The article links to Mozilla’s press release / blog entry about the acquisition of Anonym [0]. It’s pretty dystopian reading. The last three paragraphs and the summary of Anonym are more worrying than anything else I’ve read on this so far:
> This acquisition marks a significant step in addressing the urgent need for privacy-preserving advertising solutions. By combining Mozilla’s scale and trusted reputation with Anonym’s cutting-edge technology, we can enhance user privacy and advertising effectiveness, leveling the playing field for all stakeholders.
I can only interpret this as the urgent need is money, and wants to sell its "scale and trusted reputation". Mozilla has been down this road before. It was not good for them.
> Anonym was founded with two core beliefs: First, that people have a fundamental right to privacy in online interactions and second, that digital advertising is critical for the sustainability of free content, services and experiences. Mozilla and Anonym share the belief that advanced technologies can enable relevant and measurable advertising while still preserving user privacy.
This is some pretty weak wording for a press release. The economics of the situation are that advertising will always trump privacy. Researchers have successfully de-anonymized anonymised data sets, including medical records. Why would these data be any different?
> As we integrate Anonym into the Mozilla family, we are excited about the possibilities this partnership brings. While Anonym will continue to serve its customer base, together, we are poised to lead the industry toward a future where privacy and effective advertising go hand in hand, supporting a free and open internet.
Anonym’s customers are advertisers, right? The same people who for decades poured money into eroding that free and open internet that we had…
> About Anonym: Anonym was founded in 2022 by former Meta executives Brad Smallwood and Graham Mudd. The company was backed by Griffin Gaming Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Heracles Capital as well as a number of strategic individual investors.
Well, it seems Anonym, Smallwood and Mudd had a nice piece about them written in the Wall Street Journal [1]. From the second paragraph:
> Graham Mudd and Brad Smallwood each spent more than a decade building Meta’s advertising system, which allowed the company to offer granular data about how ad campaigns worked with individual users, often by tracking their web and mobile activity.
The whole acquiring Anonym thing is almost guaranteed to go wrong. Either Mozilla just wasted a lot of money buying the company as it fails to be profitable or privacy will be eroded as Mozilla starts profiting from ad sales.
The companies buying ads aren't keen on privacy, at least not if it comes at the cost of optimizing sales, so I don't see anyone but small "do good" niche companies would buy into what Anonym is selling. Alternatively Mozilla will make money and start relaxing privacy restriction in order to extract even greater profits. I don't see them stopping half-way. The Mozilla leadership has again and again shown that they do not understand their user base.
Firefox is a great browser, but so it all Chromium based browsers. Mozilla apparently never considered why someone might stick with or switch to Firefox, when Chrome, Edge, Safari and other browsers do the exact same thing, sometimes perhaps better. I really want to ask the Mozilla CTO and upper management what they think their product is, because I got a in increasing hunch that Firefox isn't the first thing that would come across their lips.
Personally, right now the only reason I'm not switching to something like Vivaldi is my desire to ensure that rendering engines beyond Blink is represented in statistics.
Chrome, which meant Mozilla managed to scare people away from their own browser into a using a browser which respects user privacy even less. Great job there Mozilla!
> Chrome, which meant Mozilla managed to scare people away from their own browser into a using a browser which puts less PR focus on claiming to respect user privacy. Great job there Mozilla!
FTFY. Both browsers have been pretty bad for privacy for a long time and are more than happy to exfiltrate your data to the respective operators without your consent.
I would say, average user is using Microsoft Edge(whatever that comes default with their OS) on their desktops and a combo of Chrome/Samsung/Safari on the mobile.
While Chrome adverts and fearmongering campaigns are now everywhere and people seem to be taking interest in Chrome, but Edge is probably the most common, as I see it literally everywhere(including public service office facilities).
> This acquisition marks a significant step in addressing the urgent need for privacy-preserving advertising solutions. By combining Mozilla’s scale and trusted reputation with Anonym’s cutting-edge technology, we can enhance user privacy and advertising effectiveness, leveling the playing field for all stakeholders.
I can only interpret this as the urgent need is money, and wants to sell its "scale and trusted reputation". Mozilla has been down this road before. It was not good for them.
> Anonym was founded with two core beliefs: First, that people have a fundamental right to privacy in online interactions and second, that digital advertising is critical for the sustainability of free content, services and experiences. Mozilla and Anonym share the belief that advanced technologies can enable relevant and measurable advertising while still preserving user privacy.
This is some pretty weak wording for a press release. The economics of the situation are that advertising will always trump privacy. Researchers have successfully de-anonymized anonymised data sets, including medical records. Why would these data be any different?
> As we integrate Anonym into the Mozilla family, we are excited about the possibilities this partnership brings. While Anonym will continue to serve its customer base, together, we are poised to lead the industry toward a future where privacy and effective advertising go hand in hand, supporting a free and open internet.
Anonym’s customers are advertisers, right? The same people who for decades poured money into eroding that free and open internet that we had…
> About Anonym: Anonym was founded in 2022 by former Meta executives Brad Smallwood and Graham Mudd. The company was backed by Griffin Gaming Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Heracles Capital as well as a number of strategic individual investors.
Well, it seems Anonym, Smallwood and Mudd had a nice piece about them written in the Wall Street Journal [1]. From the second paragraph:
> Graham Mudd and Brad Smallwood each spent more than a decade building Meta’s advertising system, which allowed the company to offer granular data about how ad campaigns worked with individual users, often by tracking their web and mobile activity.
[0] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-t...
[1] https://archive.is/17c0f#selection-5751.0-5751.246