Misconceptions about Firefox's Privacy Preserving Ad Measurement (opens in new tab)

There were plenty of people who actually did not understand though. For example, I've seen people claim it's Google's Topics API, or that it was Anonym technology.

In other words: just because you understand a thing doesn't mean everyone understands the thing :)

Sadly that's the common approach nowadays - you can't have an opposite opinion to anything. "I am right and you're morally, ethically, spiritually, physically, positively, absolutely . . . wrong and thus, let me educate you."

People don't want any metrics being collected - that's the point being made by many those who criticize this feature. And Mozilla in the last years eroded trust of their userbase in various ways - remember Mr Robot "experiment" for example? Not mention that introduction of this feature arrived after publishing information that they purchased an ad tech company that's "focused on privacy", created by... former Meta executives.

Firefox landing page comes with such text nowadays:

> Get the browser that protects what’s important

> No shady privacy policies or back doors for advertisers. Just a lightning fast browser that doesn’t sell you out.

I think they should have guts and remove it already because at this point, this is just a false advertising.

I was with Firefox when it was still Phoenix (still using Mozilla Suite at that time) and honestly, it's really sad to see how this project and company from an ally become the enemy after 20 years.

I see this not as compromising with the ad industry, but as giving regulators another stick to beat the ad industry with to get them to stop user surveillance.