Mozilla already shows ads on New Tab Page/ Home in Firefox through Sponsored stories in Recommended Pocket section and they also added search shortcuts to Amazon and Google recently for U.S users under Top sites, they’ve used CFR to show ad about ProtonVPN VPN experiment to a small section of users, but according to a user who reported on Reddit and confirmed by other Redditors, Firefox is showing an ad to book a hotel using Booking.com under snippets in Firefox latest version 64.0.
Firefox serves ads on New Tab Page in Snippets Area
Till now Firefox has used Snippets area to show tips on Firefox and Mozilla products and services, now they’re using it to deliver ads to users without prior notice or announcement as they’ve done for Pocket and the VPN experiment before testing.
This is what ad says “Ready to schedule that next family reunion? Here’s a thank you from Firefox. Book your next Hotel stay on Booking.com today and get a free $20 Amazon gift card. Happy holidays from Firefox. (Restrictions Apply). ”
Clicking the ad takes to a page that reveals advertising company is serving the ad in partnership with Firefox. Seems Mozilla is exploring new ways to monetize. ATM, we’re not seeing the said booking ad as that may have been pulled already from snippets servers as the post on Reddit gained some attention.
If you don’t want this to happen to you, visit firefox preferences > Home, uncheck ‘Snippets’, done. Similarly, you can customize the New Tab Page to hide or remove other sections such as Web Search, Top Sites, Recommended by Pocket and Highlights.
Expect Mozilla to announce their deal with Booking.com soon. What’s your take on this?
