I'm a Mozilla employee, but these are my personal opinions: Oh, I see. At least the author is laying out their objectivity for all to see. /s Seriously though, people spend way too much time...
I'm a Mozilla employee, but these are my personal opinions:
Mozilla is a not-for-profit for-profit organisation
Oh, I see. At least the author is laying out their objectivity for all to see. /s
Seriously though, people spend way too much time distinguishing between Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation. I would encourage you to view it as a single Mozilla that is separated into multiple legal entities in order to keep the IRS happy. The Foundation owns 100% of the Corporation; the corporation doesn't need to provide returns or capital gains to shareholders, so we can plow as much money as we can back into our activities.
That’s why its default search engine is Google.
This guy probably complains every time we try a new revenue source, specifically to get away from funding via Big Search. Modern web browsers are not simple document viewers. Each one is a full hardware-accelerated rendering and language runtime environment, complete with a JIT compiler and development tools. Those things don't come cheap, and they certainly don't come for free. Feel free to change your default search engine.
I don't know the context around the claim in this toot, but this is just cherrypicking, plain and simple. Our actions around tracking protection make it pretty clear where we stand on the issue. In fact, if we cared about nothing but market share, we'd eliminate tracking protection, because it hurts our numbers on StatCounter et al (they track user agents via JS trackers, not via log scraping). One thing that was supposedly said by one person (citation needed) does not negate any of that work.
frequently partners with them
Other than the funding deal, I don't know what this means.
and even uses Google Analytics.
Our contract with them required product changes to be implemented that allowed Mozilla to silo the GA data tracked via Mozilla properties, preventing it from being used by Google. That feature is now available to all sites that use GA, in fact.
One criticism that comes out any time this is mentioned, is that Google can't be trusted to adhere to the contract. Well, I got news for you: How many entities have you executed contracts with on a day to day basis? How do you trust each other? In our economic system, contracts make the world go 'round.
I actually agree, and I'm hoping some discussion can come of it. I don't think his base idea, that FLOSS and capitalism are incompatible at their root, is wrong and it deserves brain space. But...
I actually agree, and I'm hoping some discussion can come of it. I don't think his base idea, that FLOSS and capitalism are incompatible at their root, is wrong and it deserves brain space. But like you said spitting in the face of all donors will not translate to a better world.
at the moment sure, they essentially are the web. But there was a time before that, and there can be a time after it. "Adaptation" is tricky, philosophically speaking - does the lock necessarily...
at the moment sure, they essentially are the web. But there was a time before that, and there can be a time after it. "Adaptation" is tricky, philosophically speaking - does the lock necessarily predate the key or do they co-evolve?
There's an XKCD comic where he points out that customer benefit programs are easier to understand when you put them in context: We'll pay you $1.27 for your name, $2.16 for your address, $0.59 for...
There's an XKCD comic where he points out that customer benefit programs are easier to understand when you put them in context:
We'll pay you $1.27 for your name, $2.16 for your address, $0.59 for your phone number, ....
Social media platforms are still businesses that need to make money. Is it really that surprising that they make money by selling the information commodity that is your personal account info?
I was having flashbacks to Invasion of the Bodysnatchers on reading this. "Don't fight it... Sooner or later, you'll have to go to sleep." By taking money from Google, Facebook, et al., these...
I was having flashbacks to Invasion of the Bodysnatchers on reading this. "Don't fight it... Sooner or later, you'll have to go to sleep."
By taking money from Google, Facebook, et al., these organizations are tacitly admitting that they cannot function if they persist in treating privacy as essential to their missions, that it is not a fundamental human right. They can go back to saying that they just make the bricks, they're not responsible for the surveillance architectures built with them.
It sounds like Balkan has legitimate, specific, well-founded reasons to criticize the influence of the Big Three. He's been censored and denied the ability to contribute a product which doesn't facilitate surveillance. He's had direct instructions not to offend the sponsors, in ways that make it clear that the sponsorship money is more important than the principles. He wasn't even asking that the foundations rip out Google by the roots, just that they continue to warn users, in clear and unambiguous terms, of the powers granted to others.
I'm not willing to concede any inevitabilities in all this. As mentioned elsewhere, the reasons for data collection aren't centered around mutual benefit of goods and services exchange. In law, you can't meaningfully consent to unilateral contracts, and I'd rather see these foundations taking the Bigs to court than eating from their hands.
They are not tacitly doing anything by accepting fees from Google. They don’t obfuscate that the search results are from Google. If you are a privacy focused user, you can change the default...
By taking money from Google, Facebook, et al., these organizations are tacitly admitting that they cannot function if they persist in treating privacy as essential to their missions, that it is not a fundamental human right.
They are not tacitly doing anything by accepting fees from Google. They don’t obfuscate that the search results are from Google. If you are a privacy focused user, you can change the default search engine on Firefox or Safari, or you could use alternative browsers entirely. There’s no conspiracy here; Google returns high quality (arguably the highest quality) search results and Mozilla and Apple need to weigh 'out-of-the-box' user experience against privacy concerns. This is where they’ve fallen on that balance. As for the size of the fees they accept from Google, I don’t know enough about Mozilla’s financial situation to say if they could survive if they opted to decline Google’s fees and went with Bing or DDG (or if Microsoft or DDG would pay Mozilla anything to be the default). But, in the case of Apple, I don’t think anyone could reasonably argue that Apple would go out of business if they stopped taking Google’s money.
Now, I’m sure Apple is happy to accept the fees, but it would be interesting if Apple were to do something akin to what the EU forced Microsoft to do for a default browser on Windows: on first boot of the OS, prompt the user to choose a default search engine (and provide a small blurb about each option). I think Apple could totally get away with this, and the fact that in 2017 Apple expunged Facebook and Twitter from the guts of macOS and iOS (single sign-in for Facebook, Twitter, Flicker etc. had been integrated in macOS 10.8 in 2012 and iOS 8 in 2014) is evidence that Apple is willing to reconsider their 3rd party service integrations. Now, it’s up to 3rd party services to integrate with macOS and iOS via extensions to the OS rather than Apple baking these things into the OS (obviously the user still needed to add their accounts and sign-in through the OS to enable these—unlike a default search engine which requires no user action to enable).
This is deeply dumb. We want to be privacy minded, not witch-hunters. Just look at the patch the author submitted to Geary. They report it as if the project rejected it outright. But read the...
This is deeply dumb. We want to be privacy minded, not witch-hunters.
Just look at the patch the author submitted to Geary. They report it as if the project rejected it outright. But read the discussion linked, they are trying to adopt a better design, in fact they were already trying to do so. Connecting that to Google being involved in Gnome foundation is hostile and dishonest.
Also, that because Google and FSF support the same event, they also agree on digital ethics and privacy is at best an ignorant and sensationalistic non-sequitur. There is no good in yellow badges or blind fundamentalism.
Google and FB are not exactly the same thing in terms of the value you get for your personal data. One gives you pretty much the best search engine, web mail and maps app ever made. The other......
Google and FB are not exactly the same thing in terms of the value you get for your personal data. One gives you pretty much the best search engine, web mail and maps app ever made. The other... well... they wrote some php code and now you need to be there to keep up with family and friends. And, if it's not landing them in jail, they will do it no matter any moral or legal concerns.
I almost cry reading this. The author's point will probably be missed by 99% of the population because less than .001% may even read it, and of that .001%, most are probably already co-opted by...
I almost cry reading this. The author's point will probably be missed by 99% of the population because less than .001% may even read it, and of that .001%, most are probably already co-opted by working for for-profit software companies, e.g. Google/Microsoft engineers. And irony is a tough sell to the average reader.
Alas, the myth of boiling a toad in slowly warming water may not be true for toads, but it is true for people when their privacy and rights are concerned.
I'm a Mozilla employee, but these are my personal opinions:
Oh, I see. At least the author is laying out their objectivity for all to see. /s
Seriously though, people spend way too much time distinguishing between Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation. I would encourage you to view it as a single Mozilla that is separated into multiple legal entities in order to keep the IRS happy. The Foundation owns 100% of the Corporation; the corporation doesn't need to provide returns or capital gains to shareholders, so we can plow as much money as we can back into our activities.
This guy probably complains every time we try a new revenue source, specifically to get away from funding via Big Search. Modern web browsers are not simple document viewers. Each one is a full hardware-accelerated rendering and language runtime environment, complete with a JIT compiler and development tools. Those things don't come cheap, and they certainly don't come for free. Feel free to change your default search engine.
I don't know the context around the claim in this toot, but this is just cherrypicking, plain and simple. Our actions around tracking protection make it pretty clear where we stand on the issue. In fact, if we cared about nothing but market share, we'd eliminate tracking protection, because it hurts our numbers on StatCounter et al (they track user agents via JS trackers, not via log scraping). One thing that was supposedly said by one person (citation needed) does not negate any of that work.
Other than the funding deal, I don't know what this means.
Our contract with them required product changes to be implemented that allowed Mozilla to silo the GA data tracked via Mozilla properties, preventing it from being used by Google. That feature is now available to all sites that use GA, in fact.
One criticism that comes out any time this is mentioned, is that Google can't be trusted to adhere to the contract. Well, I got news for you: How many entities have you executed contracts with on a day to day basis? How do you trust each other? In our economic system, contracts make the world go 'round.
I actually agree, and I'm hoping some discussion can come of it. I don't think his base idea, that FLOSS and capitalism are incompatible at their root, is wrong and it deserves brain space. But like you said spitting in the face of all donors will not translate to a better world.
Google does not sell data, they sell targeted ads.
at the moment sure, they essentially are the web. But there was a time before that, and there can be a time after it. "Adaptation" is tricky, philosophically speaking - does the lock necessarily predate the key or do they co-evolve?
There's an XKCD comic where he points out that customer benefit programs are easier to understand when you put them in context:
We'll pay you $1.27 for your name, $2.16 for your address, $0.59 for your phone number, ....
Social media platforms are still businesses that need to make money. Is it really that surprising that they make money by selling the information commodity that is your personal account info?
I was having flashbacks to Invasion of the Bodysnatchers on reading this. "Don't fight it... Sooner or later, you'll have to go to sleep."
By taking money from Google, Facebook, et al., these organizations are tacitly admitting that they cannot function if they persist in treating privacy as essential to their missions, that it is not a fundamental human right. They can go back to saying that they just make the bricks, they're not responsible for the surveillance architectures built with them.
It sounds like Balkan has legitimate, specific, well-founded reasons to criticize the influence of the Big Three. He's been censored and denied the ability to contribute a product which doesn't facilitate surveillance. He's had direct instructions not to offend the sponsors, in ways that make it clear that the sponsorship money is more important than the principles. He wasn't even asking that the foundations rip out Google by the roots, just that they continue to warn users, in clear and unambiguous terms, of the powers granted to others.
I'm not willing to concede any inevitabilities in all this. As mentioned elsewhere, the reasons for data collection aren't centered around mutual benefit of goods and services exchange. In law, you can't meaningfully consent to unilateral contracts, and I'd rather see these foundations taking the Bigs to court than eating from their hands.
They are not tacitly doing anything by accepting fees from Google. They don’t obfuscate that the search results are from Google. If you are a privacy focused user, you can change the default search engine on Firefox or Safari, or you could use alternative browsers entirely. There’s no conspiracy here; Google returns high quality (arguably the highest quality) search results and Mozilla and Apple need to weigh 'out-of-the-box' user experience against privacy concerns. This is where they’ve fallen on that balance. As for the size of the fees they accept from Google, I don’t know enough about Mozilla’s financial situation to say if they could survive if they opted to decline Google’s fees and went with Bing or DDG (or if Microsoft or DDG would pay Mozilla anything to be the default). But, in the case of Apple, I don’t think anyone could reasonably argue that Apple would go out of business if they stopped taking Google’s money.
Now, I’m sure Apple is happy to accept the fees, but it would be interesting if Apple were to do something akin to what the EU forced Microsoft to do for a default browser on Windows: on first boot of the OS, prompt the user to choose a default search engine (and provide a small blurb about each option). I think Apple could totally get away with this, and the fact that in 2017 Apple expunged Facebook and Twitter from the guts of macOS and iOS (single sign-in for Facebook, Twitter, Flicker etc. had been integrated in macOS 10.8 in 2012 and iOS 8 in 2014) is evidence that Apple is willing to reconsider their 3rd party service integrations. Now, it’s up to 3rd party services to integrate with macOS and iOS via extensions to the OS rather than Apple baking these things into the OS (obviously the user still needed to add their accounts and sign-in through the OS to enable these—unlike a default search engine which requires no user action to enable).
This is deeply dumb. We want to be privacy minded, not witch-hunters.
Just look at the patch the author submitted to Geary. They report it as if the project rejected it outright. But read the discussion linked, they are trying to adopt a better design, in fact they were already trying to do so. Connecting that to Google being involved in Gnome foundation is hostile and dishonest.
Also, that because Google and FSF support the same event, they also agree on digital ethics and privacy is at best an ignorant and sensationalistic non-sequitur. There is no good in yellow badges or blind fundamentalism.
Google and FB are not exactly the same thing in terms of the value you get for your personal data. One gives you pretty much the best search engine, web mail and maps app ever made. The other... well... they wrote some php code and now you need to be there to keep up with family and friends. And, if it's not landing them in jail, they will do it no matter any moral or legal concerns.
I almost cry reading this. The author's point will probably be missed by 99% of the population because less than .001% may even read it, and of that .001%, most are probably already co-opted by working for for-profit software companies, e.g. Google/Microsoft engineers. And irony is a tough sell to the average reader.
Alas, the myth of boiling a toad in slowly warming water may not be true for toads, but it is true for people when their privacy and rights are concerned.