Mozilla in Hot Water Over PPA - Disable it in Firefox to Protect Your Privacy!

[@3amael]

Engineers build cool stuff, users make it popular, executive vultures start to cause decay. Same old story everytime!

[@mica7191]

Privacy paranoids and switch-to enthusiasts are eating my nerves

[@toya_senpai2470]

​@@mica7191good goy

[@arnerademacker]

@@mica7191Privacy is important. The fact that you are thinking otherwise is showing that the lobbying is working

[@mica7191]

@@arnerademacker am not someone to click a dumbass link and screw my pc...

[@arnerademacker]

@@mica7191 That’s unfortunately completely irrelevant to the problem at hand. It does not matter what you click or don’t click.

[@billyguthrie3176]

I been telling people this for 2 months an they kept calling me a liar. They bought their own AD company an then added this PPA feature under the guise of privacy when it was really to push their AD's. It collects your data and shares it with their ad company as well as other ad company's.

[@fvrrljr]

@@charlesdoesmore5488

[@20NewJourney23]

@@charlesdoesmore5488 How is @billytuthrie3176 a liar? They speak the truth.

[@PersonausdemAll]

​@charlesdoesmore5488 no, u!

[@KJ-xt3yu]

go through all the settings tabs and read through the options, theres alooooot layered into it throughout,(example) advertisements, experamental programs, data collection, app useage if in windows; there is a crap tun of things to toggle on and off, best option ive figured is a vm setup and than setup golden images configured once and than copied/spin-up any number of vm's for any os you have configured

[@_GhostMiner]

*i HAVE been

[@thepureheartofdark]

It's enable by default. That means they gave themselves permission to collect some data before it can be disabled. I know it sound like a minor thing, but companies have shown they will take a mile when one gives them an inch.

[@Mordecrox]

And my gripe is, Mozilla didn't even ask for this inch. Edge is slowly replacing Chrome for users who don't accept Firefox and government pulling support from Chrome and specifically endorsing anything but is a nail in the coffin... And Mozilla seems bent to lose the trust they just regained in those orgs.

[@Smartcom5]

​@@Mordecrox Firefox' downward spiral and decline has been going on since well over a full-blown decade. In fact, it's in decline since 15 years now, thanks to in no other part but Mozilla's costumer-hostile and privacy-invasive behaviour and utter neglect of customers' wishes and opinions. Mozilla has been pushing their thing mercilessly since a decade and they have been shoving their extreme exploitation of their customer-bases' privacy and information-value down their user's throat for good since a decade, no matter what market share losses. Yeah, now Edge replaces Firefox. So we're just replacing one evil (Mozilla) with another (Microsoft). Since Microsoft has been nothing but outrageous with their even worse privacy-invasion ever since, especially on everything Edge (de-facto ransomware).

[@nicoleking772]

I have learned that I HAVE TO BE constantly vigilant. I HAVE TO keep up on my settings. The BIG TECH Monopolies are not my friend and do not look out for my interests

[@stirpsromana]

Thank you for the heads up, just disabled it.

[@guessundheit6494]

I turned it OFF. A firefox update came in. They TURNED IT ON AGAIN without my consent.

[@TessaBain]

Just turn off the entire data collection setting. Everyone who has data collection off entirely has that set to off by default because data collection is required to be on for it to be. If they're turning it back on, it's because you're allowing them to by not turning all of it off like you should. When I saw this video and went to go check, it was already off because all of the other stuff is off too and has been since probably 20 seconds after I first installed it Because why would anyone let them take any data on them? I've gone through multiple updates and it didn't get turned on which means you must be doing something wrong, like letting them collect any data in the first place.

[@Corteum]

Just uninstall it and install something like Mullvad or LibreWolf

[@mal2ksc]

And that's why they just lost the bug and crash data I previously allowed them to collect. Now they get absolutely nothing, ever. It only takes a moment to lose trust that took years to build.

[@Corteum]

@@TessaBain Firefox is moe bloated than ever now. Takes up shxt loads of ram and cpu resources when a few tabs are open, even when idle. it's ridicukoous.

[@ivoryowl]

There's no point in having ad data collection enabled if you're going to be using an ad-blocker anyway. I mean, what kind of measurement are they going to get? You're not going to see those ads, much less interact with them.

[@lussor1]

Most users dont install it

[@MatthijsvanDuin]

If the ad gets blocked then no impression will be registered hence PPA will not trigger in the first place.

[@Mordecrox]

Plus we know they don't use ads to improve experience, the ONE DAY an ad proved useful (we already bought something but an ad showed the same thing cheaper so we requested a refund and rebuy at the ad discount) we kept getting ads about this very specific item for months when for all intents and purposes every data collection service knew we owned one already, and no I ain't buying a $1500 velvet couch every week. So this argument about they knowing if the ad resulted in a conversion is bogus because I know they don't use that data.

[@darrennew8211]

@@Mordecrox They want to know if 1 in 1000 people click thru, or one in 3000 people click thru. "Half of all my advertising budget is wasted, but I don't know which half." Funny how things like newspapers and television managed to last so long without measuring conversions, isn't it?

[@SgtRamen69]

Weird move from Firefox, but then again anyone who cares about privacy has data collection turned off anyway which automatically disables PPA as well.

[@gucky4717]

That option is not only deactivated for me, it is even greyed out, because I set my privacy options higher then standard.

[@holedplot]

Don't you need to setup custom DNS for this?

[@gucky4717]

@@holedplot I don't use a custom DNS, maybe I should. I looked through the settings and I honestly don't know why it is greyed out. It might be because of the country I am in.

[@n8chz]

Privacy preserving ad measurement? What fresh Newspeak is this anyway?

[@AlcatelVelikiy]

Good info though I dont think its that big of a deal. FF isnt meant to block all trackers out of the box/it can be disabled. Still better than chromium based browsers storing your saved passwords in plain text even with a master password 🤣🤣

[@theatomicpunkkid]

From the beginning something inside just told me that saving passwords with Google was a very bad plan wow, plain text documents. Their keyboard or something related also records everything you say the audio and writes the text.

[@AlcatelVelikiy]

@@theatomicpunkkid Well, it's not plain text, technically they are "encrypted"...it's just that anyone with the file can decrypt it

[@patrickbuswell]

Firefox getting ready for the end of funding by Google?

[@thesilentgod7863]

Probably or it’s just greed cus they have been building up to this for a while

[@claycassin8437]

Yeah, I turned that off immediately when it showed up. I check my settings after every update, and turn off anything new that even smacks of telemetry.

[@LTPottenger]

We definitely need browsers to hard fork from firefox and not look back, these people at mozilla are all corporate owned. Using Zen now, seems to be the only firefox based browser that doesn't break security functions like keyfobs working right. Hope they are keeping garbage like this out!

[@masterTigress96]

What about Waterfox? Has been working really nice for me

[@metalema6]

Should be illegal to have these options on by default. But politicians are idiots who don't want to understand these issues

[@steffenrumpel2784]

There is a good chance that, in the EU, it actually is illegal. Obviously, it depends on the actual details. We'll see.

[@MatthijsvanDuin]

​@@steffenrumpel2784 I don't think it is since no personally identifiable information is ever shared with Mozilla or any third party, not even in anonymized form. The only data that the PPA aggregator obtains (and forwards to the website that requested the tracking) is aggregate statistics

[@MilDarty]

No they know. They want it. They get money for it

[@Dhalin]

I dunno, I mean if it tracks how many people actually click on ads, it might be beneficial to us if we show all of these ad companies that we almost never click on ads, and that ads are actually almost useless and that they should stop running them because nobody wants to see them.

[@GazzaBoo]

Never trust any browser to have your best interests in mind. Money is always more important to them and always will be.

[@BowsettesFury]

Stopped using it altogether months ago.

[@goodfortunetoyou]

if you check open internet sockets after opening firefox, but without going to a website, you'll notice they connect to IP addresses owned by Amazon, Google, Microsoft, CDNs, etc... on startup, even with the advertising off.

[@aliancemd]

Get your tinfoil hat off. Companies don’t self host any more, obviously it will connect to things like AWS, even for software updates check

[@user-yh8dg3wq6i]

It is in every website and app. You need to disable it manually. There should be a law to irradiate targeted advertisement.

[@TruthWielders]

Thanks for that Bren, spot on !

[@showxating9885]

Mine was in "Advanced Tracking Protection" listed as "tell websites not to sell and share data"

[@GackFinder]

Also make sure that the dom.private-attribution.submission.enabled setting in about:config is set to false.

[@mortwin6054]

were would you find that ? :)

[@GackFinder]

@@mortwin6054 Write about:config in the URL bar and press enter.

[@freerice9595]

​@@mortwin6054 read the last 6 words of his message

[@TessaBain]

​@@mortwin6054Their comment tells you where to find it.

[@PainterVierax]

@@mortwin6054 type about:config in the url bar. type about:about for the main menu of all features.

[@CCJ1998]

As a Linux User when you have PPA in your title I thought at first their PPA that feeds updates to Debian and Ubuntu users was compromised. BTW most Linux distros disable all those settings by default.

[@tidjane2001]

I thought the same.

[@wolphin732]

Already had "Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla" set... so already disabled.

[@amortalbeing]

there must be mandatory notification where they must disclose all privacy related chNged upfront and after update is done and disable them by default

[@xwinglover]

If you use Windows or Mac, iOS or Android you are sharing much much more than Firefox would be collecting.

[@TakaChan569]

This matters so little to most people, he'll just being on KZbin is worse.

[@zetectic7968]

Have had this turned off for a while. Not sure where I got the info to disable it.

[@JimJimmington-e8i]

You are probably like me. You install something and go into settings immediately to look for anything resembling "phone home" options. I've never had this feature enabled because of that.

[@Segphalt]

​@@JimJimmington-e8i Yeah but a big issue comes when you already have the software installed. This "feature" was released in July, so even though I have the exact same habit I don't however go check them again with every single update. I probably wouldn't have noticed this till I formatted my machine and installed it again had the controversy not appeared. Now I just get to do this all the time, or maybe I'll just switch to librewolf for my Firefox based browser have to see if the feature is there at all let alone enabled by default.

[@Johncw87]

I think if you disable "Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla", it prevents this setting from being turned on at all, even if you try to enable it. Notice how it got greyed out in the video. I never had to disable this "ad measurement" setting because I already disabled sending anything to Mozilla.

[@kc1858]

Same here When you install programs and apps, you sorta just go through all the settings and adjust accordingly

[@aurelienlux]

⁠@@Johncw87 Yeah this is exactly the case, for me the PPA setting never got enabled because I’ve had the technical and interaction data submission disabled from the time I installed Firefox. Though I still went and also changed the relevant setting in about:config just to try and make sure it can’t ever be enabled in the future.

[@muslimjojo]

I would have never knew this without seeing this video

[@flamindigo]

another fine example of tech companies being invasive in the false name of our interests, but really to boost their revenue at our expense.

Im sure the guys at librewolf will have forced this off, so if you're at all concerned about this, that is a good drop-in replacement. Some of the privacy features are a bit extreme, but you are free to turn the prefs back on again as you wish.

[@bobbymoss6160]

Funny, I already have those data collection boxes unchecked...

[@cinemaipswich4636]

And within one day Mozilla Firefox tweaked this setting, and the "Allow Firefox to install and run studies" feature is not "un-ticked" (actually ticked). I will now un-tick that one too.

[@andreasplosky8516]

I didn't trust it from the start. Disabled it immediately.

[@DaftdogUK]

Running FF 130 on Linux, on my install it shows in the menu but is off and greyed out and it cannot be selected at all. I'm in the UK.

[@mamertens99]

See 3:40. Same here, because by default I disagree to data collection.

[@lylluzzos]

Some Linux distros could make changes in the software to enhance privacy. For example, Debian disable auto-update feature because apt will take care of updating the Firefox packages.

[@lussor1]

Your distro package did it

[@renefrijhoff2484]

@@lussor1 Not so sure about that. I run FF 130 on W10 and it was by default off. I live in The Netherlands.

[@PainterVierax]

@@lylluzzos Debian makes a bunch of privacy changes, even on the ESR branch.

[@Shadic-wc4ww]

Thank you, I had no idea about this

[@kuchesezik]

unfortunately this isn't the first time. good thing there are forks.

[@MatthijsvanDuin]

2:15 That's a weird choice of words. Obviously Firefox (the browser) can track user behaviour on websites, assuming that user is using Firefox.. If you meant that PPA allows _Mozilla_ (the organization) to track individual user behaviour then you're simply wrong, PPA is specifically designed to prevent that. To limit the amount of trust required they use multi-party computation to split the aggregation computation between two aggregation services, one run by Mozilla and the other by the ISRG (the non-profit orga that also created Let's Encrypt), such that privacy is preserved as long as at least one of the two remains honest. I hadn't heard of PPA and it honestly looks like a neat technology experiment (which is all it is right now afaict). I understand why it's making people uncomfortable, especially those that only read headlines and don't dig into the details), but it does make sense that by building a mechanism for performing ad-attribution measurement without user privacy invasion, they remove the "legitimate need" excuse for privacy-violating tracking done for the same purpose, potentially making it easier to lobby against such tracking.

[@darrennew8211]

Yet, oddly enough, newspapers and TV lasted decades if not centuries without ad attribution.

[@TessaBain]

You are basically implying that they just should have inherently been able to track TV usage statistics. But they couldn't, that system was entirely opt-in. And still is. No tracking is necessary.

[@darrennew8211]

@@TessaBain That's my point. Attribution is *not* necessary for advertisers. The only reason anyone cares about ad blockers today is because it's suddenly possible to track who sees what ads when it never was before. Nobody selling you a newspaper cared whether you, personally, read any particular ad. And now that we *do* have attribution, we have fake news, click bait, and content farms.

[@nerijus7]

Every browser has is flaws, even firefox.

[@billyguthrie3176]

but firefox is throwing itself in the dumper with it's user just to try an get out from under Googles thumb an that is unacceptable.

[@mactep1]

If they don't remove it, they don't consider it a flaw, if they don't consider this type of thing a flaw, why should i trust them not to do it again?

[@danibell106]

They already have such a low market share and privacy is pretty much the only thing that makes them a bit better than Chrome, and now they even throw that in the trash

[@Terra101]

With this mindset, nothing would ever get better.

[@0AThijs]

Yet firefox users shame others all the time. No FREE browser that is ran by a company is sucure.

[@dreammix9430]

Thanks for this!

[@yukko_parra]

thanks for the reminder

[@MrMarbles]

keep us posted bro

[@Palmit_]

mines greyed out already. and can't be turned on. i think its because i choose the options above that checkbox to completely disallow firefox data collection and feedback. i dont know for certain. I also selected the option to 'tell website not to track' and do not 'sell or share my data' .. again i dont know. but the web preference optiobn is completely greyed out and i can't change it.

[@brentech]

That's why.

[@Palmit_]

@@brentech Thanx :)

[@cocytusdedi6676]

I don't see the problem, as Mozilla says, it does seem 'privacy-preserving' as it doesn't collect specific information about you, no data is attributed to your actions specifically, just the actions of general users. I'm all for privacy, don't get me wrong, but this just does simply seem to preserving privacy as it says.

[@katzicael]

Every firefox update, the first thing I do is check the privacy/security tab to see if they've turned collection/use stuff back on. It's 50/50 if they do.

[@TessaBain]

That just sounds like you are deleting installs and clearing profiles and then reinstalling. I have been using Firefox since Netscape went under and I have never had to re-disable things (outside of fresh installs on new devices). If every single update was 50-50, then I could have won the lottery like four times in a row I'm so good at beating the odds. In reality, no one is that lucky. Meaning you're either lying or doing something wrong. Although, I guess there is the possibility that you're constantly getting new devices, but why in that case, and why are you counting new device setups as a time you had to re-disable something, you had never disabled before on that setup? Since that just seems incredibly stupid for someone to ever do, I'm going to assume lying or doing something wrong because that just makes more sense.

[@fancitickler]

Thanks. Just disabled it a few moments ago.

[@sealsharp]

"Allow websites..." No.

[@StephenRansom-yj6dd]

I just checked and I'm on 131.0 and all options within both "Firefox Data Collection and Use" and "Web Site Advertising Preferences" sections are (pre?)set to off.

[@AJsWorld]

Safari on MacOS has the same thing and it's also enabled by default. i don't know if it works exactly the same as the FF implementation, but I believe it's the same concept. I was under the impression from reading Apple's documentation on the feature that it only applies if you interact, i.e. click on an advert.

[@meppeorga]

Shout out to fellow Librewolf, Waterfox and Floorp users

[@Teh-Penguin]

Cheers for that!

[@anonysalt]

Weird, it's greyed out and unticked on my end, so maybe there's a parent setting that if disabled will block it?

[@k.b.tidwell]

Like he said, if you uncheck the section above about sending data to Firefox, it unchecks this setting as well.

[@anonysalt]

@@k.b.tidwell Yep I got there eventually.

[@Sir_Newkirk]

Thanks bro. Real G.

[@John.McAfees.Dead.Mans.Switch]

I'm done with Mozilla. Guess I'll use Vivaldi I was browsing on my PC and somehow Firefox on my mobile knew what I was doing although I never signed in on my mobile. They were storing cookies on my NAS

[@1947dave]

This is already out of date, Firefox 130.0.1 is out and that data collection section and Web site Advertising prefs is all disabled by default.

[@ElvenMans]

That's only on new installs I assume, because for me it was still enabled.

[@1947dave]

@@ElvenMans Not at all, Firefox just updated itself automatically, I installed it many years ago. EDIT: I suppose I could have disabled those options in a previous version but as I'd never even heard of Website Advertising prefs, I doubt it.

[@xheralt]

People need to read the damn description in the setting's documentation before panicking and going nuclear! *Loss of privacy occurs when an advertiser is able to pin interest in a specific ad to a specific user* This setting, even though enabled by default _does exactly what it says on the tin._ Firefox strips the data of all identifiers, encrypts it, then submits it as an anonymous blob of data via an aggregation service. The advertiser is two steps removed from the end user instead of directly fed! You, the user, are never specifically tied to what you viewed, only that x number of "someones" viewed the site, or ad, or whatever. Advertising revenue drives _everything_ on the www. We know that. This lets the advertisers at least get half a loaf, bring in some revenue for Mozilla, and shields the user.

[@ElvenMans]

So it collects data about me...without collecting data about me! Mhmmm suuure!

[@darrennew8211]

It collects data about what you did without it being personally identifiable. Like the Census.

[@ElvenMans]

@@darrennew8211 Yeah, but what I'm saying is that it's still collecting data about me, and that shouldn't be a thing.

[@darrennew8211]

@@ElvenMans More like "data about what you did" without it being about you. At that point, everyone is collecting "data about you," because corporations file financial reports that are different if you bought something from them. I agree there's no benefit to *you* to turn it on, but it's not really collecting info *about you*.

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

It actually is. It's very easy to pinpoint who someone is by fine combing their browser use. It has been done before.

[@shinyrayquaza9]

Interesting that the extended life business version doesn't have this

[@laszlocsikos189]

Thank you

[@fara.r.8181]

You were the chosen one!

[@LCFTW93]

Oh, I already had it off...

[@thomas.thomas]

good to know

[@cthree87]

You probably want to disable all telemetry and advertising settings and only enable the features you need when you need them.

[@Josu-j2m]

You should be turning these off anyways although what happens when it gets toggled on because of an update and or the those toggles aren't really working and the flags are truly still up?

[@Ggdivhjkjl]

Why don't you have on an adblocker on Firefox?

[@brentech]

I do.

[@nasunorahl]

I always turn that off when I install or upgrade.

[@MK-of7qw]

I don't allow ads so it's a moot point.

[@OlTrailDog]

Not enabled in my 132.0b1 version running on Ubuntu.

[@zwitterelf]

why is computing going insane ? my life is no one's business but my own.

[@NxnjaSenpai]

Soooo. Not a problem for people who have already blocked ads and trackers like any security conscious person would have by now.

[@intermarer9145]

hm is this my queue to have a closer look at Librewolf 🤔

[@jonathantheyorkie]

The only way it's enabled is if you have sending technical data enabled. I disabled it from the start and it never turned on for me.

[@AJsWorld]

Just checked my FF 130.0.1 on Win10 and it's disabled. I haven't touched the setting, so perhaps they have already changed the default behaviour?

[@Johncw87]

If you have disabled the "Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla" setting, then this new one can't be turned on, so even if the default is on, it will be off.

[@rdbchase]

It was toggled off when I checked -- does this relate to my using uBlock Origin?

[@swmovan]

I use uBlock and it was checked on mine.

[@y2ksw1]

That's the new setting I disable on new installations. Now I will check again and if it's back on, I'll consider a fork, which remains privacy preserving.

[@BrokenKanuck]

So what's a decent browser to shift off to? Betterfox?

[@wolfcl0ck]

Glad to be kept aware, cheers. I had aught to swap back over to waterfox, I stopped using it back when Firefox went 64-bit since its whole thing back then was just making firefox a 64-bit browser, but I'm told it does more now and even received some help in its development by some peers of mine.

[@xaveforum4all0]

if you are concern about privacy install then Librewolf a fork of Firefox focust on privacy.

[@daviddunmore8415]

Un-selected in Firefox on Desktop I never let browsers 'phone home' (I use DDG Browser on mobile/tablet.)

[@GraveUypo]

mine was already deactivated. probably because there's "ad" mentioned in it. i don't care if it's "privacy preserving", i don't want ANYTHING to do with ads.

[@darrennew8211]

If you read what it does, it's nothing benefiting you. It's entirely benefiting advertisers.

[@Sezamn]

it was disabled for me by default. i even can't enable it it's grayed out. I'm living in Poland, is it perhaps due to EU membership? Edit: nvm it's because i turned off telemetry completely earlier.

[@Uhfgood]

I turned mine off automatically.

[@SameAsAnyOtherStranger]

Wag your finger at Mozilla if you want. I'm just sad they couldn't be their better selves by implementing privacy by default. I shudder to imagine a world of IE vs Chrome with no viable alternative. I'm sure Mozilla didn't decide that privacy feature was set to less private by default and utter: "Bwah hah hah hah. Now all your informations are ours."

[@Flexin010]

Thanks for not calling it mott-zill-a

[@PersonausdemAll]

Motttttttt ziller

[@CowboyTrucking61]

Yea, this is nothing new. Between 2 to 3 months ago they implemented this, if you keep up with what's going on you would have known this already. Unclick the box and you will be fine.

[@ehs03y3ol]

Just set DisableTelemetry Policy On.

[@nobbyfirefly57]

I’m still going to vouch for Mozilla and Firefox. Why? It’s our last hope against the Chrome monopoly. If we have to pick one evil over the other then Mozilla is the lesser evil. Plus Mozilla does need to find a way to make sure they don’t go bankrupt if or when Google pulls their funding.

[@xXx_Regulus_xXx]

if our only choices are total vampire dominance, or vampire vs. werewolf, I feel sorry for us.

[@nobbyfirefly57]

@@xXx_Regulus_xXx well at least vampire bs werewolf is competition. Vampire dominance has 0 competition

[@laszlozsurka8991]

Thanks, just disabled it.

[@Corteum]

What settings in about config are they linked to

[@UmbongoEnjoyer]

It's off for me, and the box to turn it on is greyed out.

[@officialmcdeath]

Thanks for highlighting this, took a second to check and my distrustful younger self had already taken the steps you recommended \m/

[@justsayin...1158]

Turned it off just now, now when I open a new tab, there are sponsored sites in my "most used sites" tab. What a surprising turn of events. Thanks for the heads up.

[@sterminous1978]

It's disabled in mine and grayed out, can't even enable it. I did not disable it myself.

[@DaMu24]

And then Mozilla is further behind in development compared to Webkit because you refuse to provide technical detail or backlogged crash reports to notify Mozilla why modern websites break on their browser. But hey, privacy.

[@BrunodeSouzaLino]

Not really. Modern websites break on Firefox because everyone assumes everyone uses Chrome or some browser based off it and tunes the site for that.

[@gjoseph1628]

Would disabling this setting improve our Firefox performance or speed?

[@JimJimmington-e8i]

No. If you have problems with Firefox performance, you have a hardware issues likely related to GPU or memory, or you have performance killing/too many extensions installed.

[@steffenrumpel2784]

So you are willing to trade your privacy for "SPEED"? There is an easier solution ... use Google Chrome.

[@johnnyvvlog]

Why I'm using Librewolf which has none of this Mozilla crap build in.

[@LasherTimora]

How cooked is the world when supposed privacy options are the options that invade you privacy.

[@kmg501]

It's not enabled by default on my system..

[@WideCuriosity]

Does this affect Android versions too ?

[@echorises]

Web developer of 8 years here: This is not necessarily a bad thing. All these cookie blockers, adblockers, query parameter stripping etc. doesn't really protect your privacy because when my client asks me to get some information about the visitors in some way, I will get any information that is possible without relying on standard cookies at all. Since I care about everyone's privacy, I will keep that data anonymized but it is completely optional. This is a better way to give advertisers what they want, without giving them the extra power over your data.

[@echorises]

Without being asked about how we get all the data with all these precautions: You use a browser to connect to a web app that in turn connects to a backend service. You can implement all the precautions in the web app, you cannot do sh*t for the backend though. Everytime you spend your time in a website, that backend saves each request you make all the time. It has the tracking, albeit an internal one. But it still includes your login information (email, username), IP address(es), your user agent, etc. If a company decides to take that data and cross check with other websites data, there isn't anything we can do. Best way to overcome this is to find a sweet spot that people can choose to opt-out, but otherwise sends limited information about client; and criminalize all the other ways of getting info on visitors.