Le 12/02/2014 08:42, Jim Porter a écrit :
On 02/11/2014 07:26 PM, Zack Weinberg wrote:
regarding
https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publisher-transformation-with-users-at-the-center/
:
Directory Tiles will instead suggest pre-packaged content for
first-time users. Some of these tile placements will be from the
Mozilla ecosystem, some will be popular websites in a given
geographic location, and some will be sponsored content from
hand-picked partners to help support Mozilla’s pursuit of our
mission. The sponsored tiles will be clearly labeled as such,
while still leading to content we think users will enjoy.
Thanks for bringing this up; I probably wouldn't have seen it otherwise.
To be perfectly honest, this is the kind of announcement that makes me
seriously wonder how this idea managed to survive long enough to get
published as an announcement. While it's perfectly legitimate to say
that the new tab page sucks for a new Firefox profile, was there really
no one who said "hey wait a minute, maybe we should be really careful
before we start talking about putting ads into the actual browser"
before this post was published?
I obviously wasn't involved in any internal discussion with "Directory
Tiles", but I'm hoping that this is something that was already fairly
well-known amongst Firefox Desktop devs. If not, there is a Problem.
There have been occasions at Mozilla where I had a vague suspicion that
someone who wanted a controversial feature simply chose not to mention
the feature to relevant parties who might object on privacy/ethical/etc
grounds; I sincerely hope this was only my paranoia speaking, and not
the truth of the matter. The same applies to this situation as well.
If indeed this happened without relevant people being in the loop, we
need to come up with ways to prevent that. For my part, I've always
tried to run my crazier ideas past a few people before posting it
somewhere more public to help prevent embarrassment (both for myself and
Mozilla as a whole).
This sort of thing has the potential to erode the trust of not only our
users, but our contributors (and employees!).
- Jim
Hi
I think this thread should be cross-posted to mozilla.governance (doing
that on this reply) as this is not just an implementation issue but a
discussion about what Mozilla values are and how these values impact our
products.
I share the same concerns although I would like to know the details of
the implementation before dismissing it. For example if we get a couple
of sponsored ads on the first time a new user uses the new tab feature
and that this feature is not based on any communication of the user's
data, I think I would be OK with that. For me the touchy point from a
moral point of view for Mozilla is the user's personal data, not ads per
se. If we don't leak to advertisers any of the user data to display a
sponsored tile, then I think it's ok with our values to show an ad once
or twice on this page.
Of course by preserving the user's privacy, we can't provide details
allowing more targetted ads for which advertisers would pay more, but on
the other hand we don't need to make such compromises to maximize
revenue, especially since we wouldn't be an intermediary (as we are with
our search engine partners) and would therefore get the direct full
payment for the sponsored ads.
So to give an example, if a new French Firefox user sees the first time
he uses Firefox a tile about let's say a popular online shop in French
speaking countries (like fnac.com for example), and that we selected
this ad for the French Firefox build, then I think it's OK as we are not
basing this ad on the user's data.
If we intend to show tiles based on the user's data (browing, settings
in preferences...) then I think that it is a lot more touchy and that it
needs a wider discussion with all of Mozilla to make decisions based on
what is good for Mozilla in the long run and not what seems good on the
short term.
Regards,
Pascal
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