In January, Mozilla announced plans to add a “Do Not Track” feature to Firefox, a tool that would allow users to opt out from having advertisers and other sites track their web-surfing habits. As Mozilla has readily admitted, the feature is far from perfect: Backwardly, tracking companies would actually have to agree not to monitor a user’s browsing patterns, even once he or she opts out.

However, according to Mozilla CEO Gary Kovacs, that hasn’t stopped the feature from ruffling the feathers of advertisers, who, despite serious public concerns over privacy, depend on personal user data to boost the value of their ads.

At a meeting with ad executives after introducing “Do Not Track,” Kovacs says reaction to the feature was wholly negative.

“Their first posture toward us was, ‘You’re breaking the web. It’s an economic model,'” Kovacs recounts. “‘If you do this, you’re single-handedly breaking the web. It’ll be a great place for a non-profit, but you don’t understand the web.'”

Kovacs couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “I said, ‘So you’re telling me your entire business model is based on your users not knowing what you’re doing with them? Is that how it works?'” Kovacs relates. “There was stunned silence in the room. When there was no reaction, I said, ‘I’ll assume that’s a no. So then your reaction must be that you don’t think you can create an experience great enough that they’ll actually overtly subscribe to it. Is that true?'”

More silence.