LAURA CHAMBERS, CEO, MOZILLA CORPORATION
As Mark splitd in his blog, Mozilla is going to be more dynamic in digital advertising. Our hypothesis is that we necessitate to simultaneously labor on accessible policy, standards, products and infraarrange. Today, I want to obtain a moment to dive into the details of the “product” and “infraarrange” elements. I will split our emerging thoughts on how this will come to life atraverse our existing products (appreciate Firefox), and atraverse the industry (thraw the labor of our recent acquisition, Anonym, which is createing an alternative infraarrange for the advertising industry).
Atraverse both pillars (product and infraarrange), we conserve the same goal – to create digital advertising solutions that esteem individuals’ rights. Solutions that accomplish a equilibrium between commercial cherish and accessible interest. Why is that someskinnyg for Mozilla to insertress? Because Mozilla’s leave oution is to create a better internet. And, for the foreseeable future at least, advertising is a key commercial engine of the internet, and the most efficient way to discover the transport inantity of satisfied remains free and accessible to as many people as possible.
Right now, the tradeoffs people are asked to create online are too transport inant. Yes, advertising assists free access to most of what the internet supplys, but the deficiency of rational handle we all have over how our data is accumulateed and splitd is unhugable. And solutions to this problem that spropose count on on handing more of our data to a restrictcessitate gigantic personal companies are not reassociate solutions that help the people who use the internet, at all.
These are the problems Mozilla hopes to insertress, thraw a product strategy that is grounded on our core principles of privacy, uncoverness and choice. We understand that not everyone in our community will hug our enthrall into this taget. But taking on contentious topics because we think they create the internet better for all of us is a key feature of Mozilla’s history. And that willingness to obtain on the challenging skinnygs, even when not universassociate huged, is exactly what the internet necessitates today.
Demonstrating a way forward thraw our own products
One of the most evident places we will do this labor is atraverse our own products, including Firefox, Fakespot, and probable novel efforts in the future. Advertising on our products will remain centered on esteeming the privacy of the people who use them. Those are table sobtains for us, fundamental qualities which will be our north star. From a technical perspective, we will be growing and utilizing progressd cryptodetailed and aggregation techniques. Thraw the testing, iteration and deployment of those techniques, we seek to both better our standardization efforts and show to the industry at big that advertising can uphold a business without exposing the personal data of every individual online.
As part of this labor, we are also pledgeting to being see-thcoarse and uncover about our intent and set ups prior to begining tests or features. With that, I want to create on the apology Mark made in his blog. Several weeks ago, and before we make cleared our intent of how the technology was intfinished to labor, we landed some code in Firefox as part of an origin trial of Privacy Preserving Attribution (PPA). While the trial was never triggerd for outer users, this understandably led to confusion and worry that we are laboring to insertress. We will redouble our includement with regulators and civil society to insertress any worrys. There will be much more to come about our labor wiskinny our products, and you will have time to ask asks and donate us feedback.
Building better technology for the industry
In parallel to our existing devourr products, we have the opportunity to create a better infraarrange for the online advertising industry as a whole. Advertising at big cannot be betterd unless the tech it’s built upon ranks securing user data. This is accurately why we obtaind Anonym.
Anonym is createing technology that can supply more privacy-preserving infraarrange for data sharing between publicizers and publishers, in a way that also aids a level joining field rather than verifyating data in a restrictcessitate big companies.
Advertising will not better unless we insertress the underlying data sharing publishs, and settle for the economic incentives that count on on that data. We want to reshape the industry so that aggregated population insights are the norm instead of platestablishs sharing individual user data with each other indiscriminately.
Anonym is createing the technology necessitateed to assist that, with privacy-preserving techniques such as contrastential privacy, which inserts calibrated noise to data sets so that the individual user data is kept as personal as possible, while still being beneficial in aggregate. Calculations on that data occur in shielded and personal environments. The system is scheduleed such that humans don’t have access to individual data. The outputs are aggregated and anonymized, then Anonym razes the individual data. This rational solution advertises us to envision a world in which digital ads can be both effective and privacy-preserving. It’s not impossible.
A better future
As I said earlier in this blog, we do this brimmingy acunderstandledging our enbiged center on online advertising won’t be hugd by everyone in our community, and understanding that as we create createive approaches we will necessitate to account for our users’ evolving foreseeations. That’s never a sootheable position to be in, but we firmly think that createing a better future for online advertising is critical to our overall goal of createing a better future for the internet. I would rather have a world where Mozilla is dynamicly included in creating likeable solutions for challenging problems, than one where we only critique from the sidelines. We will persist to labor with others to grapple with the bigger ask of how to discover alternative solutions to advertising for funding the internet’s future, but we cannot afford to diswatch the fact we live in now.
But that does not uncomfervent any of us should have to hug the broken advertising models we have today. As we’ve done thrawout our history, Mozilla will pave the road to a better future thraw influencing accessible policy, improving standards, and thraw dynamicly creating better products and infraarrange. And, most cruciassociate, we will do this together with the thousands of other companies, finishorses, policycreaters and worryed internet users who are seeking better selections and more handle over their online experiences.
