At a #Mozilla event in #Brussels this morning about "#privacy-first online #advertising". I am _very_ curious where this weirdest of things Mozilla does is going. 🤔

Speakers: Petra Wikström, policy person at #Schibsted, @rvaneijk, @eff's Svea Windwehr and Mozilla's own Martin Thompson.

#onlineads #SurveillanceAdvertising #TrackingFreeAds #gdpr #dataprotection

Great opening by Svea pointing at how #PayOrOK models make #privacy a privilege for those who can afford to pay.

She rightly slams #RealTimeBidding #RTB as a #nationalsecurity risk on top of a #privacy violation and calls out the @EUCommission's push for "#simplification" that threatens achievements like #GDPR.

Rob from the Future of #Privacy Forum praises civil society for going after companies that violate #GDPR and the #TrackingFreeAds Coalition in the European Parliament for pushing tracking limitations into the #DigitalServicesAct. 👏

But his conclusion is "not too optimistic about #DPA action, needs other tools."

#Schibsted's Petra Wikström claims her firm "really really cares about #privacy" and says "#GDPR should not be reopened," works well as it is. 🫶

But she also emphasises "#journalism is never for free" and needs various sources of funding. For that, Schibsted uses 1st party data for segments, not individual targeting. Never shares with 3rd parties.

"Problem with GDPR is that it isn't enforced enough."

Wow so the #Mozilla engineer disagrees and claims "#GDPR has done a great deal of harm" (I didn't understand his argument why) but now diverted to saying the #browser should be the platform collect all the personal data and then provide it in aggregated form to advertisers.

This would "give control to people while also unlocking the data". 🥱

And all in a sudden, #SurveillanceAdvertising is not a #humanrights issue any more but merely a question of "governance".

What a weird world in which the #publisher champions #GDPR because #privacy and #Mozilla says it's harmful 🤯

#Schibsted also celebrates the #DigitalMarketsAct for reining in #Meta's #gatekeeper power.

Other interesting point: they'd like #cookies under the #GDPR instead of #ePrivacy combined with a timid acknowledgement that publishers are forced to participate in a system (of #programmatic #advertising) they cannot control.

Glad to see #Rob from #FPF brings up #Kobler's #contextualads solution as a viable alternative to #RTB and #SurveillanceAdvertising.

Also makes a super important point about mandatory #DoNotTrack signals in browsers.

IMO this is what #Mozilla should be working towards, not making #Firefox as a data collection platform.

#Schibsted argues they cannot rely on contextual ads "as long as advertisers don't pay the same money for them as they do for personalised ads."

Really, this is why banning #TrackingAds is so powerful a solution because it would take the harmful #RTB business model off the market.

Super important from @eff's Svea Windwehr: we lack independent data about the effectiveness of various as targeting solutions and publishers had 25 years to figure out solutions independent of #bigtech and they didn't, so onus is also on them.

Strong point by #Schibsted: we tried to move away from #Google #Ads when #GDPR came into force but lost so much money we had to go back. 🫣

And that's where the event ends. Lots to think about, not very convinced about what #Mozilla is doing.

@ilumium Thx for the summary. It's basically the same pitch from Mozilla as ten years ago. They claim to have a solution while their own income is dwindling.