dpwm

> This acquisition marks a significant step in addressing the urgent need for privacy-preserving advertising solutions. By combining Mozilla’s scale and trusted reputation with Anonym’s cutting-edge technology, we can enhance user privacy and advertising effectiveness, leveling the playing field for all stakeholders.

I can only interpret this as the urgent need is money, and wants to sell its "scale and trusted reputation". Mozilla has been down this road before. It was not good for them.

> Anonym was founded with two core beliefs: First, that people have a fundamental right to privacy in online interactions and second, that digital advertising is critical for the sustainability of free content, services and experiences. Mozilla and Anonym share the belief that advanced technologies can enable relevant and measurable advertising while still preserving user privacy.

This is some pretty weak wording for a press release. The economics of the situation are that advertising will always trump privacy. Researchers have successfully de-anonymized anonymised data sets, including medical records. Why would these data be any different?

> As we integrate Anonym into the Mozilla family, we are excited about the possibilities this partnership brings. While Anonym will continue to serve its customer base, together, we are poised to lead the industry toward a future where privacy and effective advertising go hand in hand, supporting a free and open internet.

Anonym’s customers are advertisers, right? The same people who for decades poured money into eroding that free and open internet that we had…

> About Anonym: Anonym was founded in 2022 by former Meta executives Brad Smallwood and Graham Mudd. The company was backed by Griffin Gaming Partners, Norwest Venture Partners, Heracles Capital as well as a number of strategic individual investors.

Well, it seems Anonym, Smallwood and Mudd had a nice piece about them written in the Wall Street Journal [1]. From the second paragraph:

> Graham Mudd and Brad Smallwood each spent more than a decade building Meta’s advertising system, which allowed the company to offer granular data about how ad campaigns worked with individual users, often by tracking their web and mobile activity.