this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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EFF Says Mozilla's PPA is better than Google's Solution (www.fastcompany.com)
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Mozilla’s system only measures the success rate of ads—it doesn’t help companies target those ads—and it’s less susceptible to abuse, EFF’s Lena Cohen told @[email protected]. “It’s much more privacy-preserving than Google’s version of the same feature.”

https://mastodon.social/@eff/112922761259324925

Privacy experts say the new toggle is mostly harmless, but Firefox users saw it as a betrayal.

“They made this technology for advertisers, specifically,” says Jonah Aragon, founder of the Privacy Guides website. “There’s no direct benefit to the user in creating this. It’s software that only serves a party other than the user.”

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Everyone’s up in arms about a literal anonymous counter, but the other option is the current “spy on everything you do”

How is Mozilla getting flak for this outside of a few hardcore nerds that are welcome to use chrome if they so desire…

And I say that as a huge privacy advocate. In the local tin foil hat “privacy matters” nerd and I honestly don’t see the problem.

And quite frankly anyone that’s said it’s a problem has only been able to come up with “it shouldn’t help them count your views “ which is ridiculous, because it’s very anonymous.

Sooo …. Help me out here, what’s the issue?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It isn't anonymous, it's slightly obscured.

They use ohttp ( a proxy ) run buy a "partner" they control to do the obscuring.

That should be part of people's informed threat modeling. Having a tattle tale in the browser reporting web activity to a third party is a big deal.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

From what I've seen PPA doesn't depend on OHTTP to do the obscuring. This page mentioned Distributed Aggregation Protocol and differential privacy, that are meant to ensure that it is literally impossible for any one party to see your data. Not just "obscured", but impossible to access.

But be sure to let us know what data about us a partner could theoretically view, and how, if you disagree.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago

I see only two data leak risks mentioned:

  1. The user leaks their data themselves.
  2. The aggregators (one of which is Firefox, I believe) can collude to compromise your privacy.

The first doesn't need PPA. As for the second, Firefox can already conspire to compromise your privacy, if you're using it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I'm still looking for some concise documentation about exactly what Firefox sends, and if I could, I would love to intercept that data so that I can send it myself at a later time, with extra details

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

There's a bit in the technical explainer here. But there's really no way for you to add details; the whole point is to share nothing about you specifically.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago

"The other option," like there's only one. Like you can't imagine anything else.

Until Mozilla got directly involved, other option was, fuck off.