If I get this right, facebook needs mozilla to get into a browser. I mean this is just a proposal how that all works but why shouldn’t mozilla work with the devil to get money, if they are already getting paid by the Beelzebub. Facebook has the ad network and mozilla has the browser.
Third party cookies will be gone in a year or so and now google and facebook are looking into different forms of advertising/tracking. Brave already tracks their users on the browser level and to me the proposals look like facebook and google want to do the same as brave. Observing all internet traffic and categorize the visited websites and creating a profile of the user to “serve relevant ads”. This means not only those sites that have third party cookies embedded but all sites are then considered to profile you.
How is google’s floc or facebook’s way privacy respecting? (Sorry mozilla, I only speak of facebook, because if you don’t play along, they’ll just create their own browser. you have no power here) The exact implementation doesn’t actually matter here. Let’s say I browse a lot of dog websites, and hence I am in the group of dog lovers, hence I’ll be served dog food ads. I don’t visit radical right wing sites, so I don’t get ads for a steel helmet. If I don’t get ads for a steel helmet, and I am not part of that group. Blabla … based on the recent 100 ads they served to me, they can categorize me and make a very good profile of me. I browse books? I must be an intellectual or whatever. They don’t get the exact website I visit, but they still keep on profiling me. They still get the relevant information. How is that any better? I think all those “intelligent” content algorithms are dangerous to our society. Profiling for ads is just the same as filtering the content of your news based on your interests. You’ll only be shown what you already like, you’ll live inside your bubble and read/see only the stuff you want to see.
Apple recently changed their privacy policy which leads to a crack in facebook’s earnings. Does apple care about the users privacy? No, but apple’s earnings aren’t affected. Apple gets more power over their users by reducing facebook’s power, nothing more.
Back to facebook. Facebook and other advertisers didn’t know I was browsing the archwiki, because there are no bloody trackers. Facebook didn’t even had me in their database. websites can opt out of floc but do all website owners know this? Facebook didn’t know that I was browsing xy websites because there were no facebook trackers. And now they are all over the place.
This all sounds hell to me. Yes I can just use a different browser, I can use librewolf. But can anyone who is not interested in IT just use another browser? No. Someone else probably doesn’t even know about librewolf and will use the first “privacy browser” that pops up.
If everything is stored on my device, the computation is done on my device, what does facebook need to do? Company “DogCo” requests facebook to show ads, and the user requests and ad for dogs. Facebook just brings them together. How does my browser actually know that dogwiki.co is about dogs? Hell, I browse on r/dogs, so facebook doesn’t even need to intercept SSL encryption to know that I am visiting dog sites. They just scan it client side and the result which would otherwise be computed on their server is done at my end. That sounds just like apple’s csam scanning in a different form. Facebook gets more information about me, can profile me much better, and reduces its own costs significantly. How genius is that?
Sorry that this is not a very polished post, I just want to know if I am on the wrong path of thinking here. Sorry for the english I am not a native and some links might not be the best sources but serve the purpose for anyone that didn’t know about it to have a quick look.
Tldr: i think that client side scanning and profiling is more privacy invasive than third party cookies.
The problem is the whole model of collecting and using data to control us. Our interests become liabilities when we are shown what we like plus a little bit of fear, comedy, and outrage.
You make some good points. I say let the FBs and Apples fight it out and let us go on with what we’re truly interested in. Use Tor and try to create the free, privacy-respecting life that you want for yourself and loved ones.
Fully agree! :)
The problem is that many people are not aware of the problem and just letting them do what they do will lead to an even darker future. China shows us for years how our future will be shaped if we don’t start fighting against it.
“Letting people do what they do” mostly translates to “let the majority of people be manipulated by those with power.” They have learned to maintain their wealth by using their influence to get people to support them more, letting them do so unchecked can not lead to any future without such gross overreach
It’s an extra big and unknown challenge to fix other people’s behavior. How about we make what we need and then show people how to use it. The vast majority of people are in a trance for much of their day and I don’t know how to wake them. But some others are awake and looking for ways to break free. It’s important that we make that easier and better.