaper had a full page ad in it from an advertisment agency a while back. It had a picture of North Korea, the "country without advertisment". Basically what they claimed was that, without ads, we would become like them.

      Wow, even their propaganda sucks!

      --
      "What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
  35. Well I'm convinced. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Going to surf with firefox and code with chrome.Is there a browser that will piss off lawyers and marketing people in one? I want that.

  36. This is what we want by gstoddart · · Score: 5, Insightful

    According to the IAB, Mozilla wants to eliminate the cookies which enable online advertisers to reach the right audience

    You know what there IAB, I don't want your fucking cookies. I don't want your web-bugs. I don't want your shit tailored to me. I don't even want your damned ads.

    Let's be honest about this, you wish to gather information about me in order to fulfill your wishes to make money off me.

    I'm not prepared to give you that information. I don't care about your business model -- I care about my privacy, and not having douchebags like the IAB know enough about me to do targeted advertising.

    When I visit a website, I haven't signed an agreement with you saying I'll see your ads, and provide you with information to track me.

    So websites like advertising.com and brightcove and eyereturn ... those are blocked at my firewall. You don't ask my consent to collect information about me, and I don't need your consent to deny it to you.

    Stop acting like your'e entitled to this information, or that what you think is going to make you the most money isn't against our best interests.

    Now, if Apple could only competently block 3rd party cookies in Safari, I'd have yet another browser I can use to keep these idiots away.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
    1. Re:This is what we want by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 1

      If enough people block ad servers they'll just reroute serving through the web site itself. Enjoy your solution while you can.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    2. Re:This is what we want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Then they would have to rely on the website to report how many ad's have been delivered...

      "what's that mister man-who-pays-me-per-view to my page? How many views did I get? 1,000,000,000 views! (pinky finger to mouth)"

    3. Re:This is what we want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      At which point it becomes less profitable for the web site owners since their traffic will more than double, so the advertisers will be charged much more, so there will be less ads, and even then we can still block the ads from actually being shown using AdBlockPlus's element hiding rules or similar.

    4. Re:This is what we want by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      two words, reverse proxy.

  37. Already do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I already configure all browsers to prompt for cookies at all times and I only allow the ones I need. This will just save me time. No change in "Internet Experience" observed.

    1. Re:Already do this by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I already configure all browsers to prompt for cookies at all times and I only allow the ones I need. This will just save me time.

      You know you can just go into your options and un-check the box for 3rd party cookies, right? So this will save you maybe 5 seconds of time, assuming you have trouble manipulating your mouse.

  38. They are welcome to provide alternatives by 91degrees · · Score: 1

    Google managed to develop and market Chrome, and get a lot of people interested in it. They make no money directly from Chrome. It exists entirely for the indirect benefit to their advertising revenue.

    A consortium of internet advertisers must be able to produce a fair amount of cash. More than woul dbe needed for developing a piece of software (Mozilla seems to have an annual budget of about $2 million which is not a vast amount for a lot of companies). A lot of the technology is freely available and cna be used even in a closed source browser.

    All they need to do is make it better than firefox and give people the choice. If one of the improvements is a "relevant and diverse Internet experience" then that's a marketing point. If people actually don't like thid party cookies, then they'll need to make a better browser to encourage pepel to accept the cost. I'm sure that's quite possible.

  39. Aren't there other ways to track? by guanxi · · Score: 1

    Why such a desperate move from the IAB? There are plenty of ways to track users that are just as or more effective, unless I misunderstand something. I don't see the problem.

    Either the IAB is tone-deaf or I am; I can't imagine advertisers getting much sympathy from the public. Maybe the advertisers believe their own hype, that their tracking provides such a valuable service for users.

  40. No, no, no, by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is your Frigging Adverts that are hijacking the internet.

    Opps. I used the word HiJack.
    The NSA will be onto me in a trice. Anon just in case.

  41. Hahahahahaha by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Cry me a river, after harassing people for a decade with ever more intrusive bullshit, closing both eyes and looking the other way while their networks were used as a vector for driveby malware and what not, these people still manage to have the audacity to complain? Take your "valuable content" elsewhere, nobody wants it.

  42. Their ad would be more effective if ... by guanxi · · Score: 1

    Their ad would be more effective if they simply provided instructions for enabling third-party cookies.

    How about an add-on, with enhanced tracking for more personalized ads? It would be interesting to see how many people used it.

  43. They took out an ad? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I guess their ad got stuck in my adblocker :)

  44. First... by tchi.keufte · · Score: 1

    First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. -- Mahatma Gandhi

    1. Re:First... by Barefoot+Monkey · · Score: 2

      I used to block advertisers, now I'm laughing at them.

      If Gandhi's quote applies then I don't like where this is going.

  45. Deep down, they have a point by davidwr · · Score: 1

    End-users who don't like Mozilla's decision are free to use a different browser.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  46. Spam by JeanCroix · · Score: 2

    Yeah, and spammers used to cry that spam filters were breaking the internet too. And infringing their "free speach [sic] rights." But honestly, what parasite welcomes its host's attempt to dislodge it?

  47. No big surprise... by Type44Q · · Score: 1

    Professional liars caught lying... news at 11.

  48. Free Advertising for Mozilla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Uau... A full page of advertisement for Firefox... and a good one too! A browser that stops advertisement! Where can I get it? Lol... Kind of stupid, isn't it?

  49. Less relevant and diverse? ROFLMAO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Yeah right, just go to amazon.com, and search for a weed trimmer.

    All i saw was totally irrelevant adds for weed trimmers over the next couple of weeks because i was just reading review.I bought one the same day from a local box store. All i saw for the next two weeks were ads for weed trimmers. Totally irrelevant since i had already purchase one.

    1. Re:Less relevant and diverse? ROFLMAO by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've made the same eerie experience. Just once I looked for a Casio calculator on Amazon and for weeks if not months was bombarded with calculator ads afterwards.

      Glad they don't sell any adult toys...

  50. People Vs. Military Industrial complex by lixns21 · · Score: 1

    I am from the industry and think the IAB's stand is poppycock. I firmly believe and have done ever since I learned a lot about targeting using cookies etc that the choice should be with the end users. It is totally unfair that the options exist currently, but only for the most savvy users. This current hullabalo shows that all the current initiatives such as the NAI http://www.networkadvertising.org/choices/ are all spin. Also, there already exists methods whereby companies store cookies for individuals on the cloud where the end user has no control. I think the online ad industry already 10+ years old has become like the MPAA or RIAA (always wondered: *why* does an organisation even exist that has the name records in it). The focus of the innovation has to be how to deliver targeted content WITH user consent. Not add more layers and tracking beacons and then selling it all to the NSA.

  51. I find the current state bad by kaiser423 · · Score: 1

    Look, I'm one of those people that doesn't mind relevant, unobtrusive advertising. Yea, my mind is trained to just ignore and not even register online advertising, but sometimes when I'm looking for something or researching new products, I go down the advertiser link holes.

    But right now with the third party tracking, I get *worse* advertisements than I used to. It's ridiculous. Just yesterday I went to Levenger.com and bought some refills for a notebook. Literally, over 90% of the ads that I see now are Levenger or Levenger's competitor's ads. There doesn't need to be any Levenger advertising, I just bought from them! I can actually do a search for computer motherboards right now and ads for Levenger paper come up.

    If I click a link and look at a simple product on Amazon, that product's ads track me and stay by my side no matter where I am until I look at some other item. Right now, online ads are waaaay too far on the tracking side; I hardly ever get contextual ads any more. It's all about getting me to buy whatever was the last page with a buy button on it that I navigated to, even if I already bought it! Talk about dumb.

    So, yea, I think that the state of internet advertising might actually get better without these trackers. They might have to actually detect what I'm interested in and serve up relevant ads, rather than plastering every page with a freakin' ad for paper that I already bought. Kudos Mozilla. I might just switch back from Chrome...

  52. Screw the IAB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These buffoons are the ones who highjacked the internet long ago. Mozilla will allow us to take it back.

  53. It's been a long time, but by azav · · Score: 1

    It's good to see the slashdot effect working again at full steam.

    --
    - Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
  54. Ads by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From IAB:

    "This particular feature would block all third party cookies by default and users would need to decide for themselves which cookies will be allowed on their systems and which won’t be."

    Hell yeah. I'm not smart enough to decide witch sites I trust. Most likely, all cookies will be turned off by default here, except the essential ones =)

  55. Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or similar by ciaran_o_riordan · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's definitely a good sign. I'm still waiting for integration of AdBlock plus. Being in the top 10 installed plugins means that users want this feature.

    I'm not even against ads but I don't like being tracked by ads servers getting my IP address, my browser fingerprint ( https://panopticlick.eff.org/ ), and the page I was reading (referrer).

    RequestPolicy and NoScript are two more good plugins for controlling what info your browser gives to who.

    But there's more hope of this sort of thing getting into a fork, such as GNU IceCat: https://www.gnu.org/software/gnuzilla/

  56. Mozilla instead of Firefox? by JoeyRox · · Score: 2

    Most users of Firefox probably never notice or remember Mozilla in the name. Ironic considering how advertisers are supposed to be so savvy at targeting consumers.

  57. Safari Did it First by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Where's the full-page ad against Apple? Oh, right, better to not take on a billion-dollar behemoth and run ads against the nonprofit giving people more control over their Internet browsing experience.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    1. Re:Safari Did it First by richy+freeway · · Score: 2

      I'm sure they'd care if any great number of people actually used Safari.

    2. Re:Safari Did it First by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      I'm sure they'd care if any great number of people actually used Safari.

      The public perception is that there are lots of iOS devices out there, anyway.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    3. Re:Safari Did it First by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Please take note of the post up the page a bit explaining how Safari's third-party cookie blocking is just a checkbox that doesn't actually block anything

      http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4085051&cid=44552933

  58. Good on Mozilla! To hell with Ad-leeches. by RanceJustice · · Score: 2

    If the feculent leeches in the Internet advertising/data mining industry (and/or social media industry, for that matter) object, this is a great indication that Mozilla is doing the right thing. On the backs of Google, DoubleClick, Facebook, and a host of other advertising and data mining organizations, the Web has become infected with a continually encroaching plague of bots, cookies, tracking, and other privacy obliteration techniques that become even more and more egregious as time continues. Hostile and persistent, pervasive and privacy-obliterating, advertising on the Internet has gotten out of hand. Monetizing "You" has become the primary target and is completely unfettered by privacy regulations in the US (though, the EU is at least a little better in this regard). The data mined and sold by these advertisers has become so all-encompassing and we've all see the ramifications thereof.

    If blocking third party cookies is such a major blow to these advertisers, so much the better. Crying over lacking the ability to follow users with invisible 1-pixel trackers across their entire browsing experience is insulting. Users can and should always opt in to their information being stored elsewhere or allowed to be tracked - I'd be quite satisfied if Firefox's default turned off cookies all together. While I'd like to see more of the feature set of AdBlock Plus/Edge, Disconnect, HTTPS Everywhere, BetterPrivacy, and NoScript actually implemented natively in Firefox with sane defaults, this is a great first start. Mozilla has again proved that products like Firefox and Thunderbird are some of the only major, "Newbie to Guru Usable", cross-platform FOSS programs of their kind that are built with the user's experience as the primary goal, rather than to cater to some sort of data mining or advertising network. Sane defaults that place the choice to reveal information and do so in a way that ensures the user is fully informed of the options, is paramount. Anything that can be done to cut the lifeline of these disgusting, shameless, money-grubbing entities is a benefit, and so I applaud Mozilla and hope they are not dissuaded by this temper-tantrum thrown by these corrupt, petulant children.

  59. judge and jury by sl4shd0rk · · Score: 2

    The Mozilla foundation has yet to do anything that makes me suspect they have nefarious intentions. I cannot hardly begin to say the same about advertising or marketing people. Most or sleazier than that underside of a toilet seat. If Mozilla is causing problems for these people, stfu. I'm behind Mozilla 100%.

    --
    Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
  60. irony? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "It appears that Mozilla wants to be “judge and jury” for business models on the Net."

    uhh oh, or maybe they just provided one business model and your getting butt hurt because the people love it?

    "Right now consumers have control over whether they receive interest-based ads through the Digital Advertising Alliance’s self-regulatory program."

    OR consumers have the control when the decided which browser to use and to use the browser cookie blocking feature.. Mozilla gives ME the control. keep it up everyone that contributes to the project..

    with everything going on in the media and the political circus maybe people would start smartening up that people dont want the centralization of power, we want the decentralization of power. we want the individual choice.. after all this is what the IAB has been selling us for years, they sell choice, choice over clothes, choice over cars, they bring to us choice but only on things they can make money off of.

    Businesses really need to learn that while it is important to retain business it is also important to retain this through highlighting your pros, not weighing on someones cons. im sure anyone over the age of 12 understands that when an entity (political or commercial) starts openly attacking someone else they are nothing more than jealous and cant find ways to differentiate them selves as better so they must bring their opponent down because they cannot stand up to the challenge.

  61. full page ad? by Arancaytar · · Score: 4, Funny

    I didn't see it.

    (thats the joke)

  62. More power to Facebook and Google by hendrik_v · · Score: 1

    One side of this is that (especially) Facebook and Google will gain more traction because of this, at the expense of other, smaller, ad-networks and national JIC's.

  63. Keep up the good work by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Keep up the good work Mozilla :) 3

  64. If you mean... by TrentTheThief · · Score: 1

    When marketers say "a less relevant and diverse Internet experience," it really means "you won't see annoying, tailored ads for shit you don't want or need."

    I don't see your damned ads anyway. I use AdBlockPlus and I also block third-party cookies. But since there are less net-aware people out there who don't have the knowledge to mess around with addons or anything other than the default settings, I support Mozilla: Block the cookies from those asshat marketers and help out the less techie people who are on the net.

    Q: What do you call 10,000 dead marketers at the bottom of the Marianas Trench?

    A: A good beginning.

  65. Here is the full ad text by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Finding stuff you’re interested in on the Internet is
    easy these days. That’s because advertisers can tailor
    ads to speci c interests through the responsible and
    transparent use of cookies.

    But Mozilla wants to eliminate the same cookies that
    enable advertisers to reach the right audience, with
    the right message, at the right time. Mozilla claims it’s
    in the interest of privacy. Truth is, we believe it’s about
    helping some business models gain a marketplace
    advantage and reducing competition. Right now
    consumers have control over whether they receive
    interest-based ads through the Digital Advertising
    Alliance’s self-regulatory program.

    It appears that Mozilla wants to be “judge and jury” for
    business models on the Net.

    If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers
    will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience.
    Send an email to StopMozilla@aboutads.info to tell Mozilla
    you don’t want them hijacking cookies on the Internet."

  66. Nostalgia, when IAB meant something else by louarnkoz · · Score: 1

    Not so long ago, when we heard a reference to "the IAB," what came to mind was the "Internet Architecture Board" (http://www.iab.org/). That was the place were Postel or Cerf contributed... Times have changed.

  67. Dear IAB by bmo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I use Adblock Plus and Noscript. Not because I have something in particular against advertising in general, but because I've personally seen more than enough abusive practices to put an end to it myself.

    Ya know, like drive-by malware through ad networks.

    Until the industry adopts some real standards and actively polices them, then you, IAB and everyone else, can fuck right off.

    --
    BMO

    1. Re:Dear IAB by intermodal · · Score: 1

      i use it because I like my bandwidth to only be used for what I actually want to see. So even then, I won't consider ads acceptable use of my bandwidth.

      --
      In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
    2. Re:Dear IAB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not smart enough to look at the top of my own post and see the "bmo" there so I just repeatedly copy-and-paste my own username into the body of every single one of my posts. See? No one ever claimed I wasn't stupid.

      --
      BMO

  68. Thanks for the reminder, IAB. by Ioldanach · · Score: 2

    I'd forgotten to turn off third party cookies in my current browser. Thanks for reminding me that the option exists.

    1. Re:Thanks for the reminder, IAB. by future+assassin · · Score: 1

      Yes thanks for info, didn't even think about looking at the other option in the privacy section. Third party cookies turned off....

      --
      by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
    2. Re:Thanks for the reminder, IAB. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      HA HA
      Same here

  69. 6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience."

    1) I'm not a "consumer". I'm a person.

    2) Advertising in the U.S. has become more and more disgusting. Most ads include some dishonesty. A lot of advertising is extremely evil, such as trying to get people to eat expensive sugary food. In my opinion, you at the IAB represent one of the most destructive social forces in the United States. Most ads are attempts to get people to waste their money.

    3) You don't know what experience I want. My internet interests cannot be predicted by knowing what I did in the past.

    4) I don't buy things because of ads. I do research. I spend money carefully, not because I saw an ad written by someone who thinks he is smarter than me and can take advantage of some weakness in me.

    5) You at the IAB obviously have NO technical knowledge. If the Mozilla browsers don't block "cookies" from being stored on my computers, I can block them other ways. And will! You have an opinion about something you don't understand.

    6) A large part of what causes people to block advertising is moving pictures, which are distracting when someone is trying to read. If you want ads accepted, avoid making them intrusive and annoying.

  70. Stopped using FIrefox more than 200 versions ago, been using Chrome for 400 versions. Still waiting for 1 good version of IE.

    --
    I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
    1. Re:Done by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You use a web browser written by the internet's largest advertising firm. Why would you care about third party cookies, you have totally embraced internet adverting!

  71. Screw the IAB and the horse they rode in on by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They're not Google. They give me links, but not the links I want. I didn't search for the Sham-Wow and other "As Seen on TV" products: they were piped in to my screen in a force-fed fashion if they even get through the ad blocker plugin I have installed. I use an ad blocker because the ads show me what they want to sell me, not what I want to buy. I typically use Google or Amazon to find things I want to lay dollars down for. Like the telemarketers that call my phone and the door-to-door salesmen that ring my doorbell, I give them the same answer: I don't respond to direct marketing attempts unless I've had the time to research the products or services in detail to determine my real need and want for them.

    Besides, all those marketing dollars are a drain from money that could be spent on actual R&D. I'd rather spend cash on the folks who only advertise in trade rags or not at all and have the top-of-class offerings instead of people that hire legions of telemarketing zombies to chase me down and harass me to spend money with them.

  72. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I'm still waiting for integration of AdBlock plus. Being in the top 10 installed plugins means that users want this feature.

    No, just no. I don't want some unknown person at some 3rd party company deciding which web sites are blocked or not. I wouldn't mind seeing them add a generic URL/IP blacklist which you can maintain yourself, or choose to integrate with a blacklisting service like AdBlock.

    I'm not even against ads but I don't like being tracked by ads servers getting my IP address, my browser fingerprint ( https://panopticlick.eff.org/ [eff.org] ), and the page I was reading (referrer).

    AdBlock doesn't do any of those things, all it does is prevent your browser from sending requests to specific IP's which the Adblock people have decided are serving ads. You'll need a scriptblocker to prevent a lot of those things, and for some of them (such as your browser UID) you'll need an additional plugin which masks or falsifies your browser string and referrer information. To block IP the only way to be sure you're hiding it is to make use of some sort of an anonymous proxy service, use Tor, a VPN, etc. And there's always the chance that the people serving ads switch up their IP which will bypass AdBlock until the maintainers discover the change and update their blacklist. (Yes, I know you can mange the blacklist yourself, but if you're an advanced enough user to do that reliably you can be even more effective and block it via hosts file and/or blackhole it at your edge router)

    equestPolicy and NoScript are two more good plugins for controlling what info your browser gives to who.

    NoScript is an awesome plugin, especially from a security viewpoint, but there is still a lot of information a web site can relay to advertisers without using scripts. And NoScript can be intimidating and confusing for novice users, who are often unsure which sites to allow permanently, and which to deny permanently. So I don't know that it would be a good thing to include in the default install either.

  73. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by turp182 · · Score: 1

    What is the best current layer of blocking add-ons for Firefox?

    I asked because you mention RequestPolicy, which I have never heard of and don't have the time to investigate right now.

    I already run AdBlock, FlashBlock, Ghostery, and NoScript. And I like the results (the internet is fast again, and I don't mind giving sites permission to execute - my wife, not so much but that's why she has her own laptop - and a recent image...).

    --
    BlameBillCosby.com
  74. Yay Mozilla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Third party cookies are a privacy and security risk. Good riddance.

    Just place relevant ads based on the contents of the website i'm visiting. Thank you.
    If I like a site, and the ads are not obnoxious, i won't block them.

    I don't know who/what the IAB is but they can go fuck themselves. I certainly don't trust you with the information obtained by tracking and profiling.

  75. Confused by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... does this mean I don't have to install AdBlock Plus, DoNotTrackMe, Ghostery, and NoScript Security Suite anymore?

    Or should I keep them around?

  76. This move won't work-- ultimately by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    People need to check out panopticlick. It's a tool created by the EFF to show you how non-anonymous you really are online. Based on other information your browser provides that ultimately uniquely identifies you when used in combination you could be tracked across the web still. Does the tiny image thing still work as a tracking cookie? There are other ways to track users is what I'm getting at. I'm not proposing a legal change though. If it's illegal [here] (wherever that may be) for ad networks to track they will just move off-shore.

    https://panopticlick.eff.org/

  77. Wait, stopping cookies doesnt close down the kitch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I wrong or does blocking cookies have absolutely nothing to do with not being able to display ads? The only thing they do is to display specific ads to you and keeping track of it. They still get to spam their ads in consumers faces (except for those who takes a hand in what they want to be exposed to and install ad-blocker).

  78. Here's a question by FangVT · · Score: 1

    Do you really think the annoying, flashing, pop-up, not relevant to your interests, ads are coming from the companies that are tracking you? Personally, I think the companies that are willing to throw that kind of garbage into our faces are not the ones that spend money to try and figure out what interests us.

  79. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    There's no need for FlashBlock if you have NoScript, NoScript will block plugin content as well as scripts (unless you tell it not to). Also, if you just want blocking and don't care about the tracking visualisations, RequestPolicy is probably a better choice than Ghostery - it blocks ALL third party requests by default, regardless of whether they are images, scripts, CSS or something else, until you permit requests for that particular host and third party host combination. I use HTTPSEverywhere, AdBlock (with ALL advertising filtered), NoScript and RequestPolicy. You have to OK third-party scripts in both NoScript and RequestPolicy, but you only do that once per site so I think it's OK. It would be nice if someone merged these addons into one single super-privacy-addon - they are all doing basically the same things, i.e. matching and rewriting or blocking requests.

  80. Doesn't even pass the laugh test by bersl2 · · Score: 1

    IIRC, even Mozilla didn't agree when the IE team wanted to make DNT default to on.

    One thing I would like is some granularity regarding DNT. There are definitely certain sites where I'm more than happy to submit to that kind of data.

    1. Re:Doesn't even pass the laugh test by Man+Eating+Duck · · Score: 1

      One thing I would like is some granularity regarding DNT. There are definitely certain sites where I'm more than happy to submit to that kind of data.

      When at first I read about DNT I seriously thought it was a joke, along the lines of the Evil bit. They will *never* respect it.

      --
      Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors! :)
  81. Brought it on themselves by Causemos · · Score: 1

    It's funny how marketing departments/companies push for ever increasing ad revenue and then wonder why we want to get around them. You think they would have learned something from radio and TV.

  82. Firefox OS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do you think they're worried much about Firefox OS? It seems to me that they pretty much have their way with phones right now, imagine if they bring the same default settings for cookie control to a phone. You can't pay at the cash with a laptop or desktop. I'd prefer the option to not store cookies in my wallet...

  83. Internet architecture board by WaffleMonster · · Score: 1

    My heart almost sank until I realized IAB != IAB

    Good IAB: http://www.iab.org/
      Bad IAB: http://www.iab.net/

  84. suuuuuure by milkmage · · Score: 1

    "Right now consumers have control over whether they receive interest-based ads through the Digital Advertising Alliance’s self-regulatory program." ...and I rely on my dog's self-regulatory program to keep him from eating the bacon.

  85. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It should be kept as an addon, even if they may ship firefox with it installed by default. The reason is that Firefox is terribly bloated as it is, and even if I may enjoy adblock plus I don't want to make things more bloated for other people.

  86. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

    The problem is, is that all this stuff can still be tracked from the site the content is actually coming from. The reason we are so easily able to block ads and cookies from advertisers is because they come from third party sites. What happens when the cookies, scripts, and ads start being served by the content provider themselves. It wouldn't take a genius to develop a system where all the cookies were set by the first party site, and the required information communicated to the advertising network through original website itself. They could even make the ad content look different every time, making it harder to fingerprint what is an ad, and therefore making it difficult to block. You wouldn't get a unique ID because it wouldn't send back the cookies from other sites, but using browser finger printing you could get a pretty good chance of matching people across different sites. This is just a small step in the grand scheme of things, and it won't stop advertisers for long. The worst part about this is to do it well, the advertising networks will want their code running on the content providers servers, opening up a whole slew of new and fun security holes. Bu the content providers will do it anyway, because they want to actually make a few bucks back on their website.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  87. Re:fud *indeed* by pla · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The economic ecosystem extends far beyond that website on which you run ad-blocker and steal their content by breaking the social contract of using their bandwidth and consuming their content in exchange for seeing their ads.

    Pssst - If your business model depends on annoying people - You don't get to claim the moral high-ground when people get annoyed. You simply vanish when they find a way to avoid you.

    "Stop shooting me with that nerf gun!"
    "But I get paid to do it - And you wouldn't want the toy stores, and the trucking companies, and Nerf itself, and and the plastic manufacturer, and the oil companies to go out of business would you???"

  88. lol by Xicor · · Score: 1

    because fewer ads tracking my position is a BAD thing? honestly, id rather have a less diverse internet that is ad free.

  89. if you block third party cookies... by BonThomme · · Score: 1

    ...the terrorists win.

    (coming soon)

  90. Control by mwvdlee · · Score: 1

    Rothenberg said that that the company has “lost its values” as it took away users’ rights on controlling cookies and how they were used on their systems.

    Obligatory car analogy:
    It's like claiming a user has more control over his car when the automatic park button is on by default.

    Although in this case it's more like claiming a user has more control over his car when it automatically brakes and turns on the beam headlights for five minutes whenever passing a billboard on the highway; these aren't cookies that serve the user, like an automatic parking system, these cookies serve to try and extract money out of the user as efficiently as possible.

    --
    Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
    1. Re:Control by gstoddart · · Score: 1

      It's like claiming a user has more control over his car when the automatic park button is on by default.

      Technically, this is more like someone being able to control your radio remotely, not operate the rest of the vehicle.

      We're not quite there yet with ads, but if we ever are, you can bet there will be weapons fire. A lot of it.

      --
      Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  91. Too bad. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, they are upset because they can't use Elecricity that WE pay for, on computers that WE paid for, using CPU power that takes away from OUR processing power, and uses up internet Bandwidth that WE paid for.

    Awwwww. Those poor advertisers... So sad.

  92. This kills "retargeting" by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 1

    FWIW, the marketing term for the functionality this kills is "retargeting." The ability to stalk users with ads across multiple sites because of a previous visit or search days or weeks ago is huge business these days.

    (Had to chime in because I don't think anyone's used the right term yet.)

  93. Less relevant? by g0bshiTe · · Score: 1

    On the contrary Firefox allows me to not see your adds which pollute pages and my browser cache taking up space.

    If I want your product I will find your site and purchase it. If I'm not interested no matter how many screaming ads you throw at me I won't buy.

    Mozillas motto, "Take Back The Web"!

    --
    I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
  94. I don't want to pay for bandwidth from ads by AnalogDiehard · · Score: 1

    What the IAB doesn't tell you is they want to exploit bandwidth at the recipients' expense. I paid for my ISP, I paid for my bandwidth, and I expect to be in control of how that bandwidth is used not some organization crying "hijacking" and "judge and jury". If I want to block ads because I hate them and they can potentially deliver malware and the IAB doesn't like it, then they can cry me a river.

    --
    Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
  95. This IAB is not necessarily the IAB you expect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Old Hands" in thing Internet expect "IAB" to refer to the Internet Advsory/Activities/Architecture Board, a standing committee of the Internet Society and parent of the IETF. The "IAB" in this story is the Interactive Advertising Bureau, a member organization of the Digital Advertising Alliance. One might speculate on whether the name of the advertising group was explicitly chosen to take advantage of a collision in the TLA (three-letter acronym) space.

  96. It's about Privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't give a shit if I have a boring and impersonal internet experience as a result of keeping my privacy safe!

    What the IAB fails to grasp, is that a portion of the audience in question, is perfectly content, perhaps even asked for, Mozilla to do what they are doing, despite the "Well intentioned" (I'm sure!) wishes of an Advertising Lobbying Group. Jesus, how incredibly full of itself this group is... Hello??? It's your obnoxious, over-personalized ad's that are causing people to request this sort of feature! Are they so friggin stupid over there they cannot grasp that it's their very actions, that are causing the repercussions they're trying to prevent?!?!

  97. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think I have clicked on advertisements twice in the last five years. Both times the advertisement was relevant to the page I was viewing (not some random list from Newegg) and actually made me curious about the product being advertised. Ok, one of them wasn't exactly relevant to the page I was looking at, but it had bobkittens.

    Since advertisement revenue is based on clicks and/or views (depending on the arrangement) and usually pays the maintenance costs of the web page that has the ads, no one benefits from this 3rd party tracking and advertising scam. The web sites get fewer ad-clicks (and maybe even marked as malicious due to some of the stupid 'punch the monkey' malware embedded advertisements), the ad provider not getting any clickthroughs cannot charge the end company as much, and the company represented in the advertisements gets an angry population who will gladly shop anywhere but there.

    On a related note, I think I can imagine Pepsi's next ad campaign.

  98. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Interesting

    >> I don't buy things because of ads. I do research.

    Marketers giggle when they read stuff like this.

    They use sidebar ads to repeat brands and brand attributes, since repetition leads to better recall. Then they research what sites consumers like you use to research products, and seed those sites (including, yes, Wikipedia) with information, reviews and other content that will build up their products and steer you away from other products (often by rigging evaluation criteria or "what you should look for in...").

    You say it doesn't work...but results demonstrate that it does.

  99. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    3) You don't know what experience I want. My internet interests cannot be predicted by knowing what I did in the past.

    Once I tried to diversify my internet use but it is rather hard to find black chicks in porn so I eventually gave up. (It can be done but keeping a constant stream of new content going is the hard part. Equal opportunity here.) Tell me how cookies would have helped me.

    4) I don't buy things because of ads. I do research. I spend money carefully, not because I saw an ad written by someone who thinks he is smarter than me and can take advantage of some weakness in me.

    This would be most of us here. The ads will be less effective on us. They should go target the people who are dumb enough to use IE. They may be gullible enough to buy their crap based on an internet ad.

    Hmmm...maybe they should give up on breaking Firefox because its users are going to negate the ad effectiveness anyway. Or I can hope that they will whine until they burn all their resources and implode and hopefully take their ads with them.

  100. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Advertising sugary food is extremely evil? That seems like a bit of a stretch. You might not like that someone would attempt to encourage you to make a choice, by your own free will, to purchase something that if not consumed with moderation might have a negative health effect on you. It's not exactly Holocaust variety extreme evil though.

  101. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by Jherek+Carnelian · · Score: 2

    NoScript is an awesome plugin, especially from a security viewpoint, but there is still a lot of information a web site can relay to advertisers without using scripts.

    If you like NoScript - check out RequestPolicy - think of it as an inverse hosts file - instead of blocking individual trackers you whitelist sites instead. Not only that, but the whitelisting is on a per web-server basis, e.g. you can let ESPN's include stuff from doubleclick without letting any other sites include stuff from doubleclick.

    It makes the interweb soo much faster and protects against fingerprinting because your browser never even connects to the fingerpinter much less hands over any identifying information.

  102. A Modest Proposal by Rambo+Tribble · · Score: 1

    To ensure that the IAB and its members properly respect individuals' privacy, I suggest that any members, employees, or affiliates of the IAB be required to publicly post their own data that is of the same kind they collect. This means their own political preferences, purchasing statistics, and location data, etc. should be available to the public, in real time. And, while I'm sure the IAB would be eager to comply with this simple request in a show of good faith, this requirement should carry the weight of law.

  103. The marketeers usage of legal terms as if their by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    own actions are somehow suspect of foul play is just shooting themselves in the leg.

    Regardless, I here-by appoint Mozilla and Adblock as my very own judge and jury in this matter of internet advertising.
    If they'll fuck up, I'll just install someone else in office...

    Don't you just love how the English language allows this sort of stuff?

  104. More likely... by ducomputergeek · · Score: 1

    The ad will detect you using firefox, block the page with a full screen ad that says "Get Google Chrome to continue viewing this site" - Google (AKA the Internet Ad Company).

    --
    "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
  105. I dont hate ads,but I usually dont buy items twice by SlashDread · · Score: 1

    But these IAB folks sure think I do. I buy a specific amplifier? I get that-exact- same model on my ads. Buy a nice new guitar, same model pops up in my ads.

    Id say I would get a more divers advertisment experience, without the tracking...

    Oh, and it annoyed me to see non-useful ads, so I disabled -all- ads.

  106. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by GuldKalle · · Score: 1

    Ghostery is another good privacy addon. Blocks Facebook Like buttons and other bugs.

    --
    What?
  107. It is about tracking in general by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They do not care because we, the people using the internet, are not even seen as customers. We are seen as wallets waiting to be taken. They do not care about our interests, shopping needs etc. That is only marketing jargon for - value added services which they sell to _other_ companies.

    What this issue is *really* about is full on tracking. They simply want as much of our browsing data as possible so they can sell this information to other businesses. This is a go between profiteer. They do not create new products, new jobs or new anything.

    PRIVACY. Surfing the internet is not liken to hanging out in a public park by the fountain for all to see. It is a private experience and a one to one relationship - the web site and the viewer.

  108. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by ByteSlicer · · Score: 1

    No, just no. I don't want some unknown person at some 3rd party company deciding which web sites are blocked or not. I wouldn't mind seeing them add a generic URL/IP blacklist which you can maintain yourself, or choose to integrate with a blacklisting service like AdBlock.

    Erm, AdBlock Plus (which was created to improve Adblock) allows you to subscribe to filter lists of your choice, or you can maintain your own local filter list.

  109. Or perhaps they are saving it by PPH · · Score: 1

    The principle objection I have with ads is that they slow down loading the pages that I really want. A small cookie? No problem. I can selectively clean them up myself or blacklist/whitelist them.

    Right now, the local cafe WiFi providers appear to be in some sort of pissing match with Google. It takes forever to load anything Google. Even their search page. Google analytics? Forget it. That site is hung. So the more tools a browser can provide me to stay out of the advertisers' poo flinging wars, the better.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
    1. Re:Or perhaps they are saving it by znrt · · Score: 1

      The principle objection I have with ads is that they slow down loading the pages that I really want.

      this is offset by the general adoption of all sorts of cdns and caching, motivated in part because it was necessary to make this ubiquitous advertiser-in-the-middle scheme even viable.

      the principal objection i have with ads is that i don't want any fucking ads, and even less i want anybody snooping on me. iab board of directors could have a very interesting experience of me just by sucking my dick. the level abuse the average internet user is currently subjected to is absolutely ridiculous. glad to see mozilla still capable of doing something right.

  110. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by ibwolf · · Score: 1

    While what you describe is technically possible, it does have two significant drawbacks.

    First, it imposes a hefty tech burden on the 'original' site to install the software. No longer is it just a little snippet. Now there will be some server side aspect to gather this data. This server side aspect will also need to be available for different platforms etc. This is massively more complicated to deploy than the current "here paste in this snippet".

    Secondly, this imposes additional bandwidth requirements on the 'original' site. It will need to fetch updates to the ads it serves from the provider, it will need to serve those ads to each user, it will need to gather the user data and finally it will need to communicate (either in aggregate or real-time) user activity. This is all network traffic that in today's model bypasses the 'original' site entirely. Many sites which only make a little bit of money off of ads will not doubt lose money on them with this additional cost.

  111. Once again, "Team America: World Police" applies. by Salgak1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Once again, "Team America" applies to F-heads making demands on the rest of us. . .

    . . . . and so. . . .

    Mozilla is a bunch of dicks! They're reckless, arrogant, stupid dicks. And the Internet Advertising Board are pussies. And the Advertisers are assholes. Pussies don't like dicks, because pussies get fucked by dicks. But dicks also fuck assholes: assholes who just want to shit on everything. Pussies may think they can deal with assholes their way. But the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is: they fuck too much or fuck when it isn't appropriate — and it takes a pussy to show them that. But sometimes, pussies can be so full of shit that they become assholes themselves... because pussies are an inch and half away from ass holes. I don't know much about this crazy, crazy world, but I do know that if you don't let us fuck this asshole, we're going to have our dicks and pussies all covered in shit!

    Team America: is there ANY situation it's not applicable for these days ???

  112. IAB can suck my big fat Mozilla Dick by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience.'"

    Oh yes I'm sure consumers just LOVE all kinds of annoying ads that 98% of the time deliver malware because these dumbfucks are too stupid to notice the ad server(s) they run have or had been compromised long ago. Long live Adblock Plus and other addons/extensions to help us control ads, cookies, and tracking.

  113. Good-Guy advertisers. by rawler · · Score: 1

    First paragraph of the actual ad:

    Finding stuff you’re interested in on the Internet is easy these days. That’s because advertisers can tailor ads to specic interests through the responsible and transparent use of cookies.

    Oh, I think I can stop reading here.

  114. Who? by jimpop · · Score: 1

    Reality check: Who cares about companies hiding behind 3 letter names? AAF, ANA, DMA, IAB, NAI..... The internet was nicer before they came along.

    1. Re:Who? by troff · · Score: 1

      ... NSA... :-)

  115. I think they have that backward... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They will get a less relevant and diverse internet, but I'm not sure that translates to me having a less relevant and diverse internet.

  116. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It doesn't when you actively block all ads. Unless of course you're talking about the ones I see at the grocery store. In which case, kudos, I'm more likely to buy your product.. if it's on sale anyway or my only option at the time of purchase.

    There's also a likely cause-and-effect here whereby a certain class of people will AVOID the annoyance they've been seeing. Subliminally it might mean more mindshare, but that doesn't mean it's positive mindshare. And that old chestnut of "any attention is good attention" isn't true when people are actively NOT buying your products because they're annoyed.

    There was a time when ads were meant to make us purchase products, not just know about them.

  117. My attempt to rebut the points made in IAD's ad by trudyscousin · · Score: 2

    "Finding stuff you're interested in on the Internet is easy these days. That's because advertisers can tailor ads to specific interests through the responsible and transparent use of cookies."

    No, it isn't. This the lie you love to perpetuate. The reason my web browser plugins include an ad-blocker is that you have, time and time again, steadfastly proven that you're entirely incapable of grasping the terms 'responsible' and 'transparent.'

    "But Mozilla wants to eliminate the same cookies that enable advertisers to reach the right audience, with the right message, at the right time."

    Let's say someone purchased a copy of Robert Towne's film Personal Best online. The next thing they know, they're drowning in ads for lesbian erotica. The niceties of lesbian erotica aside, perhaps our someone didn't buy the film for that reason, but it's telling that's the only aspect you trout-brained nincompoops regard, so it's the wrong audience and the wrong message. And as for the "right time," decades of abuse long before the Internet's advent have shown that you think it's in the time frame of dinnertime.

    "Mozilla claims it's in the interest of privacy. Truth is, we believe it's about helping some business models gain a marketplace advantage and reducing competition."

    As the song says, it's your misfortune and none of my own. What is this bizarre sense of entitlement that posesses you?

    "Right now consumers have control over whether they receive interest-based ads through the Digital Advertising Alliance's self-regulatory program."

    Oh, yeah. That "opt-out" you love to foist on us all. That's kind of like getting down on one's hands and knees asking the cockroaches skittering across the kitchen floor to please stop that.

    "It appears that Mozilla wants to be 'judge and jury' for business models on the Net."

    I can't speak for Mozilla, but I'd be willing to bet they could care even less than I do about your "business models."

    "If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience."

    A "relevant and diverse Internet experience" doesn't include pop-ups that obscure what I'm trying to read, or those full-window ads that shut out the entire web page, unless one happens to be a total freakin' idiot, a sociopath, or some combination of the two, which would explain why the lot of you think this crap is such a grand idea.

    "Send an email to StopMozilla@aboutads.info to tell Mozilla you don't want them hijacking cookies on the Internet."

    Is there an address I can use to tell you all to intercourse yourselves? Because it's all about choices, as you love to say, and that's the choice I want.

    --
    Those who can, do. Those who can't, write technology blogs.
  118. The supporters of this have it all wrong by Maudib · · Score: 0

    You guys have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the consequences of this will be.

    (1) There will still be cookies, just not 3rd party cookies. You will still see ads, they will just not be as relevant to you. I for one would prefer relevant ads for things that are potentially useful, to ads for menapause treatments.
    (2) You will still be tracked. Instead of client side cookies, websites will integrate directly with the ad-servers, passing off your 1st party session data directly. It will likely result in much more information being exchanged and stored about you. In addition, unlike 3rd party cookies, this will all be behind the scenes with no transparency at all.
    (3) The value of ads on most common sites will decrease without the 3rd party pixel, so as a result there will be many many more ads, and they will be much more obnoxious.
    (4) As a result of 2 & #, it will be harder for small companies an individuals to start ad supported sites, but easier for the big players.

    Congratulations Mozilla! More ads, more annoying ads, more user tracking done in secret and increased market dominance by a select few. Thanks!

  119. Won't Somebody PLEASE Think of the Advertisers? nt by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "Won't Somebody PLEASE think of the Advertisers?!?"

  120. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't buy things because of ads. I do research. I spend money carefully, not because I saw an ad written by someone who thinks he is smarter than me and can take advantage of some weakness in me.

    Which makes you a threat to God-ordained capitalism, you swine!

  121. Would rather be tracked by orgelspieler · · Score: 1

    If they're going to be putting up ads anyway, I would rather they track me. I'd much rather see an ad relating to something I viewed or purchased a few weeks ago rather than random ads. I'm more likely to click and less likely to be annoyed if you show me an ad for a plush companion cube instead of immigrant legal advice. I would love it if TV could track me and only show me ads I'm interested in. New sci-fi movie coming out? Great! New brand of feminine hygiene product? N/A.

    That being said, there's no reason people shouldn't have a choice in the matter. If Mozilla didn't allow users to be tracked that would be a different issue.

    1. Re:Would rather be tracked by Stan92057 · · Score: 1

      Its about choice man, its about choice not the right stink in ads and if they did there jobs correctly and didn't depend on spying and ad networks the web site that has focused content gets ads that relate to the sites content man oh man are people just blind now a days.

      --
      Jack of all trades,master of none
  122. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by KiloByte · · Score: 1

    You want AdBlock Edge instead of AdBlock Plus. That is, unless you want that "allow obnoxious ads" option -- but if you do, why would you install AdBlock in the first place?

    --
    The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
  123. The same gloom and doom story by Stan92057 · · Score: 1

    The same gloom and doom story the Telemarketers gave us. Advertisers dont beleave in the word choice which Mozilla is going to give people now will the Advertisers do as the web user wants thats the real question or will they play god and ignore out wants?

    --
    Jack of all trades,master of none
  124. F*** YES ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm so tired or ads following me from site to site. I enjoy serendipity, the possibility of randomly finding what you didn't realise you were looking for, while looking something else up.

    Stop trying to put me in a bloody internet filter bubble. You don't know me, you don't know what I want and you're not smart enough to know how I think. If I want something or am curious about a subject I'll look for it actively myself and your spoonfeeding algorithms are only going to get in the way.

  125. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

    I didn't say it wasn't more complicated. However, I think it's the only logical next step if a significant (perhaps 50%, I don't know) number of visitors to a site end up blocking ads. That or asking people to actually start paying for content. Most people won't be willing to go for the second option. I wonder though, if it could be made to work. It would have to be a very small amount of money. Maybe less than a dollar a month. But that's probably more than most content creators made off ads from a single person anyway.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  126. What a pity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would like to get any cookie sites like to set. They are great. With lifetime set to twenty years in the future. Yes, give it to me.

    No, thanks.

  127. Newsflash: IAB fails laugh test by gestalt_n_pepper · · Score: 1

    Because obviously there are not other browsers out there and you can't turn the blocking features off... No, wait.

    --
    Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
  128. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by ciaran_o_riordan · · Score: 1

    > all this stuff can still be tracked from the site the content is actually coming from.

    On a technical level, yes. But don't forget about the humans involved.

    It would give the websites knowledge and control over what they're sending on to the data gatherers. When it's all via third-party servers, the website owners can turn a blind eye and say "I'm just adding a link", but if they had to receive a list of data to pass on and had to take an active role, they might think twice and at least limit the data or anonymise it first. And they could publish info about what data gets collected so the public would be aware.

  129. Maybe... just maybe.... by Wokan · · Score: 1

    Maybe we'd like to browse a website without feeling like the advertisers know more about us than our own family does.

  130. Ghostery is proprietary software, not ideal by ciaran_o_riordan · · Score: 1

    I wouldn't trust proprietary software to look after privacy.

    You can see the javascript files, so at least there's transperancy, but since it's not free software, there's no community. Nobody's looking a the code and if there was a problem, no one could fork it and distribute a problem-free version.

    1. Re:Ghostery is proprietary software, not ideal by GuldKalle · · Score: 1

      What do you use instead?
      Surely proprietary software is better than none

      --
      What?
  131. Fuck the IAB by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Tracking cookies should never exists. Anyone who know about them block them. IAB is jsut trying to abuse clueless users even more.

  132. Methinks he doth protest too much by daboochmeister · · Score: 1

    All this sturm und drang over it changing from opt-out to opt-in. Hmm ....

    --
    "Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh ... never mind." Dave Bucci
  133. Hey, IAB... by hyades1 · · Score: 1

    I gotcher cookie right here.

    The logical reasons behind this statement have been laid out very well already by others. I just thought a little outraged cynicism with respect to these lying, user-abusing creeps was in order.

    --
    I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
  134. well... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Their problem seems to be that they want to be able to direct ad's against specified users... How about instead of letting the ad-networks track us a new "ad-cookie" could be used.. In the cookie you would have specified what areas you are interested in.

    Cookie could look something like:
    Age: 0-999 (could be set to 30-30 if you wanted to specify your exact age, but completely optional)
    Gender: Male / Female (optional)
    Location: country/city (optional, can be nothing or complete location-specification from a portable device like android phone.)
    Interests: List of interests. Should probably be predefined keywords that are hard-coded in the browsers. (optional)

    With this data they could direct ads quite nicely. For people that do not want to directed ad's they can turn it off and get the generic ad's that are targeted by country or so.. For sites that rely mostly on ad-revenue could even create incentives for people to fill in a bit more information.
    For security the "ad-cookie" should probably be limited to ad-networks. Ie for a ad-network to get access to it you would have to approve it first.

  135. Context, Ad industry by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Please stay on topic, ad industry and don't brain fuck us. Then you actually cease to cause as much hate as you do now. Mozilla cookie block gives you cookies for the new, glorious tomorrow, ad industry you you penis pills sailboats roles recplicas nikes viagra vote now.

  136. not really by slashmydots · · Score: 1

    "consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience"
    Oh yeah, it's so much worse of an internet experience when I finally get a big scoop full of get your damn stalker ads out my face served up on a silver platter. Poor me. How will I ever survive looking at lolcats without a flashing banner showing all the crap I just searched for on Tiger Direct?

  137. Not a big deal by Britz · · Score: 1

    They will simply need to use browser fingerprinting via web bugs. In combination with flash cookies, stored content and java cookies. It will just get a little more technically complicated. But not much.

    I don't even know why he makes such a big fuss. When the task gets more complicated, web advertising companies will have to use more technical expertise making the market harder to penetrate. Which benefits existing companies. So his customers are safer from new competition.

  138. More stuff to block by Animats · · Score: 1

    Blocking third-party cookies, which I've done for years, isn't enough. You also need something like Abine's DoNotTrackMe, which blocks most of the known tracking sites. And you may have to go to the Flash preferences page and turn off some things there.

    The BlockSite add-on for Firefox might seem useful, but it's spyware - it reports all your browsing activity to a site in the Czech Republic ("api.wips.com") If you don't "opt in", it won't let you visit major sites like Hotmail. That's acceptable to Mozilla's "Developer Relations Lead". Mozilla isn't as tough on privacy as their PR people say they are.

  139. mailinglist by Korruptionen · · Score: 1
    Did anyone else notice that the email they put in that bulletin to "stop firefox" goes to them?

    PS. Fuck advertising companies.

  140. You do that! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While I continue deceiving the rest of the 99.9999% and get paid :)

    I'm sorry is that jealously I'm feeling?

    1. Re:You do that! by DrGamez · · Score: 1

      No, it's fear of having a stupid opinion, hence the AC tag.

    2. Re:You do that! by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

      I do not fear that at all. I revel in it.

      --
      The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
  141. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by Belial6 · · Score: 1

    I am typing before thinking this out, so please take it for what it is, but perhaps the solution is for an RFC to be created for a 'standard' advertisement tag. If Google and Mozilla could agree on it, advertising could be made much less intrusive. The browsers could get real aggressive on things like third party cookies and at the same time, they could make the path of least resistance to be a more discreet advertisement.

  142. Bizarre.... by cfulmer · · Score: 1

    When the Internet was first starting out, there was a lot of concern about the sheer amount of advertising which would be poured into it. Recall the backlash against the Green Card Lawyers?

    If anything, it's the advertising industry that has hijacked the internet. Firefox is just taking one small step in taking it back.

  143. Too Late by Gim+Tom · · Score: 1

    It is too late for Mozilla to hijack the Internet. NSA beat them too it.

  144. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by tacokill · · Score: 1

    Also, how do you know who or what to research?

  145. please kill them by Tom · · Score: 2

    Aggressive advertisement is the tragedy of the commons in action, and few people see it.

    This is not a zero-sum game. You are paying for this, with your attention and mind. Yeah, we have become great at filtering out all the crap they throw at us, both with technology (on the Internet) and with our mind (for billboards, etc.) - but both comes at a price. A price that we pay, not the advertisers.

    These parasites are grazing their cattle on our common space. Our bandwidth, our public spaces, our visual field.

    And they don't know their place. They should be thankful we let them, they should wonder every morning why we don't make them pay for wasting our resources. Not the building they nail their billboard to, or the site they mess up with pop-up-under-obnoxious crap, but us, the owners of the public resources they contaminate.

    Instead, they whine and cry and demand more.
    They are like really badly behaved children, and need to be treated that way.
    If someone doesn't understand the value of what he's been given for free, the best way to teach him is to take it away. Sao Paolo needs to become an example for cities world-wide.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    1. Re:please kill them by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

      Advertisement is spam.

      There, I fixed your signature for you.

    2. Re:please kill them by Tom · · Score: 1

      I doesn't need fixing.

      There is solicited advertisement. When I need stuff for my office, I find a catalog from a supplier useful. When I'm looking for software solutions, I might go to a trade fair. When I'm interested in buying some hardware, I will visit the website of producers I trust to make quality products.

      All of these displayes of their products and services count as advertisement, but they aren't forced on me and that's the difference.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  146. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by Tom · · Score: 2

    I'm still waiting for integration of AdBlock plus.

    You shouldn't. ABP has been sold and the new owners are... an advertisement agency. There are a couple good articles out there, go Google it. Their business model these days is to approach ad companies and basically take protection money from them - for putting them on the internal whitelist. Also, they boost their own business because, of course, the ads of companies in their own network are not blocked.

    That's what was really behind all the "acceptable advertisement whitelist" that made the headlines a while ago. It's not about acceptable, it's about having an excuse - any excuse - for allowing some ads through. Your own and those of people who paid you to let them through.

    tl;dr: ABP has turned evil. Switch to one of the forks.

    --
    Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
  147. You missed the point. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The point made by the qualifier "when I actively log in." If someone wants an internet that is being manipulated by third parties, they can always uniquely identify themselves (by logging in, turning on cookies, etc.).

    I don't want my experience shaped by the assumptions of marketers. I want the internet to be a reference. I want ads that are context based, not audience based.

    Imagine if you walked in to a movie advertised as an action flick, and the PatronScan3000 determined that because the audience was 75% female, a romantic comedy would go over better. That's BS. But it is exactly what the internet is becoming, with the content that you are shown constantly being manipulated by the "analysis" of your preferences -- analysis that I assure you is quite crude.

    Or better yet, imagine if online dictionaries started hiding alternate definitions based on what they know about your habits and interests, you know, to provide you with a more "streamlined" experience.

    1. Re:You missed the point. by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      "The point made by the qualifier "when I actively log in." If someone wants an internet that is being manipulated by third parties, they can always uniquely identify themselves (by logging in, turning on cookies, etc.)."

      That doesn't make any sense in the context of the posts I was replying to:

      1. "They're just afraid of losing their revenue. Cowards."

      2. "No, they are also afraid of us getting a less diverse Internet experience. "

      While you may have a good point, that does not in fact seem to be what the poster was saying.

  148. Let's turn the tables around by ArcadeMan · · Score: 1

    All this tracking and spying is supposed to be about is learning what we're interested in, etc. Right?

    What about creating a new standard that would allow US to tell THEM what we're interested into? Instead of guessing and tracking everything, they would have direct information from the user itself. They shouldn't complain about that idea and give us our full support.

    I say that blocking 3rd-party cookies is only the first step. Block 3rd-party javascript, too. Maybe that will teach idiots to stop using bloated libraries to do simple things that only requires ten lines of javascript.

  149. Mod Mozilla up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I would give them karma points on /. if I could.

    Ad groups can just quit their whining and deal. It's just making a good configuration option a default one. good call Mozilla!

  150. "...relevant and diverse Internet experience." by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Many of the IAB members' ads and cookies stop at my firewall/proxy. Which also includes the default browser cookie blocker, and two other anti-cookie/flash-ad plugins. I love experiencing my nearly ad and cookie-free internet. So do all of the other machines on my network. To hell with the IAB. - Daemon_ZOGG ;-P

  151. Re:I completely agree with you by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But i was only able to read a little bit, the pop up ads
    for my female hygiene, Viagra, Russian brides, Ford Festiva, hot hot girls,
    and how to extend my pleasure, get a cheap loan, how to refinance, free time shares
    in the Bahamas keep covering up what you wrote. But i am sure that it
    makes a lot of sense.

  152. Not just pixels by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 1

    It is not just about the fact that I have to see ads. It is the fact that the ads spin my CPU, use popups/CSS/Flash/etc. to prevent me from actually reading the text I wanted to read, act as web bugs, and so forth. I do not care about pixels, but I do care about battery life, personal privacy, and being able to read the promised page.

    If websites are worried that they will go broke without ads, they should stand up for their users and demand that advertisers stop pissing us off. Otherwise we will eventually just block ads by default.

    --
    Palm trees and 8
  153. Eureka!!!!!..... by rts008 · · Score: 1

    Q: What do you call 10,000 dead marketers at the bottom of the Marianas Trench?

    A: A good beginning.

    Hey, wait a minute....this may be a revolutionary Global Warming/Climate Change solution.

    Not only would we be sequestering carbon, but eliminating CO2 emissions from them breathing.
    All we need to do to make this work is remove the 10,000 marketer cap, and add lawyers and politicians to the list for a good start. ;-)

    --
    Down With Slashdot BETA!!! I've been around the corner and seen the oliphant; you can only abuse me from your perspecti
    1. Re:Eureka!!!!!..... by TrentTheThief · · Score: 1

      What an innovative suggestion! I heartily approve of your initiative and thing that we should immediately seek federal funding (before we remove the politicians, of course) to put this into action.

  154. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by Zalbik · · Score: 1

    My internet interests cannot be predicted by knowing what I did in the past.

    I agree with everything most of what you said, but not this. For a large number of people, their interests can precisely be predicted by knowing what they did in the past. That's exactly what makes third-party cookies so invasive and anti-privacy

    You at the IAB obviously have NO technical knowledge. If the Mozilla browsers don't block "cookies" from being stored on my computers, I can block them other ways. And will! You have an opinion about something you don't understand.

    But many users cannot, will not, or won't even know what a third-party cookie is or why they should care. That is why Mozilla's actions are a good thing. Third-party cookies should be something that is only enabled with the user fully understanding what they are agreeing to.

    If advertisers started insisting that all TV's had an option that recorded everything the user watched, and insisted that this option be turned on by default, and not have any standard consistent way to turn it off, all so that TV advertising could be more "relevant and diverse", they would get laughed out of the room.

    This is the same thing.

  155. not going to change a thing by greggman · · Score: 1

    All that will start happening is companies will offer libraries that run on the server so they can deliver ad content/scripts from the same domain and business will be same as it ever was.

    This is going to solve almost nothing.

  156. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by Zalbik · · Score: 1

    You say it doesn't work...but results demonstrate that it does.

    You are probably right, but I've always wondered....

    Studies regarding the efficacy of advertising are typically (not surprisingly) conducted or funded by advertisers. And they are really good at convincing people that they product they are trying to sell does what they say it does. Maybe they've just convinced big companies that advertising pays....

    The popularity of Kickstarter, and of many recent indie games seems to indicate that word of mouth does a good job as well, as long as you have a good product.

    What if the effectiveness of advertising is nothing more than good advertising.

  157. Stating the Obvious by daviskw · · Score: 1

    Thank you Mozilla....

    --
    Beware the wood elf!!!
  158. from my point of view... by iceaxe · · Score: 1

    I work on a web based application/service that allows small to medium size companies in our industry to offer the same sort of experience for their customers that a much larger company would offer. As part of this system, we offer the ability for our clients to incorporate third party applications into our product using various single sign on methodologies.

    Unfortunately, many of these scenarios require third party cookies to be allowed in order to maintain two different sessions in two different applications (from different sources). We already struggle with this in the browsers that already have 3rd party cookies disallowed by default. If Firefox goes through with this, we anticipate huge numbers of unhappy end users whose experience will be very negative until we are able to educate them on how to allow 3rd party cookies.

    I hate ad spam as much as anybody, and use all the blockers and no-[whatever] add-ons, and ghostery, and, and and myself. But I'd sure like a solution that doesn't involve breaking perfectly benign features as well.

    --
    WALSTIB!
  159. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by Thud457 · · Score: 1

    how much X-10 equipment have you bought in the last decade?

    yeah, even you probably long forgot about those jackasses.

    --

    the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff

  160. Re: but results demonstrate that it does, NOT. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Whose research? Let me guess paid for by advertisers?
    We are all bombarded by advertising all the time. If more advertising causes
    the target to buy more of that product then you would see advertisers aim only
    at the frequency of their ads and not the substance. The more i target the victims
    with ads the more i will sell, only works to a certain point and then the targets
    start rejecting the information out right. This is assuming the target was interested
    in the product in the first place and had the financial ability to purchase said product.
    As an example:
    I no longer have cable TV because of the incessant ads. Oh sure if i kept cable i could go out and
    spend money on a Tivo or some other DVR to skid commercials but what
    is the point. I will get the shows through some other legitimate source without the ads.
    The point is:
    I don't see the ads (lost possible revenue for them), i don't pay the cable
    company, (lost revenue for them), i don't have a need for a DVR, (lost revenue for them).
    The winner is Netflix or some other provider and me, for spending a lot less money
    and not having to deal with so many ads.
    So tell me, how does this prove that persuasive, incessant ads make me want to buy stuff.

  161. Cleaning up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just checked Ghostery on this page, and blocked the one remaining tracking cookie. It was Double-Click.

    The others on this page are: (thanks slashdot!) --- irony
    Google Analytics
    Janrain
    Google Adwords
    Scorecard Research

    Also running: BetterPrivacy to kill Local Shared Objects (LSOs) aka Flash cookies.

    Because if these people want to track me, I'm not unreasonable. They just need to let me know beforehand and then pay me a small amount of money for it. After all, it's about monetising the web, right?

    +1 for Mozilla plugins and their builders!

  162. Ask us first. by Karmashock · · Score: 1

    If you want to keep tabs on a user. Ask them first.

    Stop walking up to people on the street and putting sticky notes on their backs when they're not looking.

    --
    I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  163. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I'm still waiting for integration of AdBlock plus. Being in the top 10 installed plugins means that users want this feature.

    No, just no. I don't want some unknown person at some 3rd party company deciding which web sites are blocked or not. I wouldn't mind seeing them add a generic URL/IP blacklist which you can maintain yourself, or choose to integrate with a blacklisting service like AdBlock.

    AdBlock actually doesn't block anything by itself. You have to provide it with a filter list, although the plugin comes with a suggestion (EasyList) for ease of use.

  164. So that's a no on "Ask websites not to track me" by Trax3001BBS · · Score: 1

    Or "Tell sites That I do not want to be tracked" (Firefox). I know they were trying to make it voluntary, this says it will be a cold day in hell.

  165. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Results demonstrate that it has a SMALL but measurable effect, that is enough to increase profit. Meaning that there are SOME people out there where this works, but a far cry from the majority.

  166. Your "free" web sites? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Targeted advertising powers 99% of the free web sites you love so much. Popular web sites cost $$ to run. Where is that money going to come from when ad revenue drops thanks to Moz being the hero no one wanted....

  167. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    B-but I don't see ads.

  168. Re:Good on Mozilla! To hell with Ad-leeches. by petermgreen · · Score: 1

    The most recent financial statment I could find for mozilla is the 2011 one. In it is this gem.

    "Mozilla entered into a contract with a search engine provider for royalties which expires
    November 2014. The previous contract term expired in November 2011. Approximately
    85% and 84% of royalty revenue for 2011 and 2010, respectively, was derived from this
    contract."

    Now the default search engine provider in mozilla browsers is google (there was talk of changing it but this proved very unpopular). So this most likely means that most of mozilla revenue is coming from people using google through the browser search box. Google can pay mozilla for those searches because google gets advertising revenue from them.

    So while mozilla may try a few things to reign in the most abusive advertiser practices I doubt they would do anything that seriously threatens the industry.

    --
    note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  169. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by troff · · Score: 1

    Hi. I'm from a country that isn't America and the great proportion of these ads are from companies that don't exist in my country.

    You bet I do research instead of looking at the ads. You say it works. Global economics demonstrates that it doesn't.

  170. Re:Good on Mozilla! To hell with Ad-leeches. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Ha! You had me at "feculent leeches".

  171. Re:6 ways advertisers are ignorant and destructive by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    While this is true to some degree, it doesn't cover all sorts of "research". Sometimes I ask my friends about things they have purchased, they aren't being gamed by the advertisers to lie to me.

  172. Re:Mozilla should integrate AdBlock plus or simila by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    AdBlock doesn't do any of those things, all it does is prevent your browser from sending requests to specific IP's which the Adblock people have decided are serving ads.

    AdBlock Plus (the most popular adblocker) is much more sophisticated than that. It doesn't block by IP address, it blocks by hostname, URLs, and even attributes of HTML elements (type of tag, CSS class, ID, etc). Details here.

    As another user pointed out, the lists of filters are updated often (daily?) Though most lists only block advertising, some also block different types of tracking and those obnoxious social networking links. It is true that AdBlock Plus, even with filter lists to block advertising, tracking/analytics, and external social networking links won't prevent all possible forms of tracking, but it is a good compromise for security/privacy and convenience for most people.

  173. Easiest way to build custom hosts files... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "you can be even more effective and block it via hosts file" - by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 13, 2013 @10:48AM (#44552747)

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

    http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

    Hosts files (1 file @ a faster level of privelege (ring 0/rpl0/kernelmode) do more than browser addons (that slow up already slower ring 3/rpl 3/usermode browsers) as a filter for the IP stack itself (written in C & starts with the OS + 1st request to the net as it's 1st resolver queried with 45++ yrs.of optimization into it) & cached into RAM (as I do it using the kernelmode/ring 0/rpl 0 diskcaching subsystem, or smaller ones using the native but faulty with larger hosts files dns clientside cache service (ring 3/rpl 3/usermode slower though too)).

    Hosts do FAR more vs AdBlock ("souled-out" to GOOGLE, & crippled by default) or Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - they're "Foxes guarding the henhouse".

    Hosts add reliability vs. downed or redirected DNS servers + secure you vs. known malicious hosts-domains online http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ less added "moving parts" room for breakdown, & complexity. "Less is more".

    Custom hosts files give users benefits in added speed (blocking ads & hardcoding favorite sites into them - faster than remote DNS lookups), security (vs. known malicious sites/serves/hosts-domains that serve up malware or are malscript bearing - blocking spam/phish malicious links also), reliability (vs. downed DNS servers or vs. Kaminsky bug vulnerable DNS servers, 99% = STILL unpatched vs. it & worst of all @ the ISP level + vulnerable as hell vs. FastFlux + Dynamic DNS using botnets), & even anonymity to an extent (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's).

    APK

    P.S.=> Enjoy: It's 100% free, & works... apk

  174. Consumer by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    'If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience.'"

    Who says I'm a consumer when I'm on the internet? I'm doing "research." (Okay, some of is naughty....)

  175. That's bullshit! by zeptic · · Score: 1

    Rule #1 is: You do not talk about FIGHT CLUB!

  176. AdBlock = inferior to custom hosts files by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hosts do more w/ less (a single file) @ a faster level of privelege (ring 0/rpl0/kernelmode) vs browser addons (that slow up already slower ring 3/rpl 3/usermode browsers) acting as a filter for the IP stack (written in C & starts w/ the OS + 1st request to the internet it is the 1st resolver queried as well, with over 45++ yrs.of optimization into it):

    ---

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

    http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

    ---

    Especially once cached in RAM (I do it w/ large hosts via the kernelmode/ring 0/rpl 0 diskcache subsystem or w\ small ones via the native but faulty w\ larger hosts files dns clientside cache service (ring 3/rpl 3/usermode slower)).

    (Specific details of its operation/what it does are in the link above + enumerated numerous benefits hosts files provide end users)

    * Hosts do FAR more than AdBlock ("souled-out" to GOOGLE, & crippled by default) or Ghostery (Advertiser owned) do - especially considering they're "Foxes guarding the henhouse".

    Hosts gain reliability vs. downed DNS servers & protect you vs redirected DNS servers as well + secure you vs. known malicious hosts-domains http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ far less added "moving parts" room for breakdown, complexity, "Less is more".

    APK

    P.S.=> Hosts files give users benefits in added speed (blocking adbanners & hardcoding fav sites in them - faster than remote DNS lookups), security (vs. known malicious hosts-domains that serve up malicious content + block spam/phish links), reliability (vs. downed DNS servers or vs. Kaminsky vulnerable DNS servers, 99% are STILL unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + vulnerable vs. FastFlux + Dynamic DNS botnets), & anonymity to an extent (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's)...

    ... apk

    1. Re:AdBlock = inferior to custom hosts files by bmo · · Score: 1

      Four Words, APK:

      Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

      --
      BMO

  177. Hosts = Superior to Adblock... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hosts do more w/ less (1 file) @ a faster privelege level (ring 0/rpl0/kernelmode) vs redundant browser addons (that slow up already slower ring 3/rpl 3/usermode browsers) acting as a filter for the IP stack (written in C & starts w/ the OS + 1st request to the internet it is the 1st resolver queried as well, with over 45++ yrs.of optimization into it):

    ---

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

    http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

    ---

    Especially once cached in RAM (I do it w/ large hosts via the kernelmode/ring 0/rpl 0 diskcache subsystem or w\ small ones via the native but faulty w\ larger hosts files dns clientside cache service (ring 3/rpl 3/usermode slower - saving CPU cycles, & other forms of I/O (bonus))).

    (Specific details of its operation/what it does are in the link above + enumerated numerous benefits hosts files provide end users)

    * Hosts do FAR more than AdBlock ("souled-out" to GOOGLE, & crippled by default) or Ghostery (Advertiser owned) do - especially considering they're "Foxes guarding the henhouse".

    Hosts gain reliability vs. downed DNS servers & protect you vs redirected DNS servers as well + secure you vs. known malicious hosts-domains http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ far less added "moving parts" room for breakdown, complexity, "Less is more".

    APK

    P.S.=> Hosts files give users benefits in added speed (blocking adbanners & hardcoding fav sites in them - faster than remote DNS lookups), security (vs. known malicious hosts-domains that serve up malicious content + block spam/phish links), reliability (vs. downed DNS servers or vs. Kaminsky vulnerable DNS servers, 99% are STILL unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + vulnerable vs. FastFlux + Dynamic DNS botnets), & anonymity to an extent (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's)...

    ... apk

  178. Hosts = Superior to AdBlock... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hosts do FAR more w/ less (1 file) @ a FAR faster level (ring 0/rpl0) vs redundant browser addons (that slow up already slower ring 3/rpl 3 browsers) as a filter for the IP stack (coded in C & load w/ OS + 1st net request & 1st resolver queried w\ 45++ yrs.of optimization):

    ---

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

    http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

    ---

    Especially cached in RAM (w/ large hosts via kernelmode diskcache subsystem or w\ small ones via native faulty w\ larger hosts files dns OS cache service (usermode slower) - saves CPU & I/O (bonus)).

    (Details +benefits hosts files provide are in link above)

    * Hosts do FAR more than AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 GOOGLE & crippled by default) + Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Foxes guarding the henhouse".

    Hosts add reliability vs. downed DNS & protect vs redirected DNS + secure vs. known malicious hosts-domains http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ less added "moving parts" room for breakdown, complexity, "Less is more" = GOOD engineering.

    "The premise is, quite simple: Take something designed by nature & reprogram it to make it work FOR the body, rather than against it..." - Dr. Alice Krippen "I AM LEGEND"

    Since "They're not gonna stop..." - Dr. Robert Neville "I AM LEGEND"

    "Someone asked him, 'why'. He said: 'The people who're trying to make this world WORSE, are not taking a day off - how can I?' Light up the darkness..." - Dr. Robert Neville from "I AM LEGEND"

    APK

    P.S.=> Hosts files yield more speed (blocks ads & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote DNS), security (vs. malicious hosts-domains serving mal-content + block spam/phish links), reliability (vs. downed DNS or vs. Kaminsky vulnerable DNS, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + weak vs FastFlux + DynDNS botnets), & anonymity (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's)...apk

  179. Hosts = Superior to AdBlock by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hosts do FAR more w/ less (1 file) @ a FAR faster level (ring 0/rpl0) vs redundant browser addons (that slow up already slower ring 3/rpl 3 browsers) as a filter for the IP stack (coded in C & load w/ OS + 1st net request & 1st resolver queried w\ 45++ yrs.of optimization):

    ---

    APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:

    http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

    ---

    Especially cached in RAM (w/ large hosts via kernelmode diskcache subsystem or w\ small ones via native faulty w\ larger hosts files dns OS cache service (usermode slower) - saves CPU & I/O (bonus)).

    (Details +benefits hosts files provide are in link above)

    * Hosts do FAR more than AdBlock ("souled-out" 2 GOOGLE & crippled by default) + Ghostery (Advertiser owned) - "Foxes guarding the henhouse".

    Hosts add reliability vs. downed DNS & protect vs redirected DNS + secure vs. known malicious hosts-domains http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3985079&cid=44310431 w/ less added "moving parts" room for breakdown, complexity, "Less is more" = GOOD engineering.

    "The premise is, quite simple: Take something designed by nature & reprogram it to make it work FOR the body, rather than against it..." - Dr. Alice Krippen "I AM LEGEND"

    Since "They're not gonna stop..." - Dr. Robert Neville "I AM LEGEND"

    Why?

    "Someone asked him, 'why'. He said: 'The people who're trying to make this world WORSE, are not taking a day off - how can I?' Light up the darkness..." - Dr. Robert Neville from "I AM LEGEND"

    APK

    P.S.=> Hosts files yield more speed (blocks ads & hardcodes fav sites - faster than remote DNS), security (vs. malicious hosts-domains serving mal-content + block spam/phish links), reliability (vs. downed DNS or vs. Kaminsky vulnerable DNS, 99% = unpatched vs. it & worst @ ISP level + weak vs FastFlux + DynDNS botnets), & anonymity (vs. dns request logs + DNSBL's)...apk

  180. Disprove what I state validly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See my subject: You can't, obviously, & all you have is your weak bullshit in response... lol!

    So, go on: Make me "STFU", since I certainly have essemtially shut "you & yours" up, lmao, easily!

    (Especially vs. dolts such as yourself - considering all you have/"best you got" is replies like yours... you're WEAK - period - and I know it, anyone reading knows it, and most of all YOU know it!)

    * However: I suppose it's not your fault you have the IQ of a potato (& you can't STAND I merely speak truths/facts that the likes of yourself are unable to validly disprove, outsmarting you...)

    (I take GREAT satisfaction in that - especially @ YOUR expense, cretin!)

    THUS, as-per-my-usual "inimitable style", you just KNOW that I've just GOTTA say it:

    THIS? This was just "too, Too, TOO EASY - just '2ez'"...

    APK

    P.S.=> Slashdot trolls: IF you're going to do effete responses like "BMO"'s? Instead, do what I ask above: It is, after all, ALL I have ever asked... 100's of troll "naysayers" have *tried* & failed @ it, & now? Well, as you can see, they are defeated by fact/truth, nothing more, & have given up (only making me stronger, continually - thank you)...

    ... apk

    1. Re:Disprove what I state validly by bmo · · Score: 1

      >So, go on: Make me "STFU", since I certainly have essemtially shut "you & yours" up, lmao, easily!

      Ok, so you asked for it:

      If I maintain a custom Hosts file all by my lonesome, I do all the heavy lifting myself. Before Adblock, I had been using "ad blocking hosts files" for years that were maintained by "someone else" after maintaining my own manual Hosts file,

      The difference that I get with Adblock Plus is that it updates automagically for me and I don't have to schedule cron jobs to fetch new lists or manually edit /etc/hosts. And then I can still add stuff manually should I need to, but that is exceedingly rare.

      You may have nothing better to do than edit /etc/hosts with TECO, but I have other things to do. I suspect that the vast majority of people also have this POV.

      Now shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.

      --
      BMO

    2. Re:Disprove what I state validly by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I use Opera and had downloaded a list of domains to block ads from like 5 years ago. It is still blocking basically every ad. I don't know why you think you need to bother making a cron job to fetch new hosts files all the time.

      It's pretty obvious you never actually tried this and are just assuming things.

  181. From the point of view of advertisers by KGBear · · Score: 1
    | consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience.

    As far as ads are concerned, maybe. Personally, I believe *any* ad is irrelevant - it's not what I came here to see. Therefore, anything that lowers the selling value of ads makes my internet experience more, not less, relevant.

  182. Streisand Effect in 3... 2... by AbominousSalad · · Score: 1

    ...a browser so ad-averse, the IAB is panicking? I MUST HAVE THIS BROWSER!
      -Every internet user ever

    --
    Every trollism an AC posts is prefixed, in my mind, with "A. Coward whined, in a weak and cowardly voice:"
  183. Wrong again (hosts do FAR more too) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    "If I maintain a custom Hosts file all by my lonesome, I do all the heavy lifting myself." - by bmo (77928) on Wednesday August 14, 2013 @01:28PM (#44566415)

    My hosts file application takes that RIGHT out & makes it simple (from 12 reputable & reliable sources in the security community no less):

    http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74

    ---

    "The difference that I get with Adblock Plus is that it updates automagically for me and I don't have to schedule cron jobs to fetch new lists or manually edit /etc/hosts.." - by bmo (77928) on Wednesday August 14, 2013 @01:28PM (#44566415)

    See my app above & what I just wrote: It does it for you. "AutoMagically", no cron job required - AND, (just a textfile edit) if needed, far easier vs. AdBlock & others like it.

    * You FAIL yet again... & per my subject above, hosts do a HECK OF A LOT MORE that Adblock (the fox guarding the henhouse that "souled-out" to GOOGLE) just plain can't & those are enumerated in my link to my program above.

    APK

    P.S.=>

    "Now shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down.." - by bmo (77928) on Wednesday August 14, 2013 @01:28PM (#44566415)

    Considering I, as per my usual, just KNOCKED YOU ON YOUR A$$ easily? Please... take your own advice!

    ... apk

    1. Re:Wrong again (hosts do FAR more too) by bmo · · Score: 1

      >hosts file application

      That's fine. You still have a problem:

      If you had linked to this far earlier in your rants against Adblock Plus and done a less offensively-formatted and /calm/ justification of why your application is better, I'd probably have already downloaded it by now.

      But every time I bring up Adblock Plus, you go on this tirade about how hosts files are better never once mentioning(AFAICT) that you've written automation for this. Maybe you did mention it, but it was buried in excessive formatting and voluminous posts.

      Take what I said above seriously, and people will respect you more.

      I'm going to download your application and try it.

      *looks again*

      Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003/VISTA/Windows 7/Server 2008 (possibly beyond):

      What, no Gahnoo Linux?

      >written in Borland Delphi

      That takes me back a few years.

      The next time I'm on a Windows box, I'll try it.

      --
      BMO

    2. Re:Wrong again (hosts do FAR more too) by bmo · · Score: 1

      And I completely failed at closing my italics tags. :-P

      --
      BMO

    3. Re:Wrong again (hosts do FAR more too) by bmo · · Score: 1

      >The next time I'm on a Windows box, I'll try it.

      Correction, I'm going to see what this does in Wine.

      --
      BMO

    4. Re:Wrong again (hosts do FAR more too) by bmo · · Score: 1

      Update:

      >Wine

      Nope.

      --
      BMO

    5. Re:Wrong again (hosts do FAR more too) by bmo · · Score: 1

      What's the SITES.txt file for?

      Your personal whitelist?

      Because looking at the contents, I can't tell what the common thread is.

      Thanks in advance.

      (it's running, on 7).

      --
      BMO

  184. Posted on it here 100's of times 2012-2013 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Released this time last year & built 1.0++ in 2003. I "held off" releasing it (Why? Didn't want to hurt website revenue but when I saw ads infect others out she went). I used to put up tons of proofs & "dyslexic/ADHD" naysayers that couldn't "handle it"! Malware makers/advertisers (affects 'em adversely) couldn't - Even to impersonating ME!

    (E.G./I.E.-> Changed my posts, copying em & spamming the forums & Jeremiah Cornelius caught doing it by 100's of AC posts screwing up giving him away here -> http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3581857&cid=43276741 ).

    Slashdot now restricts posts vs ALL proofs I can show: Me? I strive for COMPLETE accurate information (suppressing it's bs).

    Fact (Link to app shows it & I challenge ANYONE to disprove it): My hosts file engine does FAR MORE than AdBlock ever could & it's easily controlled COMPLETELY by the end user (text file edit) too.

    * Enjoy it - Perhaps offering points 4 improvement even & I absolutely LOVE critique - why? Makes me stronger! I don't take it negatively, & instead, "turn it around" & do better. That's what I've done since version 5.0++ circa 2012 to around a month or two back on 9.0++ - users, are my BEST friends on this account. Sure, stings a bit but what doesn't KILL YOU, makes you stronger (apps too)).

    On respect - IF someone disproved ALL my points I make in favor of hosts vs. other "solutions" (adblock/ghostery = crippled by default sell outs or DNS)? I'd respect em more: Nobody has. Just off-topic illogical failing ad hominem attacks usually.

    Sites.txt = Favs 4 hardcode in hosts 4 FASTER resolution locally vs. remote DNS by reverse DNS ping.

    APK

    P.S.=> Ports 2 MacOS X (via Delphi XE2) or Linux (FreePascal & Lazarus IDE 4 both 32/64-bit)? Easy - & I used my OWN code - no 3rd party libs either!

    (So if they stop making em or buggy no problem! e.g - 1 of my competitors uses SQLite - it bugs out they're screwed & so are their users - mine won't be!)... apk

    1. Re:Posted on it here 100's of times 2012-2013 by bmo · · Score: 1

      I keep running into this:

      http://i.imgur.com/toJen6I.png

      Hrmf.

      Architecture: Intel Atom
      OS: Win7 with updates
      RAM: 4GB

      Don't know why.

      --
      BMO

    2. Re:Posted on it here 100's of times 2012-2013 by bmo · · Score: 1

      I strive for COMPLETE accurate information

      Sometimes completeness gets in the way of clarity.

      The Bard said it best.

      From Shakespeare's Hamlet, 1602:

              LORD POLONIUS
              This business is well ended.
              My liege, and madam, to expostulate
              What majesty should be, what duty is,
              Why day is day, night night, and time is time,
              Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.
              Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,
              And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,
              I will be brief: your noble son is mad:
              Mad call I it; for, to define true madness,
              What is't but to be nothing else but mad?
              But let that go.

      --
      BMO

  185. Re: Update by bmo · · Score: 1

    Nevermind. It's called being patient.

    --
    BMO

  186. not really by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    advertisers will have to track users using server-side storage and share information agency-to-agency rather than relying on the users' computer to both store data and to implicitly share that data amongst themselves.

  187. "He beat me, 'straight-up'" - ROUNDERS... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    To do Win32/64 ports to *NIX variants: Coders usually have to change 2-3 minor things (especially regarding state storage on disk + network code) - Windows environment specific variables (on a guess WINE dosen't have that down "perfect" from what YOU see & I use it, better than hardcodes, not hard), drive letters vs. mounted devices, & some diffs in the IP stack (WinSock2 vs. *NIX sockets - THIS latter one's the issue imo & experience (since I see the exact SAME when I boot to "safe mode/no networking" testing it).

    Best to play the game "Straight Up" ala -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RiuE1rWnso (one of my fav films of all time with Good Will Hunting, same star).

    That film link's per my subject-line ROUNDERS: I was going to say what it does to you earlier after http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4085051&cid=44566609 by using this from it "You feelin' satisfied NOW, Teddy? Cuz I can go on 'bustin you up', all nite!" , but you "toned down" - good: Rational debate is far better. I don't like being told "STFU", like anyone else, & I do something about it (when I am 100% correct that is & I was).

    ---

    WHAT YOU SAW PER YOUR PIC: Actually a "Good Sign", believe it or not, especially running on WINE & my errtraps methods (especially for WinSock2 pnp split kernelmode stuff moreso than Try-try-catch-Except in usermode stuff, which I don't think WINE has down totally apparently) ARE working right even under emulation vs. outright "CRASH"/abend/err!

    I.E. - She's TRYING, but err traps are stopping crashes (good), but frozen @ that stage BUT NOT CRASHING = good (ping code trying to get setup along with HTML socket streams). She needs to be ported per what I said in my last 2 posts & NOT tough to do.

    ---

    On "brevity is the soul of wit": Yea, heard that a LOT in "KORPORATE AMERIKA" 1994-2009 as a fullltime pro coder, & with dolts as my "superiors" that never did the job themselves, but in technical fields? DEVILS ARE IN THE DETAILS, so is clarity. TRUE clarity. Miss 1 wrong detail? You get the USA today with your "fine fearless leaders"' results...

    (I'll give the arabs 1 thing in their predictions of the "end times" - that we'd have imbeciles for leaders/superiors, all over the place. I'm big on results. I see the results out there economically & politically, nuff said - even though I think they & their relatives the jews are a cancer & trouble making lunatics that drag us all into their SHIT! They are, imo, examples of cultures "gone insane" because of it, & family, fighting family...)

    Yes - the "world today", upsets & scares the HELL out of me, but I still *try* do "the right thing" (hence, my app, for not only speed, but security, reliability, & anonymity even to an extent).

    ---

    * LASTLY - I may not be able to respond to you anymore today after this, IF this even makes it - why?

    Stupid unfair AC post restrictions limits (Oh, put it THIS way: For me, or others on PPoE (not anymore here): Cake to "blow past"... & not TOR or anonymous proxies either, lol... a 10 second FAST way via BGP + 2 true routers - can't DO that anymore, no longer on PPoE connections).

    Why not just switch back? That above & Nietzche: "He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster."

    Hairyfeet & I corespond in email a lot (or used to). I told him about what we ALL know about, multiple sockpuppets on /. & yes, they're here too like everywhere else - he said I ought to create a few to 'defend myself'!

    Yes, they're here, HBGary/Chinese Water Army style tactics upmodding themselves & unjustly downmodding their opponents (& I caught 1, a pal of Jeremiah Cornelius' in tomhudson = Barbara, not Barbie (gone now since May 2012) too no less since

    1. Re:"He beat me, 'straight-up'" - ROUNDERS... apk by bmo · · Score: 1

      Some things I left out because I'm short on time.

      >I don't like being told "STFU"

      That's because I took your first reply to me as excessively rude. Sorry.

      It almost hurts (for me) to read your posts, quite honestly. The formatting along with the excessive length came off as abrasive. I really try not to do that with other people. I know you love html tags, but your README in your Hosts program was better formatted than any of your posts. Really.

      Someone I knew once said "if you can't say it without plain ascii, you shouldn't say it" - much like Jonathan Schwartz's view on Powerpoint (if you can't say it with pen on acetate, it wasn't worth saying).

      >Hairyfeet

      I have HF foed because sometimes I can't bear to read his posts because I don't know where to even start when he gets all conspiratorial, and he's been incredibly hostile to me in the past. I just simply couldn't handle any of his replies anymore.

      >"& beat you with experience", that is, UNTIL the meet me

      Those who anger you control you. - A good friend of mine, and she's right.

      >very, Very, VERY similar to Delphi)!

      Well, that's to be expected because Delphi is based on Pascal. It's been so long since I've had Borland Turbo Pascal here.

      Anyway, off to the downtown Boston I go.

      --
      BMO

  188. My 1st reply to you != rude.... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How's my 1st post to you rude? -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4085051&cid=44563919

    ---

    Hairyfeet & I started MUCH here in fact - he operated under a false assumption that "all I do" for security is hosts - wrong:

    http://www.bing.com/search?q=%22HOW+TO+SECURE+Windows+2000%2FXP%22&qs=n&form=QBLH&pq=%22how+to+secure+windows+2000%2Fxp%22&sc=1-30&sp=-1&sk=

    (Top results = me. No need 4 "SEO" underhanded LOWNESS since it works + is widely referenced & is as simple as possible (CIS Tool = highly esteemed & they've even taken correction + suggestions from "yours truly" for the Win7 model from me)).

    Hairyfeet found out otherwise (troll Jeremiah Cornelius, tomhudson = barbara, not barbie falsely misled him that hosts = all I use 4 security!).

    ---

    I don't get angry. I get even 1st, & THEN, ahead - way, Way, WAY ahead, everytime!

    Facts/truth control trolls every time! Anger doesn't control me. I control it for focus vs trolls' off-topic illogical ad hominem failed attacks & they always usually do in the end.

    I take satisfaction eliciting it from em since they attempt it on me (transparent tactic - nothing like "reverse psychology").

    Hairyfeet does what I do - Don't pick fights but if you do pick em wisely & be right!

    You'll understand him/myself here-> "Fight the GOOD fight, every moment" -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sp3zhgXDDSs

    (I scored on em as a former NCAA 1st string athlete: Best teams ever right in my hometown in that sport & @ highschool levels farm teams they use I learned @ & scored on too! Best nationwide - proudest moments of my life to date, taught me about "fight the good fight"!)

    APK

    P.S.=> Roxette JOYRIDE = hosts: "Hello, you fool, I love you - come on join the joyride! Don't need a book of wisdom: I get no 'money talk' @ all" (ads or malware rip offs) ... she's my 'magic friend'" 4 "layered-security"/"defense-in-depth", speed, reliability, & anonymity with less moving parts... apk

    1. Re:My 1st reply to you != rude.... apk by bmo · · Score: 1

      Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack.

      >How's my 1st post to you rude?

      Because much like all caps, abusing bold is like shouting.

      I just got back. I was meaning to go to Boston Medical Center and didn't quite make it. I wound up going to Mass General. And not for a good thing.

      >You'll understand him/myself here-> "Fight the GOOD fight, every moment"

      Life is enough of a struggle without making it one.

      --
      BMO

  189. Your answer lies within... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  190. Re:Once again, "Team America: World Police" applie by uninformedLuddite · · Score: 1

    Team America: is there ANY situation it's not applicable for these days ???

    Humour?

    --
    The new right fascists are bilingual. They speak English and Bullshit.
  191. Wrong YET again (I did post my app)... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    In my 1st post reply to you -> http://yro.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=4085051&cid=44563919

    * You're "off" today man... & that's ok: We ALL have "those days", myself included (rare, lol, for me).

    APK

    P.S.=> Well, I guess "that's all she wrote" by this point - I can't keep doing this to you: Why? You "toned down" on the illogical, off-topic, failed ad hominem attack of myself & instead you actually HELPED me in the end, with your WINE test (imperfect emulation & has issues, we all know that) & that IF I ever decide to 'port' my app to Linux (or MacOS X, both *NIX variants) that I will need to do what always USUALLY happens there in that case to any dev - WinSock2 vs. *NIX sockets differences (& state storage on disk with *NIX mounted devices vs. driveletters won't be an issue, as my app is "portable" & uses the AppDir native ability to store data, nothing else gets written, BUT, I will have to alter for *NIX final storage/update of hosts for etc folder/subfolder on *NIX vs. %WinDir%\system32\drivers\etc which isn't the same on *NIX variants)... all in all, a GOOD experience, but I severely DOUBT I'll do it (I am NOT in the habit of 'helping the competition' typically, admittedly, but I admire Linux immensely for being a socio-technological phenomenon that proves the world CAN work together & build decent things, freely) - I *might* "Open 'SORES'" (lol) it though one day, leaving notes on that much from above just now & "pass the ball" to another to do it though (getting an "assist" score, & letting THEM score the goal built off my foundations)... apk

  192. Again: Your answer lies within... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  193. And if the users choose to have ... by RockDoctor · · Score: 1

    IAB notes that 'If cookies are eliminated, it is clear to us that consumers will get a less relevant and diverse Internet experience.'"

    Then that's perfectly OK then.

    Don't worry, advertisers, I'll continue to use the internet. And all of your advertising is still going to have to penetrate past my built-in filter telling me that "anyone attempting to sell anything to anyone is a thief and a liar." Enjoy, you thieving scumbags.

    I'm sure there is, valid, useful advertising out there. But it is thin and far between.

    --
    Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
  194. It's far from "all caps" (10/~300 words) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Only ~10 capitalized words, 7 = words like DNS/OS/GOOGLE in caps for emphasis leaving only 3 words in caps = ~3% caps (& title of my app in bold + 6 more words for emphasis too, still mega puny percentage). Between the 2 of them (bold & caps)?? That's not even 10%...

    That's a very small of a percentage of the whole (rough approximate, haven't had my coffee yet - need "consciousness fuel" still... lol, badly! It's only 6:15 a.m. (just woke up)).

    ---

    You noted doing "heavy lifting" using hosts - I know of quite a few *NIX shell scripts that automate getting hosts data done in shell scripts & I have ones done in Python that can do the job also (I experimented with Python 4-5 yrs. back for the heck of it's why - decent scripting language imo!). That all said - you could make it a lot easier on yourself with them.

    Heck - for example? I used to use database engines (MsAccess or MySQL) to do SELECT DISTINCT SQL queries to do the hardest part of all - deduplication & normalization of the entire datasets I took in from 12 or so sources (that's nigh impossible to do manually once you start getting relatively larger hosts file data back combined with that which you had before it too which only gets bigger over time) - consider those routes.

    ---

    * In any event - I have to say "thanks for the help/test" on Linux via wine emulation (never hurts to get that type of testing in, but it ended up much like if/when I tested it under Windows 7 64-bit under 'safe mode - no networking')... I'm pretty sure all that's needed is a port (true Linux or MacOS X port, but I doubt I'll do one anytime soon).

    APK

    P.S.=> Hope you're alright since you mention hitting hospitals - & yes life's a struggle @ times (which is why computer automation rocks - it took that HUGE struggle from me working on hosts file data that spans into the MILLIONS of lines when I import it combining it with that which I already have)... apk

  195. Are you Kidding by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I fully advocate for EVERY person the right to be free of unwanted advertising, be it on the telephone, in their mailbox, or on line. No, I'm NOT willing to pay more for the RIGHT to privacy, the default option should ALWAYS side with the person, the consumer, the individual and allowing those interested to Opt IN to any and all advertisemments instead of being required to hunt down in microscript for the place that allows one to unsubscribe or otherwise do away with unwanted and unneeded advertising spam.
    Just FYI, business models be damned, I have no interest in seeing advertising and consider it a form of Harassment, that's one of the major reasons i refuse to physically shop in MANY different "retailers" who push 'commission" on their sales staff. No one likes being in a shark tank.

  196. AdBlockPlus by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    is a wonderful add-on for FireFox, just installed it earlier this week.

  197. Privacy, IAB, Mozilla opt-in, etc. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I use a lot of ad-supported free content, so guess I shouldn't gripe too much about reasonable ads, but the situation has got wildly out of hand, and the arguments of the "Internet Advertising Bureau" are disingenuous at best.

    What they are complaining about is Mozilla, which I like and use, simply setting "block" rather than "accept" third party cookies as the default. I will remain free to choose if I want to accept cookies from certain sites, and there are some from which I may accept them, just as I accept pop-ups from a very small and select set of sites.

    I have long used AdBlock and other filters to limit the clutter I have to put up with on line, especially the pop-up and pop-over ads. I am turned off by these and other intrusive ads and don't buy their wares anyway.

    Being tracked can easily get "creepy." The New York Times apparently became convinced that I had an incestuously molested teenage daughter living in New York, at least three false assumptions, because my professional legal work very unexpectedly had me drowning in child abuse and mental health issues, among other reasons I don't want my online legal research . I got ensnared in a mail cover and put on a list of Soviet spies and sympathizers in college in 1959 while researching the Soviet-Argentine balances of international trade and payments, and the CIA and others lied to my U. S. Senator and me about that until 1983 and never would tell us to whom they had published that outright lie about me, which they were informed was a lie and could easily have checked in 1959 or 1960. I visit sites and read Emails from political and ideological groups across the spectrum, with many of which I disagree all or much of the time. I've never found a politician or political party, for example, with which I could agree 100%, and we just don't know and can't find out enough about most of them, regardless of party, to make a rational decision to trust them alone with a child much less with the powers they have arrogated unto themselves.

    The Founders and Framers didn't trust an all-knowing and all-powerful federal government. Adam Smith didn't trust concentrations of economic and political power in the "private" sector either. Just what we know about targeted "behavioral" advertising, the incredible data collection and use by the ruthless Obama campaign and administration (and the embarrassingly less skillful attempt by the Republicans to do the same thing), and what we all really knew about private and governmental data gathering, its use by the government for purposes including targeted "enemies lists," should long ago have impelled Americans to demand real privacy protection, but now it may simply be too late to do anything about that or about an increasingly totalitarian government.

    Some of Slashdot's readers and contributors understand the technical side of this better than I do.