No matter how bad the mozilla proposal is, what you're doing here is whataboutism, which eventually serves Google's interest, and defend their much more dystopian proposal…
It's not whataboutism because Mozilla's response to the WEI, IPA and other PATCG[1] and AntiFraudCG[2] proposals are closely intertwined and all reduce the control users have over their browser, their computers and their Internet experience to the benefit of a cartel of technology companies who receive a significant revenue stream from advertising and gatekeeping online commerce. How can Mozilla be committed to "Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all."[3] and at the same time be participating in PATCG and AntiFraudCG proposals that have opposing objectives? Is there even one serious consideration given in any PATCG or AntiFraudCG proposal for impacts to accessibility, interoperability, openness of the Internet (including to new market entrants wanting to implement a new phone, computer, browser, advertising business, etc)?
Additionally, AntiFraudCG proposals such as WEI focus on benefits they provide to PATCG proposals. For example, a Googler with historical interest in minimising inflated view counts on YouTube[4] (a benefit to YouTube's advertisers) wrote earlier this year a proposal to AntiFraudCG including:
"By transmitting signals of legitimacy from the device’s platform, such as if the device is emulated or rooted, publishers and their technology partners could use this information in part to determine if traffic is invalid. They could then choose appropriate actions like flagging advertising actions as suspicious"[5]
It's only whataboutism if it's irrelevant / changing the subject / etc. OP's criticisms are very relevant, in that, I believe OP is just wanting to see consistency out of Mozilla's positions. This is all still about Mozilla and standards proposals.
I'm sure OP is glad that Mozilla takes a negative position on WEI, but when they take other positions simultaneously that seem to counter their WEI positioning, that is a legitimate criticism. I share in that view.
I'm glad to see Mozilla push back in a case like this, but they need to do more, and more consistently so.
I think you're attempting to frame the discussion in a very narrow way that is inconsistent with the public backlash. Public backlash is largely due to browser vendors demonstrating a very strong motivation to prioritise the needs of advertisers over users through their contributions to WEI and similar W3C proposals.
Were you expecting only responses of praise for Mozilla, that users have been heard on WEI and therefore everyone can move on? Mozilla has invested resources together with Meta into developing the IPA proposal that also prioritises the needs of advertisers over users. The problem that IPA seeks to solve is:
"Advertisers need accurate reporting about how their ad campaigns are performing. Currently, businesses use data about the people who viewed their ads and bought their products to determine ‘return on ad spend’. But the ecosystem is moving towards more privacy and less personal data sharing."[1]
In Mozilla's response on WEI they've reiterated a commitment to working on solutions to the "invalid traffic" (e.g. ad click fraud) problem, a commitment which necessarily requires user needs to be suppressed.
"Detecting fraud and invalid traffic is a challenging problem that we're interested in helping address."
Mozilla's response on IPA is therefore directly relevant to the discussion of public backlash for advertiser needs being prioritised over user needs. Mozilla is demonstrating inconsistency with RFC8890[2] and the priority of constituencies from the W3C Web Platform Design Principles[3] and numerous Ethical Web Principles[4]. Whilst these aren't adopted standards, they are a reflection of values of contributors to these standards organisations.
A further error of your framing is assuming WEI and IPA proposals can be meaningfully discussed in isolation of each other. With such framing, there is an avoidance of discussion of the combined impact of proposals if they were implemented together, or whether proposals such as IPA still make sense to pursue without WEI (or future equivalent proposal).
