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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."
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."
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
That's odd, because I've been running with third-party cookies blocked for years with no obvious problems.
humm... why fork?
the option to manually disable third party cookies is still there, it's not just enabled by default. Other than ads companies, big sites also use cookies between their multiple sites, changing that default could break big sites not ready for that change, throwing even more pressure for mozilla not change the default (breaking current sites is always very dangerous and tricky)
but anyway, firefox is one of the most privacy oriented browsers. If you install the add-ons noscript + requestpolicy and/or ghostery you are blocking almost all ways of tracking. add the "better privacy" to the list to also remove flash cookies (if you allow then) and be done.
having all this by default is hard, not only because the user-friendly, but because could rage many companies against mozilla if done alone... now try to talk to google to do the same to chrome (and by the way, disable the auto-submit of everything one writes to the url bar to the google servers)
Higuita
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.
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"
I haven't really looked into it,
Maybe you should, then, before posting nonsense. Neither Facebook nor OpenID nor any of the similar schemes use 3rd party cookies.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org