Hi Irvin,

On Sat, Feb 15, 2014 at 5:20 AM, Irvin Chen <[email protected]> wrote:
> "This sounds similar to the feature we heard about in the Firefox in China
> thread, it seems interesting." -- Majken Connor
>
> On the recent discussions about Directory Tiles on the new tab page, I saw
> above comment from Majken.
> Yes, believe it or not, We already have been doing that -- putting
> sponsored tile on new tab -- in 'Firefox for China'[1] for years.
>
> Here is a screen shot of the default New Tab
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/irvin/12525148734/
>
> And the second page of the New Tab
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/irvin/12524776123/
>
> There are links to 2 internet portal sites, 1 SNS and 4 online malls in the
> first page of default New Tab, and numberless links to 4 categories of
> sites (big site, news, shopping, entertainment) at second page.
>

AFAIK, yes, this is what's being done in China. But I think we
shouldn't make a judgement before our colleagues in Beijing giving out
the actual detail.

(Or, alternatively, we should ask for a better practice where details
are given before the product)

> I believe many of those tiles were add with some kinds of business
> development affiliates, but there is no visual info on which is sponsored.
>
> "There are no any public audit and metrics for those tiles selection, nor
> privacy statement indicate that we won't send data to commercial partners."
> Comment by a community member who'd like to remain anonymous, I suspicious
> that we might be doing that also. [2]

I wish the "anonymous community member" could join the discussion by
herself/himself. Mozilla shouldn't be an organization in which people
are afraid of speaking up for their own ideas.

As for the statement itself, again, I don't want to speculate,
especially on tracking/privacy.

> And I believe it's the time to re-check these kinds of "regional customized
> feature", with the same standard we have got for Directory Tiles. Because
> we believe the users across different markets worth to be treating with
> same Mozilla's value, whether inside the wall or not.
>

I think there is one important bias we need to get rid of before
having a constructive discussion: Experiments/businesses/etc in China
are not intuitively bad just because they are in China.

The sponsored tiles in Firefox China Edition can be only as good/bad
as the Sponsored Tiles, *if* they are being done in the same process
and principle. I see people in this mailing list talking about
mission/value/privacy, and I believe colleagues in China (or Taiwan)
can deliver products that reflect the same Mozilla statement in the
market, if they/we are not already doing so.

(obviously there were some tracking issues, or even "do some evil"
incident being discovered, but they are all being improved upon,
right?)

> 而且所有市場的所有使用者值得被同樣的標準對待

I wonder if this sentence left untranslated? It says "All [Firefox]
users, in every market, deserve the same treatment and the same
standard [upholding the mission]". I cannot agree this more. I think
this statement does not only cover user in China, but also mobile
users we reached with FxOS and Firefox for Android.

Mozilla is an unique organization where we ship products to make a
statement in the market. I don't expect that to change. IMHO that's
one thing makes Mozilla deserved to be around for 100 years, shaping
the Web in it's infancy, as the Web will be shaping humanity for at
least 500 years onward, just like the printing press did/do (kudos to
Håkon Wium Lie for the printing press analogy).

Disclosure and disclaimer: I work under Li (Head of Asia Operations)
and he leads the China office too. Opinions are my own.

-- 
Tim Guan-tin Chien, Engineering Manager and Front-end Lead, Firefox
OS, Mozilla Corp. (Taiwan)
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