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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.'"
They're just afraid of losing their revenue. Cowards.
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.
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.
Apparently what they mean by "Mozilla is hijacking the Internet" is "Mozilla is preventing *us* from hijacking the Internet".
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.
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....
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"
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
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!
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.
"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
From being hijacked by advertisers.
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).
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.
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/
Expert in software patents or patent law? Contribute to the ESP wiki!
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)
I didn't see it.
(thats the joke)
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.
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
"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.
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.
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???"
>> 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.
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 ???
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.