• XLE@piefed.social
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    2 days ago

    It’s not Firefox’s job to change how Google search works.

    Mozilla chose to make it their job to block ads on iOS. The browser is a user agent. It should not give preferential treatment to any website

    And this conflicts with their own principles: “Individuals must have the ability to shape the internet and their own experiences on it.”

    • BigDiction@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      Okay well Google’s search priority is reportedly 85% of Mozilla’s revenue. How do you think that influenced the product development conversation?

      I imagine that ads rendered directly in HTML were off limits from the beginning.

      • XLE@piefed.social
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        2 days ago

        It’s not just Google who gets preferential treatment. They also promise to provide special exceptions to:

        Ads shown on search engine results pages, including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and other search providers

        These under-the-table deals obviously contribute far, far less (15%÷4 is much smaller than 85%, and that’s assuming they provide all the remaining revenue).

        How do you think [Google money] influenced the product development conversation?

        Well… There’s definitely a nonzero chance that Google is capable of manipulating the development of Firefox behind the scenes, and I consider that possibility to be disconcerting. That suggests Firefox is controlled opposition, either in practice or in effect .

        • BigDiction@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Ya it makes sense to me. Google sets the standard as their money maker and they treat all search engines the same way to create a standard.

        • Lien Rag@mastodon.tedomum.net
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          2 days ago

          @XLE

          Is it an under-the-table deal, or a technical thing ?

          AFAIK ads are delivered in search results in a different manner than they are on a regular website (that is, they are integrated in the search result).

          @BigDiction

          • XLE@piefed.social
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            2 days ago

            While first-party ads (including on sites like Facebook and Reddit) are different than third-party ads, filter lists don’t discriminate between the two. Brave’s ad blocking engine (which Mozilla imported) is capable of removing all of them.

            In other words, Mozilla is going out of their way to add an exemption here.

            • BigDiction@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Yeah dawg cause Google pays Mozilla $400-500M a year.

              I understand you don’t like it, but Brave’s Easylist.to is open source and community moderated to my understanding. It does not have any requirements or standards for implementation.