Firefox Has Enabled Ad Tracking for All Users (Here’s What to Do About It)

Quick Tips

• Firefox has enabled a new ad-tracking feature that prevents advertisers from getting direct access to your online activity. Instead, they’ll need to ask Firefox if you clicked on their ad and completed the desired action.
• You should disable this feature if you don’t want Firefox to share any data with advertisers.
• In addition to Firefox, Safari, and Brave also block user tracking by default.

What Does Mozilla Mean by Privacy-Preserving Ad Measurement?

Advertisers must track their ads on different websites and know whether they bring in any profit. For instance, advertisers want to know if showing you an ad for a smartphone on a website leads you to click on that ad and purchase the smartphone.

Currently, they do this by using cookies and other tracking systems. These trackers gather as much information about you as possible, thus violating your privacy.

This is why Firefox has enabled a privacy-preserving ad measurement feature. This feature allows Firefox to balance protecting your privacy while allowing advertisers to track your activity online.

After implementing this feature, advertisers can’t directly access your online activity. Instead, they must ask Firefox if you clicked on their ad and performed the desired action.

Firefox will not directly provide all your information. Instead, it will encrypt your data, combine it with others’ anonymized data, and send that summary to the advertiser.

The main goal is to hide your data from advertisers while still providing them with the necessary information to determine whether their ads were successful.

Why You Should Disable This Feature (and How to Do It)

While Firefox’s intentions seem good here – they don’t want advertisers to get all your data – strangely, they enabled this feature by default.

Yes, Firefox is rolling out this feature in build 128, and it’s turned on by default. It’s also important to note that this feature doesn’t completely block advertisers from getting your data. It gives them some information, just not directly.

On top of all that, why do we need to provide our data to advertisers in the first place? I don’t think anyone wants to be tracked by random companies.

If you don’t want Firefox to share your data with advertisers, you must disable this feature. To disable the feature, follow the below steps:

Step 1: Open the Firefox Settings menu > choose Privacy & Security from the left sidebar.

Step 2: Uncheck the box for Allow websites to perform privacy-preserving ad measurement.

Besides disabling this feature, you should also block on-screen elements to stop advertisers from tracking you.

Why Do Ad Companies Track Ads on Websites?

The reason ad companies track ads on websites is to show you targeted advertisements. You’ve probably noticed that if you search for something online, like “iPhone 15” on Amazon, you start seeing more ads about iPhone deals on different websites.

This happens because companies track your browsing activity to show you ads related to your searches. They do this using cookies.

You’ve likely encountered the Accept All button when a website asks about cookies. Generally, clicking Accept All gives the website permission to gather analytics data, remember language settings, and perform other functions that improve your browsing experience.

These are called first-party cookies, and they’re good for browsing. They’re managed by the website you’re visiting.

However, there are also third-party cookies. These are managed by domains other than the one you’re visiting. Most browsers allow third-party cookies by default, which lets the operator of these cookies track your data across websites.

Then, these companies use cookies to show you ads based on your searches and products they think you’re interested in.

Furthermore, they monitor whether you interact with the ads they show you. If not, they stop showing that particular ad and try a different one based on your search results.

Which Browsers Block User Tracking by Default?

Nowadays, most browsers make money from advertisements, so it’s rare to find one that completely blocks user tracking. In fact, the most popular browser, Google Chrome, allows third-party cookies by default. However, some browsers do a better job of blocking user tracking. These include Safari, Brave, and Firefox.

If you’re using a different browser, you can usually disable third-party cookies in the settings. Additionally, if you don’t want browsers to show you personalized ads, you should regularly clear your browsing history and cookies data.

Also Read: How to clear the cache in Google Drive and Docs