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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."
Internet sales and related advertising churn a hell of a lot of money through the world economy. I'm playing devil's advocate here, but is it possible that Mozilla saw that there was some merit to what these lobbyists were saying and made the decision based on the fact that as maker of one of the biggest browsers in the world their decisions really can affect economies on a global scale?
Is it? You can still enable blocking of third-party-cookies, can't you? As long as most people can be tracked easily, advertisers may leave us "advanced users" alone. Not worth the effort. When everybody blocks third party cookies, how long do you think it will take for the advertisers to track everybody in a different way? Personally I think we should stop pushing privacy enhancements on people who clearly do not give a rats ass about being tracked. People still subscribe to Facebook and Whatsapp. Giving these people privacy enhancements is a waste. Pearls before swine.
More like ONE organization (Google). At one point, they were getting over 90% of their funding from Google alone. I imagine that may have had something to do with this reversal.
The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
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The cow says "Moo." The dog says "Woof." The Timothy says "Thanks, valued customer. We appreciate your input."
"purportedly pro-user organization"
Yeah right. Someone hasnt been paying attention to them for many years, it does appear.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Why should web marketers feel entitled to additional data just because of the media change. When I read a newspaper, marketers can't even tell I read an ad much less who I am or what I did before or after reading the ad. They have the ability to tell the browser requested the ad, that should be all info they get about anyone.
Digital is, by definition, imperfect. Analog is the way to go.
What does the D stand for?
Dvertisement
Time to fork Firefox and have a totally privacy minded browser , no advertisement , no user tracking possible and no third party cookies.
We need to be secure and free from the tyranny of advertisers and spying agencies. Time to make a browser that have OUR ( We the Users ) interests in mind.
It's time to make a fork and may the man who has the interests of the users in mind win .
The real problem is that sites are starting to expect this behavior by default. Someone with a lot of clout needs to ship a browser with 3rd-party cookies disabled, so sites stop relying on it.
When did Mozilla enable 3rd-party cookies? The original Netscape cookie specification back in the 90s specifically stated rules to prevent 3rd-party cookie usage. Yet somehow today it is on by default in most browsers. How and why did that change? There's simply no reason for it.
Wikipedia?
All of a sudden Jimmy Whales' huge face would appear over your entire browser window begging for money.
NO WAY.
That's odd, because I've been running with third-party cookies blocked for years with no obvious problems.
Because wikipedia does so well being independent, along with all the PR folks hired to edit articles for corporations and edit them negatively for said corporations' competition?
Does that really affect how Wikipedia runs, though?
Sure, their content is often biased by monied interests, but that goes hand-in-hand with making a publicly-edited encylopedia. It would be difficult to crack down on that without at the same time infringing on the rights of individuals.
But has Wikipedia ever backed down or changed its policies because Coca Cola (or whomever) threatened to cut donations? That would be a fairer comparison, I think. Like the Mozilla Foundation, Wikipedia just is offering up a tool and largely leaves it up to its users to curate how that tool is used, for good or ill. Unfortunately, Mozilla is increasingly seen as being beholden to its advertising partners and some of its policies (reflected in their software) - such as the one mentioned in TFA - seem to reflect this. Have we seen similar actions from the Wikimedia Foundation?
No Wikipedia expert, so honestly wondering.
Disclaimer: I work for an ad company.
You know, I'm not sure that Mozilla backtracking on this is such a bad idea. Actually, it may have been a bad idea to announce it in the first place. Fearing the loss of third party cookies (which IMO is not that much of a privacy issue) ad companies were forced to develop alternative methods to track people. Now, the cat is out of the bag and this tracking is already effective on all Safari browsers (which have always blocked third-party cookies - take that Apple haters) and show a lot of promising results.
So all in all, ad companies got scared, reacted smartly and found that there was more efficient way to track users than third party cookies. They can even track users across different devices now. Granted, it is not as effective (in the same scope) as third party cookies, but the added benefit of being able to track users across devices - if approximately - gives then an edge over the old methods.
You want a free & open internet? Remove you ad blocker & help pay for the services you use for free.
We had a 'free and open internet' long before ads appeared.
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.
I have a simpler solution: I just don't go to paywalled sites.
Your first line proves you can't be impartial.
Third party cookies are a huge privacy issue. Alternative methods to track are not something anyone was forced to do. Advertisers have no need to track users. they lacked that with old media and survived.
Personally the law should step in and make this illegal.
Also please take Bill Hick's advice at your earliest convenience.
In a example everyone can relate to: if you don't know anything about mechanics it's ok for the gas stations to fuel you up with shitty gasoline. At the same price. Everyone deserves a certain amount (the more the better in my pov) of passive protection, even if they engage in risky behavior (use Facebook for one).
No, the internet runs on computers. It's being co-opted by advertisers.
Not my fucking problem. I don't give a rats ass about the profitability of online advertisers, I care about my privacy.
Or stop using them. The day I need to pay money to a website and provide them with credit card details is the day I stop visiting a site.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Apple's Safari already blocks third party cookies by default, and it is the number one browser on mobile devices. So why is the advertising industry is fighting hard to prevent Mozilla from blocking third party cookies by default while keeping quiet about Apple's Safari browser? Something is wrong here!
What does AD stand for?
After Disgrace. It's the period of time that follows Before Commercialization.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Verified by visa only reliably works on a vulnerable version of IE. Anything else and it's completely random whether a particular card/website combination will work.
In the end I changed my credit card to one that doesn't use VbV actually it's Mastercard so securecode (I think) because I got fed up of not being charged, being double charged, getting stuck half way through the process, forgetting my password which I then couldn't reset to something I wouldn't forget because it remembers the last 10^20 passwords, not being able to reset my password at all because it didn't give me the option.
It's particularly bizarre because my card might fail but my girlfriends card might work - for the same account in the same browser session.
God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
Original AC here. Your point is all well and good, but for the fact that it is wrong. By tracking users adverting companies make MORE money, not less. Thus, they attract more publishers and more advertisers. And IT FUCKING WORKS.
So stop pretending for a minute that you hold the key to the ultimate truth "people will go away from your business" when reality has proven the very opposite for 10+ years now.
Come back on earth with the rest of us. It's not all pink bunnies and fluffy hugs, but that's reality.
Amazing, I wonder what advertising platform paid for the Internet before this generation of marketers declared themselves essential to pay for the Internet? I can host a website for $4.99 a month, buy a Linux VM for $20 a month. Plenty of content is made by people not paid by your advertising dollars. Advertisers, we don't need you, don't test us.