Olives @olives@qoto.org

Starting new projects is fun, I guess. Milling away at what is actually relevant to them (and what users are actually interested in) isn't as much. Then, at the end of the cycle, they just close those projects anyway.

Mozilla is basically known to focus on everything other than what they're supposed to be working on. Their browser. Whether that's building an OS, some random social cause done crudely (i.e. questioning YouTube), or some other thing.

That's what led to the decline of Mozilla Firefox, their only actually successful product.

And maybe it is a legacy of that, but I also found that Mozilla spent too much in the way of resources on getting involved in random social causes, and they weren't even good at getting involved in those.

Like questioning YouTube.

To be fair, some of it might be that Google has a lot more money, but it is also on them for not utilizing their resources effectively (or until it was too late).

So, I guess that while he might not be that pleasant as a person (there have been quite a few jerk CEOs in the sector), he is competent.

Brendan Eich was an odd case. He had views which weren't pleasant, for instance, he was against same sex marriage (dunno what he thinks of it now).

After Mozilla ousted him though, they largely became irrelevant (through mismanagement) and never recovered.

https://brave.com/blog/intro-to-brave-ads/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich
Remember that Mozilla co-founder, and former CEO, Brendan Eich created a browser called Brave which purports to be "private" but does a lot of surveillance in the name of serving you ads. #privacy

https://brave.com/blog/intro-to-brave-ads/
Another one is the Brave Browser which purports to be "private" while doing all this surveillance.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich
Brave was created by Brendan Eich, who also co-founded Mozilla.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-does-adblock-plus-make-money/ Remember that Adblock Plus made money from their "acceptable ads" program. #privacy

https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-does-adblock-plus-make-money/
We also have to remember that it is not unusual for a service which purports to be about blocking ads to have an "acceptable ads" program of ads they choose to whitelist (which they then make money from).

So, if someone sees Mozilla, a company known for having troubles with making money, behaving like this, what are they going to think?

I think they have a point. Mozilla could easily ask for consent from users but they chose not to. Hiding behind sophistry about whether this is technically "tracking" doesn't really change that.

If it is just an alternate more private attribution method, why is there such a "need" to ship this over the concerns of users? Why does it matter if more users use it (from the outset)?

So, as far as points go, it kind of makes sense. Maybe, someone could argue whether this is the right vehicle for this but arguments for it also come off as hollow.

https://noyb.eu/en/firefox-tracks-you-privacy-preserving-feature noyb takes legal action against Mozilla tracking feature. #privacy

Meanwhile, there is India, where the Supreme Court fairly recently said that censoring porn was unconstitutional.

Which country will be mentioned next? Malaysia? Also a Muslim country known to censor porn.

The grifter is currently promoting Indonesia. A Muslim country which censors porn. Indonesia is a terrible example of internet policy.

I don't agree with everything she says (she's British so that might explain some of the following), like the utopian technocratic idea (which even she seems unsure of).

I don't think it adds anything but it does detract from it.

One I'm thinking of adding to the post.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1745691620919372
"In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up a steep hill in the underworld for eternity: Every time he reaches the top, the rock rolls back down to the bottom, forcing him to start the cycle all over again. Likewise, psychological research on technology effects is in an intricate cycle of addressing societal worries about technologies. With every new technology treated as completely separate from any technology that came before (Wartella & Reeves, 1985), psychological researchers routinely address the same questions; they roll their boulder up the hill, investing effort, time, and money to understand their technology’s implications, only for it to roll down again when a novel technology is introduced."

It's striking how grifters (or people who have no clue what they're talking about) keep cropping up.

The grifter is now peddling his stupid ideas at an ASEAN event.