To be fair, a core argument in favor of Firefox is essentially fear-mongering about google and your personal data. It always struck me as odd that actions many people would call "shady" if google does it are condoned in FF because Mozilla.
Whenever your earnings depends on someone giving you money, whether it's through advertising or a grant, it's quite normal and common you'll be very careful not to upset them. At least you'll think twice before doing so.
Yes, Google provides 90% of the revenue or somewhere around there. But I still haven't heard how exactly Mozilla is doing special favors to Google or is in some way beholden to it.
Mozilla has a contract with Google to be the default search provider for a set period of years. I have never heard of anything else being in there that allows Google to make any product requests on Mozilla.
How come no one wants to say how exactly Mozilla is doing what Google wants?
All ad supported products have bad incentives. It’s the same reason HBO and Nerflix produces great TV shows and ad based broadcast and cable networks mainly produce garbage.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/25/apple-switches-from-bing-t...
Well, when someone pays your paycheck, that makes you beholden to them. Unless you don't want another paycheck.
PS I didn't downvote you.
Besides for the search engine requirement per contract, how is Mozilla's product beholden to Google?
I'm somewhat surprised that was downvoted, as I thought people knew how these contracts were arranged and what they included. They're about the default search engine placement, that's it. Google obviously doesn't get to provide input/requirements into Mozilla product design, marketing, etc.
Do you have any proof of this statement?
Google is an advertising company. It doesn't make any sense that they would sell your information to other advertising companies.
Not only does that violate their privacy policy, but it makes no business sense, either.
Google's in the business of knowing EVERYTHING they can about you, so they can better sell "you" to their customers (advertisers). You are not a customer of Google, you are their product. Nestle, Exon, Ford, etc are the customers of Google.
Their products are AdWords and AdSense. These services network customers together who want to 1. make money from ads, and 2. advertise themselves.
Google mediates this exchange between both parties, and uses data from users to target their ads more accurately.
Calling the user a product is rather hyperbolic. The only interaction with a user is in choosing which ad to serve, and recording if they view or click the ad.
It's not slavery after all.
It's scary, being in the Too Much Information age. It feels so easy to be misled when it's hard to devote the time to properly understand complex topics like this.
I don't know if I feel any more confident in my browser choice (or anything else related to cybersecurity), but... thanks, still? Acknowledging how little I can know about any one thing feels so destabilizing... hoorah for existential crises?
Personally I do still believe privacy is very important. I often take up the devil's advocate position on Hacker News because there is a lot of groupthink on this site. The issues are rarely black and white, and almost never come down to "X is evil".
My advise is to stay aware of the issues, but don't get consumed by them. In almost all cases a site's privacy policy will tell you exactly what they collect, and you always maintain the power to block that at the browser level if you want to.
eg. I use an adblocker to remove social media widgets. I find them clutter and I don't care for the tracking. Otherwise though my settings are pretty light.
I hope you find your happy medium.
Like you said "uses data from users to target their ads more accurately". exactly.
but when you say the only interaction with a user is in choosing which add to serve is misleading, at best. You can't currently say to google, I want this ad to be displayed to John Smith @ 1818 Mockingird lane. But you can buy ads saying this age group, in this city, interested in X and Y subject(s), which if you happen to also know about John Smith, will definitely reach him specifically (assuming John Smith sees a google delivered Ad, which is almost a certainty).