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Mozilla Backtracks On Third-Party Cookie Blocking
An anonymous reader writes "Remember when Mozilla announced that it would soon block third-party cookies by default? Not so fast. According to a new behind-the-scenes report in the San Francisco Chronicle, 'it's not clear when it will happen — or if it will at all.' Mozilla's leadership is apparently no longer committed to the feature, and the related Cookie Clearinghouse collaboration is delayed well into 2014. Who's to blame? According to Dan Auerbach, Staff Technologist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, 'The ad industry has a ton of people, basically lobbyists, who spent a lot of time trying to convince Mozilla this was bad for the economy... I think they were somewhat successful.' Not a good showing for the purportedly pro-user organization."
You suddenly find lots of things not working. Your credit card goes though the "verified by visa" then shows an error - leaving you unsure if the payment went (it didn't). The google login to other sites fail, facebook login fails all by itself. I tried it for a bit then gave up!
The internet runs on advertising (youtube, google, gmail, twitter, facebook, etc...) and 3rd cookies are a HUGE part of tracking profitability for all online advertisers.
If you're buying ad's and cannot track your ROI your SCREWED. Thus companies can't pay for their servers, programmers it snowballs the entire web.
You want a free & open internet? Remove you ad blocker & help pay for the services you use for free.
Concerned about your privacy with ads? Wait till everyone starts "pay-walling" their websites (eg WSJ, NYT etc) and you have to shell out cash AND give up your credit card.