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Mozilla Pulls Advertising from Facebook (betanews.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Mozilla is not happy with Facebook. Not happy at all. Having already started a petition to try to force the social network to do more about user privacy, the company has now decided to withdraw its advertising from the platform. The organization is voting with its money following the misuse of user data by Cambridge Analytica, as it tries to force Facebook into taking privacy more seriously. Mozilla says that it is not happy to financially support a platform that does not do enough to protect user privacy. But the company is not severing ties completely. It says that advertising is being "paused" and that if the right steps are taken by Facebook "we'll consider returning."

82 comments

  1. Probably a net win by SuperKendall · · Score: 3

    From everything I've read, the value of advertising on Facebook is pretty questionable.

    Facebook is so noisy normally, I'm not sure how people would even see ads apart from those annoying product adds embedded in the timeline view.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Probably a net win by gnick · · Score: 2

      I'm not sure how people would even see ads...

      Depends on the ad. A lot of ads are crafted to look like normal FB posts with only a small "Suggested App" or "Sponsored" identifier at the top to indicate that it's advertising.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    2. Re:Probably a net win by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So Mozilla, whose sole source of revenue is Google, whose sole source of revenue is advertising, is not going to spend their Google ad money to buy ads on Facebook.

    3. Re:Probably a net win by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I remember seeing Firefox ads on Facebook.

      I remember seeing them because they were basically full of lies about how great Firefox Quantum is. Things like claiming it's faster (only in benchmarks, not in any meaningful way; and in my testing, it feels far more sluggish) or - my personal favorite - how amazingly customizeable the new Quantum is with extensions. Despite the fact that the major change in Quantum was breaking all the old extensions and that the new extension API is incredibly limited, meaning that the new extensions are all pale shadows of their former selves.

      They were great because just about every comment on them were people pointing out that they're full of crap.

    4. Re:Probably a net win by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      There are degrees in hell too.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
    5. Re:Probably a net win by goose-incarnated · · Score: 1

      There are degrees in hell too.

      Mozilla seems hellbent[1] on getting a trophy in each of the degrees of hell. They're so busy making themselves irrelevant that not advertising on facebook would barely register. Pity. They had a good browser once.

      [1] See what I did there? :-)

      --
      I'm a minority race. Save your vitriol for white people.
    6. Re:Probably a net win by jimtheowl · · Score: 1

      "There are degrees in hell too"

      And a never ending argument about whether they should be using Fahrenheit or Celsius. Heaven is in Kelvin.

  2. Adding to the problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Truly Private Browsing with Tracking Protection

    That's what it says on the Firefox download page.

    I guess Mozilla don't want that for Facebook users? I mean, it's not like Facebook needs Firefox.

    1. Re:Adding to the problem by Z00L00K · · Score: 1

      I'd consider that we can't get truly private browsing until an inheritance scheme for all browser-stored data is used so that cookies for site X referred by site A are stored differently compared to if X is referred by site B.

      And this applies not only to cookies but any cached content so X sees me as a new user for every new site I access that embeds trackers from X.

      --
      If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
  3. Yeah, that'll show 'em by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Facebook earnings will suffer a whole .0000001%

    1. Re:Yeah, that'll show 'em by tattood · · Score: 1

      The loss of revenue may not have a big impact to Facebook. What will impact them is if other advertisers agree with Mozilla, and also decide to pull their ads from Facebook.

      --
      WTB [sig], PST!!!
  4. I've pulled my advertising for Mo$illa. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I advertise the XUL trio instead. Waterfox, Basilisk and Pale Moon. When Mo$illa (spelled with a dollar sign) stops messing with cookie management, stop sending personal data to cloudflare and restores XUL support in non-ESR builds then we can talk.

    1. Re: I've pulled my advertising for Mo$illa. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not a big pale Moon fan. The author is a dick.

    2. Re: I've pulled my advertising for Mo$illa. by jenningsthecat · · Score: 1

      Not a big pale Moon fan. The author is a dick.

      I don't care much about that. Being a dick seems to go with the job, and Moonchild is FAR from alone in that regard among the people who head up major projects. What I care about is that I still have a browser that supports all the FF extensions I have come to rely on, along with a sane and configurable UI, instead of Mozilla's flavour-of-the-month-and-users-be-damned bullshit.

      --
      'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
  5. 127,000 people 50 million profiles by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So let me get this straight, a hundred thousand people using an app is enough for Cambridge Analytics to query the data for 50 million *unique* Facebook accounts?

    Each one of those who did the survey 'approved' the collection of data from 500 other people?

    And Facebook implemented this, exactly so it could sell as much data as possible to any Tom Dick or Putin who wanted it? For any kind of spying of candidates, election rigging, chemical weapons attack or other innocent purpose any Tom Dick or Putin might want to do?

    1. Re:127,000 people 50 million profiles by Quantum+gravity · · Score: 1

      The personality test collected information of users Facebook friends, and participants agreed to have their data collected for academic use.

      Also the Facebook android app will download information about all your contacts if you agree to letting it find your friends. So you might have a shadow profile on Facebook even if you don't have an account, when your friend uses the Facebook app. And there is no way to opt out.

  6. Firefox: Kettle Black Edition by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The same company that removed the blank tab so they could pimp advertisements wants Facebork to be better. Huh.

  7. Mozilla Advertises ? by Big+Bipper · · Score: 1

    Well I suppose not being on Facebook and running an ad blocker works, though as a user of Firefox, I wouldn't be a target anyway.

    --
    You live and learn, or you don't learn much.
  8. Still not useful by SuperKendall · · Score: 1

    Depends on the ad. A lot of ads are crafted to look like normal FB posts with only a small "Suggested App" or "Sponsored" identifier at the top to indicate that it's advertising.

    Right, but then it looks like a post - where the normal action is to scan quickly and move on. If an ad is not going to get you to click through, it's not very impactful as people's memories are terrible.

    I've seen the exact ads you mention, while they are probably more useful than other kinds of ads I still doubt they have a large impact.

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Still not useful by gnick · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ...while they are probably more useful than other kinds of ads I still doubt they have a large impact.

      I wouldn't expect most forms of advertising to have much of an impact, but companies are putting out a LOT of money betting that I'm wrong.

      --
      He's getting rather old, but he's a good mouse.
    2. Re:Still not useful by tehcyder · · Score: 1

      Advertising/marketing is about more than just specific click throughs. I don't suppose most people watching a TV ad for an expensive car immediately pick up the phone to order one, but there is presumably some point in the car company paying for those ads.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
    3. Re:Still not useful by tehcyder · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ...while they are probably more useful than other kinds of ads I still doubt they have a large impact.

      I wouldn't expect most forms of advertising to have much of an impact, but companies are putting out a LOT of money betting that I'm wrong.

      There's an old gag about half of advertising spending being a waste of money, but no-one knows which half.

      --
      To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
  9. Delete Fakebook! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Everyone should stop using Fakebook immediately. Isn't Fakebook really just a platform for sharing live murder videos.

  10. I'm sure by cascadingstylesheet · · Score: 1

    I'm sure Facebook is quaking in its boots over that.

  11. Are you sure about that, Mozilla? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Can a browser with only 5.5% market share really make that much of a difference? It sounds like they need advertizing more than Facebook needs them. http://gs.statcounter.com/

  12. wait, mozilla advertises? by swschrad · · Score: 1

    guess that means they have a hit/recognition factor of 0. save your money.

    --
    if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
  13. Re:Any group that suddenly cares by Luthair · · Score: 4, Insightful

    There is a distinct difference between using Facebooks API collecting information about visitors while following the terms they agreed to and someone with access provided for research using it to slurp up data on everyone then proceeding to sell it. If you can't understand it then it suggests you don't have a grasp of ethics.

    If you care at all about privacy you should be happy about the scrutiny, these are far from the only actors collecting data.

  14. Yeah, right. by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2

    If Mozilla cares about Facebook's data mining, why do they have a Facebook page and links to their Facebook page on the Firefox page (and presumably other pages, I couldn't be bothered to check)? If they care about data mining in general, then why are they making it difficult to get the Android version of Firefox via any mechanism other than the Google Play store, why don't they just provide an F-Droid repository that users can subscribe to?

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  15. Privacy is important to Mozilla by Kohath · · Score: 0, Troll

    Mozilla Foundation will rely on illegally leaked IRS records for their decision-making. None of this Facebook stuff -- because privacy.

  16. Re:What this means, in short by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  17. Facebook's business model by Dracos · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Facebook's business model is analyzing and selling user data. They're not going to change it at all. User privacy goes against their core values, they only really support the illusion of it.

    1. Re:Facebook's business model by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      ...Oh, I bet they change quite a bit. As you said, their business model is selling user data... not giving it away for free.

      From the FB POV, this essentially amounts to theft - no wonder they are bumping the security force and screening apps, etc. If your house was broken into and valuables stolen, you'd likely increase security, too!

  18. Loose the noise---Loose Facebook by shubus · · Score: 1

    I did! You can, too!

    1. Re:Loose the noise---Loose Facebook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Was Facebook too tight for you?

    2. Re:Loose the noise---Loose Facebook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where did it go?!!??!!!

    3. Re:Loose the noise---Loose Facebook by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Tighten your spelling.

  19. Re:They're just doing what's right. Right? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    See this article: No, Obama Didn’t Employ the Same Strategies as Cambridge Analytica.
    https://washingtonmonthly.com/...

  20. Whole point of facebook is to BE public. by Fly+Swatter · · Score: 1

    Isn't that why people use it? To put yourself out there to the public?

    Or to put it another way, those that want privacy don't use facebook.

  21. Mozilla grandstanding? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Facebook ads are of negligible ROI. Affiliate marketing is what works best.

    But I also question this decision by Mozilla. First, it's not as if Mozilla ads are a MAJOR revenue source for Facebook. Second, people who are giving Zuckerberg all their data on Facebook should be, ostensibly, people Mozilla wants to use its products. This seems more like grandstanding.

  22. Yup, its a Tide ad by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I guess this raise the question, can Facebook survive this Tide of bad press?

  23. The whole point of Facebook by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 1

    is to hoover up as much data as they can and make a profit from it all while pretending to be nothing more than an innocent Social Media platform where friends and family can keep in touch.

    I'm curious what " privacy " can reasonably be expected or even demanded from such an entity whose sole purpose is information brokerage ?

  24. Re:Virtue Signalling by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How? What does it collect?

    Because unless something has changes massively in the 14 months since I worked for Mozilla that is completely false

    https://i.imgur.com/bbqSo25.jp...

  25. and nobody noticed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...

    you think any average internet dope even understands what that means?

    Guaranteed response 99% of the time: "What's Mozilla?"

  26. Re:They're just doing what's right. Right? by rudy_wayne · · Score: 1, Troll

    See this article: No, Obama Didn’t Employ the Same Strategies as Cambridge Analytica.
    https://washingtonmonthly.com/...

    Because the person who ran the Obama campaign says that what they did was different and OK.

    Right.

  27. Good! by DaMattster · · Score: 1

    This is a move worthy of applause!

  28. What ethics? by tomhath · · Score: 1

    There was no ethical difference to users when Facebook slurped up data and sold it to Democrats versus when Cambridge Analytics slurped up data and sold it to Republicans.

    Sure there was a difference to Facebook, but to the rest of us it's the same thing.

    1. Re:What ethics? by Luthair · · Score: 1

      Of course it does, one falls under Facebooks vague terms of service and one is likely outside it, and possibly local laws.

  29. Re:Any group that suddenly cares by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 1

    You don't have a grasp of reality. This is Facebook's business model. They sell your information. Credit Card companies sell your information. Cell phone Apps collect and sell your information!!

    This has been going on for decades. But yeah act like it didn't happen before.

  30. The hypocrisy by Khyber · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I find it funny that just a few versions ago Mozilla was doing privacy-invading shit, now they're calling upon Facebook to be more responsible with user privacy.

    Give me a break.

    --
    Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
    1. Re:The hypocrisy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mozilla's privacy issues are *worlds* away from FB's privacy issues. Let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the very good.

    2. Re:The hypocrisy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I find it funny that just a few versions ago Mozilla was doing privacy-invading shit, now they're calling upon Facebook to be more responsible with user privacy.

      So they've improved and are asking others to also improve and that is somehow wrong?

      How should it play out in your view? People who improve should be banned from encouraging others to do the same? If you've been bad once you should never be allowed to offer an opinion? I'm curious how you think the world should work?

  31. too little by beep54 · · Score: 1

    and too late.

  32. Shocked, shocked to find, user data is being sold! by mi · · Score: 3, Insightful

    following the misuse of user data by Cambridge Analytica

    The same "misuse" occurred in 2012, when it was hailed as Obama's genius and "mastery of Big Data". I don't understand, why anyone would use Facebook — and allow them to sell one's data — but to be suddenly scandalized by Cambridge Analytica's use of it is just blatant hypocrisy.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  33. Re:What this means, in short by mi · · Score: 1

    BS. The distinctions Obama's bootlickers are trying to make in that article are without difference. There is nothing illegal or even unethical about Obama campaign's use of Facebook data, but neither is there anything wrong with CA's use of it. Can we use your FB-data for research? Yeah, sure. Ok, thank you...

    Your article outright lies too. For example, its claim that

    Notice that this was an invitation that came directly from the Obama campaign, which the volunteer could either chose to accept or reject.

    is contradicted by the perfectly non-controversial 2012 description of Obama campaign's approach:

    That’s because the more than 1 million Obama backers who signed up for the app gave the campaign permission to look at their Facebook friend lists. In an instant, the campaign had a way to see the hidden young voters.

    See? Just by having the gross misfortune of being known to an Obama-backer, made you appear on Obama's radar, without your permission.

    And it worked:

    More than 600,000 supporters followed through with more than 5 million contacts.

    Again, it was not wrong then — but it also is not wrong now, however scandalized the hypocrites may pretend to be.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  34. Re:Shocked, shocked to find, user data is being so by Ryanrule · · Score: 0

    Kill yourself you stupid shill. Are you russian? Pushing debunked nonsense makes it likely. Get back in line for your potato.

  35. Re:Shocked, shocked to find, user data is being so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hello comrade, here is your 50 kopeyka!

  36. Re:Shocked, shocked to find, user data is being so by Xenographic · · Score: 1

    I'd delete my FB account over this, but... I never made one in the first place. Selling our private data has always been their business model and I've been using various extensions to prevent them from siphoning the info from me since the beginning because it was so damned obvious.

    The real problem, though, is how they siphon your data from your friends & relatives and you can't do much about that because you never gave it to FB to begin with. So it's about 10 years too late to be scandalized by all this, but hey, maybe we'll at least get some privacy out of it? Though I really doubt that. Politicians have a way of exempting themselves from any impact.

  37. In other news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Mozilla Pulls Advertising from Facebook

    Mozilla has yet to pull Slashvertising from Slashdot.

    Is the glass half full or half empty?
    It's completely empty.

  38. Re:Shocked, shocked to find, user data is being so by pointybits · · Score: 2
    No, Obama didn't employ the same strategies as Cambridge Analytica

    Every time an individual volunteers to help out – for instance by offering to host a fundraising party for the president – he or she will be asked to log onto the re-election website with their Facebook credentials. That in turn will engage Facebook Connect, the digital interface that shares a user’s personal information with a third party.

    Notice that this was an invitation that came directly from the Obama campaign, which the volunteer could either chose to accept or reject. From there, the information went into a central database.

    ...

    In other words, the Obama campaign used Facebook as a community organizing tool, which is pretty much the opposite of stealing data in order to engage in psychological warfare.

  39. Re:Any group that suddenly cares by Luthair · · Score: 1

    You don't have a grasp of reality. This is Facebook's business model. They sell your information

    Actually it isn't Facebooks business model, they don't make any money by selling your information. What Facebook does is sells access to your eyeballs and they're willing to slice n' dice the userbase based on criteria.

    Credit card companies, magazines, etc. all do however.

  40. Re:Shocked, shocked to find, user data is being so by mi · · Score: 2

    No, Obama didn't employ the same strategies as Cambridge Analytica

    Oh, yes, he did:

    because the more than 1 million Obama backers who signed up for the app gave the campaign permission to look at their Facebook friend lists. [...] More than 600,000 supporters followed through with more than 5 million contacts, asking their friends to register to vote, give money, vote or look at a video designed to change their mind.

    a community organizing tool, which is pretty much the opposite of stealing data in order to engage in psychological warfare.

    The only difference is in the spin — one's "community organizing" is another's "psychological warfare". From the same source:

    A geek squad in Chicago created models from vast data sets to find the best approaches for each potential voter.

    In other words, having the misfortune of being a "friend" with an Obama-fan, allowed this "geek squad" to "steal" your data — and subjected you to the same "psychological warfare".

    No, it was not particularly wrong back then. And it is not wrong now either.

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  41. Re:Shocked, shocked to find, user data is being so by pointybits · · Score: 1
    Oh look, it's on Snopes now:

    Attempts at "whataboutism" with a scandal involving social media and psychographics fail to acknowledge that Cambridge Analytica obtained data by misleading people.

    ... In the case of Cambridge Analytica, information was gathered from users and given to a third party under false pretenses. According to Facebook, University of Cambridge psychologist Aleksandr Kogan created a personality quiz which users could download in an app called “thisisyourdigitallife.” Kogan presented the app as a tool that would be used for academic research — but the work was paid for by Cambridge Analytica. Facebook users were not informed that their data (and that of their friends) would be deployed by a political firm hired by the Trump campaign for psychographic profiling in the upcoming election.

    Rayid Ghani, chief data scientist for Obama’s 2012 campaign, wrote: We did not build any complex (certainly not the so-called psychographic) models of facebook users using their facebook data. Most of the models we built were using the publicly available “voter file” that contains information people typically provide when filling out their voter registrations forms. We did build models to understand which of a supporter’s friends we want to ask to register to vote, or to get them to vote and how likely the friend was to take action based on the ask.

    We only contacted the people who had given us access and permission to get their own email address. We did not get any contact information for their friend and did not (and could not ) contact any of their friends directly. All we could do was ask our “primary” supporters to contact their friends and we would recommend who those friends were based on the data they allowed us to access.

  42. Re:Shocked, shocked to find, user data is being so by mi · · Score: 2

    Oh, well, if Snopes finds a fault in Republicans, while white-washing Democrats, that's a real shocker... Every word must be true.

    information was gathered from users and given to a third party

    Bullshit — every campaign involves a multitude of "parties", who share the information. Each of those qualifies as "a third" party...

    University of Cambridge psychologist Aleksandr Kogan created a personality quiz which users could download in an app called “thisisyourdigitallife.” Kogan presented the app as a tool that would be used for academic research

    And he did. And then offered results of his research to a political campaign — is it really so unheard of, that results of an academic research are shared with others?

    We did not build any complex (certainly not the so-called psychographic) models of facebook users using their facebook data

    This may speak to Obama campaign not using the data at their disposal to its full potential. But they certainly had full access to it.

    Most of the models we built were using the publicly available “voter file”

    Most....

    We only contacted the people who had given us access and permission to get their own email address. We did not get any contact information for their friend

    That contradicts the Time's article I cited — and I'm inclined to believe Time on this, because it was written in 2012, before the topic became contentious and various partisans started making spins...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  43. Re: Cambridge not the first, won't be the last by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Which raises the question: do people actually care about privacy, or do they only care about Trump?

    Obama campaign openly admitted it got the friends lists of over a million people who use their apps. Many of these apps were just straight up tricks and nothing apparent to do with the campaign.

    No one cared. In fact most media promoted it as great use of technology to get the message out.

    My guess is that nothing will happen because the left want the same thing around next time.