[HN Gopher] An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox
___________________________________________________________________
An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox
Author : ReadCarlBarks
Score : 522 points
Date : 2025-02-28 23:59 UTC (23 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.mozilla.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.mozilla.org)
| plipt wrote:
| Is Google paying Mozilla to sabotage themselves?
|
| Stay in business, so monopoly arguments can be brushed aside.
|
| But slowly erode privacy on the internet. And slowly lose user
| base.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| They just lost a monopoly case because they paid Mozilla all
| that money, this theory has always made little sense and
| sticking to it now makes even less.
| EMIRELADERO wrote:
| In fact, one could argue that Google losing its case is what
| caused this. Google provided a substantial amount of revenue
| to Mozilla. With that now gone, new ways(TM) to get money are
| needed.
| Zamiel_Snawley wrote:
| They really don't need more revenue. They are nominally a
| not-for-profit and in 2023, they had 250 million cash and a
| billion more in investments.
|
| They've taken billions of dollars from Google since 2005,
| and now they're turning their back on user privacy.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| They spend well over 200 million a year in software
| development, and they've made those investments
| presumably expecting this revenue issue.
|
| Building a browser is expensive, that's why there's only
| two of them. Even Microsoft considered it too expensive
| to continue.
| EasyMark wrote:
| that's true, but now google will appeal it and with the new
| regime in place they will withdraw the case and give google a
| win.
| asddubs wrote:
| they also couldn't have timed this better with the manifestv3
| thing
| slig wrote:
| Yes, of course. If Mozilla decided to do what other user here
| suggested (`spend $15M on a team of 20+ highly competent full
| time developers for Firefox, put $450M into a trust to fund
| future development`) I doubt that the 500M/year would continue
| flowing.
| move-on-by wrote:
| > The reason we've stepped away from making blanket claims that
| "We never sell your data" is because, in some places, the LEGAL
| definition of "sale of data" is broad and evolving. As an
| example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) defines
| "sale" as the "selling, renting, releasing, disclosing,
| disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise
| communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other
| means, a consumer's personal information by [a] business to
| another business or a third party" in exchange for "monetary" or
| "other valuable consideration."
|
| THANK YOU California for this definition of selling data, which
| is accurate, and representative of what people think of when
| discussions of selling data come up.
|
| > In order to make Firefox commercially viable, there are a
| number of places where we collect and share some data with our
| partners
|
| Ok, so that's pretty straightforward. According to CA and other
| states Mozilla is collecting and selling your data. Which is
| exactly what everyone is upset about and means exactly what
| everyone thought it meant.
| alabastervlog wrote:
| > in exchange for "monetary" or "other valuable consideration."
|
| JFC, it's funny they try to call this out as some kind of a
| "weird" definition when that's just... what selling is.
| hedora wrote:
| Usually, when I point out that Google sells your data and
| there's no possible way to actually opt out, someone replies
| to say that's not true, then defines "sell" in some way that
| most people would disagree with.
| WD-42 wrote:
| I actually laughed out loud at this. "We can't say we don't
| sell your data because some places have definitions of "sell"
| that are legally difficult to interpret, for example":
|
| <completely unambiguous definition of selling follows>
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| That was in California. Presumably, it's worded somewhat
| differently, and with different intent, elsewhere.
|
| 50 states, plus Federal laws, and all the other countries
| of the world and internal jurisdictions is how many
| possible variations? And before you say "Yeah, but they all
| mean mostly the same thing", remember it's lawyers we're
| dealing with, who will happily charge large sums of money
| arguing over misplaced punctuation and legislators who will
| happily take bribes from those same lawyers.
| Nition wrote:
| Most people here are assuming that they mentioned that
| one specifically because it was one of those that Mozilla
| feels is too broad or difficult. It _could_ be simply
| read as a random example, but I think that 's quite a
| generous interpretation.
| wtallis wrote:
| California was the example _they_ chose to provide. From
| this, we can reasonably infer that Mozilla does not have
| a better example handy to illustrate what 's wrong with
| legal definitions around selling user's data. If their
| best example is completely unconvincing, we should remain
| unconvinced.
| wwweston wrote:
| Yeah, "Calm down everyone, the only issue here is that certain
| jurisdictions have sensible definitions that mean we can't
| legally claim we're not selling data because we are" is
| arguably clarifying but it's not particularly comforting.
|
| Seems safest to assume that if it can be tracked, it will be.
| And traded too.
| 85g5gh85g wrote:
| If they intended to clarify wording, they would have added
| something in place of their original wording instead of
| deleting it entirely. Legal team isn't slipping like that.
| mmooss wrote:
| Didn't they do that?
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| Mozilla is continuing to dig its own grave
| tomxor wrote:
| If they would simply _tell us_ what part of Firefox is affected
| by the CCPA 's definition of "selling user data", there would
| be no room for misinterpretation and this would be over.
|
| If it's as innocent as "Firefox has to send HTTP packets to
| arbitrary web servers to achieve the fundamental function of
| loading a page" and that web server is considered 3rd party by
| CCPA, then everyone would understand... this is either poor
| communication or they are hiding something else (which everyone
| _should_ rightly assume in this day and age).
|
| Just tell us already Mozilla!
| chrismorgan wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > _In order to make Firefox commercially viable, there are a
| number of places where we collect and share some data with
| our partners, including our optional ads on New Tab and
| providing sponsored suggestions in the search bar._
|
| And remember, they're citing CCPA's definition as meaning
| "... in exchange for 'monetary' or 'other valuable
| considerations'". This is _exactly_ what people mean by
| "selling".
|
| It's not the innocent thing you're contemplating, about a
| browser doing its job. It's specifically about things like
| serving ads, making that browser "commercially viable".
|
| Mozilla is stopping claiming they're never selling your data
| _because they've been selling your data for the last few
| years_.
| wtallis wrote:
| Selling ads isn't even the problem. They could do that and
| still truthfully, legally claim they never sell your data.
|
| Mozilla is helping perpetuate the illusion that online
| advertising necessarily includes collecting and selling
| data about the users who are shown the ads.
| mmooss wrote:
| AFAIK they do the opposite: They've pioneered ways to
| target advertising without your data leaving your
| computer.
|
| See for example,
|
| https://www.adexchanger.com/privacy/mozilla-acquires-
| anonym-...
|
| "That shared mission is predicated on the notion that
| advertising and privacy are not - or at least don't have
| to be - mutually exclusive."
|
| And it goes into detail on the investment and technology
| in that area.
| wtallis wrote:
| If they've pioneered such technologies, they aren't using
| them. Their Privacy Notice enumerates many types of data
| that Mozilla collects and passes along to
| "partners"/advertisers. For example:
|
| > Mozilla collects technical and interaction data, such
| as the position, size, views and clicks on New Tab
| content or ads, to understand how people are interacting
| with our content and to personalize future content,
| including sponsored content. This data may be shared with
| our advertising partners on a de-identified or aggregated
| basis.
|
| There's a _lot_ of tracking data that _does_ leave the
| user 's computer, and Mozilla is trying to justify it by
| assuring us it's sufficiently anonymized and aggregated--
| assurances they would not need to make if the data wasn't
| changing hands.
|
| It's also silly to suggest that targeting advertising
| without tracking users needs to be "pioneered". It's
| obvious that Mozilla could have the browser download this
| month's list of sponsored search keywords and have the
| browser check search strings against that list, without
| going off-device. There's no innovation required to
| implement that. All the attempted innovation is focused
| on how to exfiltrate data in a form that they can get
| away with selling.
| mmooss wrote:
| > There's a lot of tracking data
|
| It's meaningless data to you: It doesn't say what you
| click on, just where and how big the ads are, and how
| many times you click. It doesn't identify you or reveal
| anything about you, except that you clicked on some
| unknown ads.
|
| > It's also silly to suggest that targeting advertising
| without tracking users needs to be "pioneered". It's
| obvious that Mozilla could have the browser download this
| month's list of sponsored search keywords and have the
| browser check search strings against that list, without
| going off-device.
|
| These are the words of someone who hasn't done it. Look
| at the article; what advertisers want and what the
| privacy-destroying competition does is much more
| sophisticated than what you describe. For example,
|
| _Anonym also has technology that allows ad platforms and
| advertisers to securely share encrypted impression and
| conversion data within a trusted execution environment
| for attribution, causal lift measurement and lookalike
| modeling. (A trusted execution environment is the secure
| area of a main processor where code can be run safely and
| in isolation.)
|
| To be fair, the major ad platforms have long offered
| attribution and measurement solutions, Mudd said. "But
| they required the data to come into their system," he
| added. "In this world, that doesn't have to happen."_
| wtallis wrote:
| > It's meaningless data to you: It doesn't say what you
| click on, just where and how big the ads are, and how
| many times you click. It doesn't identify you or reveal
| anything about you, except that you clicked on some
| unknown ads.
|
| I'm not sure what you mean by "meaningless data _to you_
| ". Obviously, the data Mozilla is collecting,
| aggregating, and selling is meaningful to the buyers. And
| you're straight up lying about the extent of the data,
| directly contradicting Mozilla's Privacy Notice.
|
| > Look at the article; what advertisers want and what the
| privacy-destroying competition does is much more
| sophisticated than what you describe.
|
| Obviously? What I was describing was how it's possible to
| target an advertisement _without doing any user
| tracking_. What the advertisers want to do and are doing
| is _tracking users as much as they can get away with_.
| And that includes the ad tracking company Mozilla bought.
| rtpg wrote:
| Is that "obviously" true? Like if they had ad targetting
| and also let buyers of ads see aggregate results of
| impressions or something, that might already fall into
| user data being sold, right?
|
| At what point does user data stop being user data? I
| don't think aggregation is enough in some of these
| discussions, but maybe I'm wrong.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Mozilla is stopping claiming they're never selling your
| data because they've been selling your data for the last
| few years._
|
| If that's true then it sounds to me like there's some
| liability to sue for in California courts against Mozilla.
| I wonder if EFF would be interested
| scottbez1 wrote:
| CCPA/CPRA has no private right of action for this kind of
| thing. Only the CA AG can bring forth claims, and
| penalties would be paid to the state, not individuals, in
| that case.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| Most of what is collected is recorded in about:studies and
| about:telemetry. You can disable studies in Settings, and I
| think most of telemetry.
|
| What is collected by telemetry is documented here for desktop
| [1].
|
| [1] https://firefox-source-
| docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/t...
| chinathrow wrote:
| Mozilla, then Phoenix, then Firefox user for over 27y or so.
|
| If they can't stop abusing their users, I will look for another
| browser, goddamnit.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > If they can't stop abusing their users, I will look for
| another browser, goddamnit.
|
| This seems to go beyond "can't stop" to "are actively
| plotting a course to continue." I've seen a lot of missteps
| from Mozilla over the years, but I never thought I'd see them
| selling my data. From seeing the news yesterday to today, I
| know now I have to stop recommending Firefox, and figure out
| a browser that I can trust.
| ho_schi wrote:
| They are only three viable web-engines left over from the
| second browser-war: * Blink (Google): Used in
| everything, from Chrome, Edge, Opera, Qt-Toolkit, Electron.
| * Gecko (Mozilla): Firefox. And Waterfox? I assume Gecko is
| still hard to integrate. * WebKit and WebKitGtk (Apple
| and Gtk): Safari, Epiphany and Gtk-Toolkit. Easy to
| integrate. And the only engine where I'm aware that actually
| two side actively cooperate in development.
|
| Epiphany is small and nice, but they need a lot more
| developers. And I think they should use ffmpeg, gstreamer
| seems to be a source of issues for many years. But again,
| they need us, every helper capable of C++ is welcome.
|
| Ladybird an another new engine, implemented in C++. But it is
| in alpha-state, only for developers. Everyone else who tries
| to show us a new browser means "use that Google thing with
| another name on it".
| rapnie wrote:
| Though not yet ready for the public don't forget the
| promising https://servo.org
|
| (It is very usable already in combination with Tauri as
| alternative to Electron + Chromium)
| IYasha wrote:
| Some more:
|
| * Librewolf, Palemoon, Falkon.
| Idesmi wrote:
| Librewolf is Firefox plus minor patches.
|
| Palemoon is based on an outdated fork of Gecko.
|
| Falkon uses QtWebEngine, which is Blink.
| ajdude wrote:
| WebKit is also used in Orion, but that browser is macOS/iOS
| only.
| zacwest wrote:
| They've started work on a Linux version, too.
| yencabulator wrote:
| I'm still hoping for something to come out of Servo.
|
| I honestly think we need to shift our trusted computing
| base off of C/C++. There's no way a ragtag bunch of
| volunteers puts enough effort into security when every
| minor mistake is a disaster :-(
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Librewolf is a Firefox fork with this crap removed.
| scottbez1 wrote:
| And if everyone switches to Librewolf, Librewolf will die
| because Mozilla will no longer make money and won't be able
| to devote resources towards maintaining upstream Firefox.
|
| I use Firefox. I hate ads. I don't love that Mozilla
| engages in some level of affiliate deals to pay the bills,
| but it's the only viable alternative to Google controlling
| the entire web and doing much worse tracking/advertising at
| this point, unless Mozilla can figure out some other
| revenue stream.
|
| Chromium-based "privacy-focused" browsers can only exist as
| long as they're not popular enough to move the needle on
| Google's ad business. Firefox derivatives can only exist as
| long as Mozilla can pay the bills, which they almost
| certainly can't do if nobody uses Firefox (no reason for
| Google to pay for search priority for an audience of zero,
| and no affiliate deals for an audience of zero).
|
| The more people use Firefox forks, the sooner Google
| controls everything. You might personally benefit in the
| short term, with "complete" privacy, so I can understand
| why some might choose that option, but you need to accept
| that you're contributing to Google's dominance by doing so.
| JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B wrote:
| > Mozilla will no longer make money
|
| Mozilla could have added years ago a donation or
| subscription to fund the development of Firefox, but they
| don't want that. Mozilla wants all the money for its
| charitable activities instead.
|
| There will be a time when they have no money anymore, but
| it's only their fault.
| rs186 wrote:
| I doubt donation would be anywhere close to what is
| needed for development even if that exists.
| homebrewer wrote:
| I think it's not that they don't want it as it's
| difficult to mix money from commercial activities with
| donations. That's why they keep the two cash flows
| separate and are only using Google money for Firefox
| development, and spend donations exclusively on political
| bullshit very few people care about.
|
| Although their $7 mil CEO could have found a way to
| handle this while not running afoul of the IRS, but she
| decided to play with a bunch of dead-end commercial
| endeavors instead. So that's on them.
| DeepSeaTortoise wrote:
| > Mozilla wants all the money for its charitable
| activities instead.
|
| Describing Mozilla's derailment as "charitable
| activities" is like describing the Mexican cartels as
| "self-help groups".
|
| Never forget their "We need more than deplatforming".
| BSDobelix wrote:
| Na, Mozilla will die and Firefox and Thunderbird will get
| transferred to a community project, Thunderbird survived
| without Mozilla so will Firefox.
|
| Pretty sure that community project will get
| overwhelmingly big donations from all over.
| Idesmi wrote:
| A web browser is much more complex software than an
| e-mail client, though.
| tannhaeuser wrote:
| You're saying "will" but what are you waiting for? How many
| data points do you need to leave FF now they're admitting to
| collect data and willing to display their own targetted ads,
| that they make deals with Facebook in addition to making
| deals with Google, that they're green-washing and pushing
| Google's efforts to take over the web as a targetted ad
| medium which has resulted in abandonment of almost all
| browser development and their own browser share drop to low
| single-digit figures, with funds directed towards nebulous
| virtual signalling campaigns but mostly to their management
| and certainly not towards development or the better of the
| web?
| BSDobelix wrote:
| > I will look for another browser, goddamnit.
|
| Well do it, i had Firefox on all my machines for about 15
| years, change to librewolf took like 20 minutes on all
| machines...and it even feels more responsive, and i dont have
| have to install uBlock manually and other settings by hand,
| like disable those experiments mozilla can install:
|
| https://librewolf.net/#main-features
|
| And if you de-install firefox on windows you can even tell
| them why you did it ;)
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Yes, here too, add Mosaic and Netscape there. Switched to
| Waterfox, would pay for a full fork.
| EasyMark wrote:
| there are many offshoots, zen, floorp, librewolf (if you want
| that classic feel), waterfox, etc
| rdtsc wrote:
| This is a funny case where Mozilla thought they are clarifying
| their position by pointing out how ridiculously CA defines
| "sales" only for it to blow up in their face. This is not the
| first time it happens to companies where in an act of
| desperation they issue some "apology" or explanation only to
| make the whole thing worse.
|
| Now people will read even more carefully their privacy policy
| https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/#notice and may
| find things like:
|
| > Firefox also shows its own search suggestions based on
| information stored on your local device (including recent
| search terms, open tabs, and previously visited URLs). These
| suggestions may include sponsored suggestions from Mozilla's
| partners [...] or relevant URLs that are popular in your
| country.
|
| > Mozilla processes [...] how many searches you perform, how
| many sponsored suggestions you see and whether you interact
| with them.
|
| > Mozilla collects technical and interaction data, such as the
| position, size, views and clicks on New Tab content or ads, to
| understand how people are interacting with our content [...]
| This data may be shared with our advertising partners on a de-
| identified or aggregated basis.
|
| > we share data across Mozilla-controlled affiliates and
| subsidiaries. We [...] disclose personal data as part of a
| corporate transaction, such as a merger, acquisition, sale of
| assets or similar transaction
|
| > [...] retain personal data for more than 25 months, but
| actual retention periods may vary depending on the type of data
| and the purpose(s) for which it was collected
|
| [Definitions]
|
| > Technical data : Device type, operating system, IP address,
| ISP
|
| > Settings: Enhanced Tracking Protection settings, cookie
| settings, permissions (location, camera, microphone), toolbar
| customization.
|
| > Location : Country code, city.
|
| > Precise Location: Your precise location (within a few feet or
| meters).
|
| > Interaction data : How many tabs you have open or what you've
| clicked on. Click counts, impression data, attribution data,
| how many searches performed, time on page, ad and sponsored
| tile clicks.
|
| > Browsing data: [...] websites and URLs you've visited. [...]
| (travel, shopping, social media), top level domains
| (example.com) or specific web pages visited.
| mmooss wrote:
| Based on the parent, all the collected data preserves
| privacy:
|
| > Firefox also shows its own search suggestions based on
| information stored on your local device
|
| That data stays on your computer ...
|
| > Mozilla processes [...] how many searches you perform, how
| many sponsored suggestions you see and whether you interact
| with them.
|
| That description contains no user content: number of
| searches, number of ads, whether you interact says nothing
| about you - it doesn't say what you click on or see, just
| that you clicked.
|
| > position, size, views and clicks on New Tab content or ads
|
| Again, there is no content mentioned, just number of clicks
| and not what you click on.
|
| > [Definitions]
|
| This section defines terms; it doesn't say they are doing
| anything.
| the_other wrote:
| How do they decide which sponsored ad to show you?
| IYasha wrote:
| Usually it's the sponsor who decides. Because, for
| example, it's pointless to show Walmart ads in North
| Korea. (I'm not a mz insider)
| devmor wrote:
| On your device: "Interests: Candles, Wooden Sculptures,
| Underwater Basket Weaving"
|
| Advertiser: "Show this to users who like Candles."
|
| Mozilla: "OK"
|
| That's pretty standard and can be used to track people on
| the advertiser's side still, depending on how the ad
| itself is served and how clicks on the ad are processed.
| ummonk wrote:
| Does Firefox download information about every ad that
| advertisers have paid for, and then match against local
| data to decide which ad to serve?
|
| If not, when it queries to find out which ads to serve,
| what data does is sent with that query (or prior to that
| query)?
| koolala wrote:
| I wish this was more obvious that they don't identify what
| the 'clicked' New Tab content is. And for Search it could
| be stored local information and be tracked for suggestions.
| I wish they clarified the things you clarified instead of
| failing to mention them.
| EasyMark wrote:
| When you keep the ip address, that often gives people
| everything that they need, along with "fingerprinting" data.
| Especially governments and huge corps like
| facebook/google/amazon, as they have you IP @ {date}/{time}
| as well. Match it up and you have the golden calf.
| MartijnHols wrote:
| By that definition, wouldn't sharing total monthly users for
| the basic purpose of landing some kind of deal (could be as
| simple as a partnership), constitute "selling data"? Stats like
| X million monthly users doesn't appear to conflict with the
| spirit of the claim, but does conflict with that legal wording.
| crowselect wrote:
| What part of "we have x million monthly users" is "a
| consumer's personal information"? That's information about
| how many consumers you have, but it's not _personal_
| MartijnHols wrote:
| My mistake, I missed that the data was limited to
| "personal" information.
| scottbez1 wrote:
| But, "we have x million monthly users _in Arizona_" would
| be using your personal data, from a legal standpoint. And
| if they provide that aggregate data in exchange for money,
| they are selling your personal data (but not in the way
| many people think of it, like in a Google/FB sense of
| building an individualized profile and selling ads against
| that).
|
| Mozilla might be doing very sketchy things with your data,
| but it's also very plausible that they are doing a
| reasonable job at anonymization of data but in a way that
| is still technically classified as selling personal data
| (in aggregate form).
| crowselect wrote:
| I don't think that's true:
|
| Per: https://thecpra.org/#1798.145(a)(6)
|
| > Exemptions: > (6) Collect, use, retain, sell, share, or
| disclose consumers' personal information that is
| deidentified or aggregate consumer information.
|
| I understand that people who have a vested interest in
| eroding any possibility of online privacy and data
| protection would want us to believe these laws are vague
| and overreaching - but that doesn't mean they actually
| are vague and overreaching.
| mmooss wrote:
| > According to CA and other states Mozilla is collecting and
| selling your data.
|
| The definition requires Mozilla to do it "in exchange for
| "monetary" or "other valuable consideration."". What
| consideration is Mozilla receiving and from who?
| thisislife2 wrote:
| Personally, any application that even _collects_ personal
| data is problematic for me. Personal data of a user has a
| value, and a large repository of personal data, of millions
| of users, makes the company valuable too. Any data collected
| can be monetised, if not immediately (as part of the company
| 's business model) or in the future (when the company is
| sold).
|
| With Mozilla, for example, displaying sponsored links using
| Firefox Suggest (
| https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-
| news/fi... ) means collecting and sharing personal data (like
| search keywords, browsing history or bookmarks). This data
| sharing, with another company, could either be the raw data
| or the processed data. In either case, it is a problematic
| issue for any privacy conscious and politically aware user
| because either party or multiple parties will (or can) create
| profiles from the data. "Anonymous" data collection doesn't
| have any meaning here because with enough data points from a
| particular user, you can reasonably identify a user (either
| to track them digitally or to even to identify their
| personhood in real life, for legal or political reasons).
| This is easier to do so if you also combine it with data from
| multiple sources. (Which is what the US NSA programs with US
| BigTech are doing, and why these companies are so valuable
| today - Data is the new oil).
| mmooss wrote:
| I'm not sure you and they agree on the meaning of collect:
| If you input personal data into Firefox - e.g., an email
| you type in a Gmail - then they 'collect' it. Unless you
| use Firefox only for anonymous purposes, some data must
| pass through Firefox.
|
| > With Mozilla, for example, displaying sponsored links
| using Firefox Suggest (
| https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-
| news/fi... ) means collecting and sharing personal data
| (like search keywords, browsing history or bookmarks).
|
| That article says it's only opt-in, so you are safe:
|
| _As always, we believe people should be in control of
| their web experience, so Firefox Suggest will be a
| customizable feature.
|
| We'll begin offering smarter contextual suggestions to a
| percentage of people in the U.S. as an opt-in experience._
| wtallis wrote:
| > I'm not sure you and they agree on the meaning of
| collect: If you input personal data into Firefox - e.g.,
| an email you type in a Gmail - then they 'collect' it.
|
| "They" in this context is _Mozilla_ the organization, not
| Firefox the process in memory. For _Mozilla_ to collect
| information, information has to leave my computer and end
| up on Mozilla 's computer.
| lightedman wrote:
| "That article says it's only opt-in, so you are safe:"
|
| Funny, I never opt-in to that garbage - and yet Firefox
| keeps trying to auto-recommend things to me. It does this
| even in the Firefox Quantum mobile browser.
|
| I don't think Mozilla is being 100% honest.
| Rygian wrote:
| From their privacy policy [1]:
|
| "we work with partners, service providers, suppliers and
| contractors"
|
| But they won't disclose which partners and what Mozilla gets
| in exchange. Which is opaque, and probably intentionally so.
|
| You can scroll down to the types of data and lawful bases
| they list for these data exchanges.
|
| [1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/#how-is-
| your-d...
| nabogh wrote:
| I was under the impression that selling anonymised data would
| also fall under this category. Either way we need more
| transparency here.
| raverbashing wrote:
| So by that definition, if I click on your profile info here, HN
| is "selling me your data" no?
|
| But anyway, if anyone thinks FF or any other browser can
| survive without such commercial deals needs to get ready to use
| Safari or other minor browser
| wtallis wrote:
| > So by that definition, if I click on your profile info
| here, HN is "selling me your data" no?
|
| What monetary or other valuable consideration does HN get
| from you when HN serves up someone's profile page to you?
| fc417fc802 wrote:
| Even if they did, I doubt it qualifies if the consumer
| intended to post it publicly. There's a difference between
| selling a book that I published versus selling access to a
| private draft of a book that I keep in cloud storage and
| never agreed to let you sell.
| uffi wrote:
| I hate to point out the obvious, but when you collect and share
| with your partners, it's obviously a polyamorous relationship.
| I'm appalled at this intrusion of California on the love life
| of companies.
| rtpg wrote:
| I feel like there _is_ some daylight between what people hear
| when someone says "Firefox is selling your data" and, for
| example, Firefox using your IP address to put you in a rough
| country-level geoblock to determine whether to show you an ad
| that was sold to all users in a country.
|
| Yet the second one, which I think would be very much considered
| close to harmless from my perspective (compared to an
| alternative of "an ad is shown to everyone across the world"),
| would, I think, still fit into this metric of your data being
| sold.
|
| Though maybe I'm misinterpreting what the CCPA's breadth would
| be.
|
| I have been a bit disillusioned by FF for some time, and would
| like for them to figure out some version of a business model in
| order to survive, and so we can know the contours of that
| business model. Trying to play "we do not do business things at
| all" with them constantly shipping weird ad-ful features and
| stuff like Pocket... let's see if we can make this honest!
| drpossum wrote:
| > let's see if we can make this honest!
|
| They're beholden to who gives them money, which is not us.
| rtpg wrote:
| It could be us, either directly with money, or even just
| indirectly by "being the product" but being able to just
| walk away.
|
| FF exists off of good will and the search deal. The more
| people stop using the browser the less they're going to
| pull in from the deal.
| drpossum wrote:
| > FF exists off of good will and the search deal
|
| Firefox exists off of google and their antitrust deal.
| eps wrote:
| > _Firefox using your IP address ... to show you an ad_
|
| Why do you imply that Firefox showing ads is acceptable ?
| kehrin wrote:
| They have been doing for at least a decade by now (e.g
| Amazon). So why imply it suddenly isn't acceptable to show
| ads (in any form)?
| inetknght wrote:
| > _They have been doing for at least a decade by now (e.g
| Amazon). So why imply it suddenly isn't acceptable to
| show ads (in any form)?_
|
| Because it isn't acceptable.
|
| The first thing I've done (for years now) when
| configuring Firefox is to turn off many of the defaults.
| Advertisements, pocket, search engine, online spell
| checker, translator, blah blah blah.
| rtpg wrote:
| I mean they integrated pocket right? They sold the default
| search engine position for billions. That's something! Not
| all money making efforts are created equal, though. We
| judge based on what the effort is in context!
| 0xFEE1DEAD wrote:
| I chose firefox because I don't want my browser to build an
| ad network to sell targeted ads.
|
| And I definitely don't want this:
|
| _> You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox.
| This includes processing your data as we describe in the
| Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive,
| royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as
| you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does
| not give Mozilla any ownership in that content. [0]_
|
| [0] https://www.mozilla.org/en-
| US/about/legal/terms/firefox/#you...
| ttpphd wrote:
| Exactly.
|
| Why is my browser serving me advertising in the first
| place? Because Mozilla is an advertising company now.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Yes, ad first company, with a browser product to capture
| ad audience.
| brookst wrote:
| There are only two ways to generate revenue: direct and
| indirect. Nobody will pay for a browser.
|
| I don't use Firefox and this whole thing is distasteful,
| but I'm not sure how they're supposed to cover operating
| expenses without indirect monetization, or what for of
| indirect other than ads would work.
| yencabulator wrote:
| In the meanwhile, people are asking how to donate to
| _Firefox_ not to _Mozilla_ and it 's CEOs whims and
| personal salary.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Nobody will pay for a browser._
|
| Speak for yourself.
|
| Give me a browser that clearly and unambiguously does not
| sell my usage of it in any way, and I will give you a
| monthly subscription.
| brookst wrote:
| Well yeah and I do pay for Kagi but would still say
| "nobody will pay for a search engine" using "nobody" in
| the "not enough people to scale a mass market business"
| sense.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > There are only two ways to generate revenue: direct and
| indirect. Nobody will pay for a browser.
|
| There's a third way: screw revenue, dump all staff not
| related to browser development and documentation (MDN)
| and look for government grants to fund that.
|
| Especially the EU may be a target for a well-written
| proposal, given the political atmosphere it would make
| sense to have at least one browser engine that is not
| fundamentally tied to the US and its plethora of bullshit
| like NSLs.
| brookst wrote:
| It's a weird term, but I'm not sure how "for the purpose of
| doing as you request" is terrible. To me that means that
| when you type a url, they have the right to do a DNS lookup
| for it.
|
| Is there some interpretation where "for the purpose of
| doing as you request" means any purpose they want?
| Wilduck wrote:
| The problem is that I'm not requesting Mozilla do
| anything. Firefox isn't a "service" it's a web browser.
| When I input a seach query, _I_ am acting on my behalf,
| not Mozilla.
|
| I don't want any language where they get to insert
| themselves into that chain of behavior. Curl doesn't need
| a TOS, why does Firefox?
| skydhash wrote:
| Very much this. The browser already have all the features
| to do what I want it to do. Why does Mozilla insists of
| being a middleman? It's my computer, Firefox code, and
| someone's server.
| cassianoleal wrote:
| I agree. The very fact that they added a Terms of
| _Service_ is weird. I don 't want Firefox to be a service
| in any way. It's a tool.
|
| When I drill a hole in my wall, DeWalt don't tell anyone
| who I am, how large a hole it is, what material I drilled
| into or even the fact that I actually drilled anything.
| They don't know any of that, and neither should Mozilla
| know when my local copy of the browser makes a DNS, HTTP
| or any other request.
| EasyMark wrote:
| this is why I use librewolf
| yencabulator wrote:
| And I chose Librewolf because I didn't want that, either.
| saghm wrote:
| They also said "Mozilla doesn't sell data about you (in the way
| that most people think about "selling data")", and I'm
| struggling to fathom what they could possibly think that "most
| people" think selling data could mean other than "giving your
| data to someone else for compensation", which seems pretty much
| exactly what the California law says. Yes, it's embedded in
| some legalese, but surely Mozilla has lawyers?
| fredzel wrote:
| Most people probably envision selling data akin to shady
| person trading usb stick in dark alley or hackers selling
| huge batches of stolen data, so that statement will be true
| almost by default
| LoganDark wrote:
| most people I speak to about this tend to imagine selling
| data to be like people cold calling you with scams, getting
| suspicious advertisements that happen to be about stuff you
| just happened to be saying in the other room (which
| actually happened), and stuff like that. in Mozilla's case
| I'm pretty sure it's whatever Pocket is, considering how
| difficult it is in Firefox to turn that garbage off
| kmacdough wrote:
| I think they're trying to make the distinction between "we
| sell your searches and clicks attached to your personal id"
| and "we sell derivative aggregated information like we have a
| lot of users of X style to advertise to". But it's kinda hard
| to sift through exactly what they can and can't sell under
| this.
| luckylion wrote:
| Wouldn't derivative aggregated information not be included
| in definitions like the one quoted because they
| specifically about personal data?
|
| If you sell the information how many customers you have and
| how many shoes you've sold last month, are you selling your
| customer's personal data?
| wtallis wrote:
| > If you sell the information how many customers you have
| and how many shoes you've sold last month, are you
| selling your customer's personal data?
|
| To make that analogy fair for the scope of what Mozilla's
| doing, the shoe store would have to be selling data about
| what color shirts people are wearing when they visit the
| shoe store.
| skydhash wrote:
| That is fair. But a more accurate analogy would be that
| the sales representative that goes to people house is
| reporting to the store what color people are wearing at
| home.
|
| Firefox is installed on my computer, not on a VPS owned
| by Mozilla. I'm not browsing Mozilla website. Why are
| they entitled to record and share everything I do?
| bonoboTP wrote:
| Most people don't think about this stuff and are simply
| uninformed. Referring to what "most people think" is a cop-
| out from their side.
|
| But I think the sense Mozilla are referring to is the more
| obvious and over-the-top things like selling your name, phone
| number, email, postal address, your Amazon purchasing
| history, or to ramp it up more, your passwords, your credit
| card info etc.
| wkat4242 wrote:
| The latter is a pretty high bar. Even Google doesn't do
| that.
| bonoboTP wrote:
| Just saying that you can stretch it pretty far with vague
| language like "we aren't doing [bad thing] in the sense
| that most people would understand [bad thing]".
| x0x0 wrote:
| CCPA/CPRA have a very broad definition of sale.
|
| > _(1) "Sell," "selling," "sale," or "sold," means selling,
| renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making
| available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally,
| in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer's
| personal information by the business to a third party for
| monetary or other valuable consideration._
|
| Most people would view a sale as Mozilla getting cash back
| for the data. But that "other valuable consideration" (which
| the AG declined to clarify or create a factor-based approach
| for deciding) makes Mozilla vulnerable to lawyers.
|
| The same parasites that claimed that embedding a chatbot on
| your website violates the California wiretapping laws and
| have been extracting cash from sites will figure out a way to
| do the same to Mozilla. see the wave of CIPA chatbot
| lawsuits.
|
| For instance, suppose Mozilla partners with a search engine
| and could be claimed to get a discount or some other
| consideration for letting that search partner use search
| terms to improve the search engine. Something that isn't
| advertising related at all. That's probably a sale under
| CPRA.
| wtallis wrote:
| > For instance, suppose Mozilla partners with a search
| engine and could be claimed to get a discount or some other
| consideration for letting that search partner use search
| terms to improve the search engine. Something that isn't
| advertising related at all. That's probably a sale under
| CPRA.
|
| If a search engine partner wants to use search terms to
| improve their search engine, they only have to look at
| their own logs. They don't need Mozilla to collect,
| aggregate, and sell them any data to accomplish that.
| Mozilla doesn't need to worry about selling data if they
| never possess that data in the first place.
|
| Your complaint about "other valuable consideration" is just
| a complaint that the law isn't crippled by stupid
| loopholes.
| x0x0 wrote:
| > _Your complaint about "other valuable consideration" is
| just a complaint that the law isn't crippled by stupid
| loopholes._
|
| That's not the law. The search engine partner using those
| logs is probably valuable consideration and hence a sale.
| Mozilla doesn't even need to keep the data; just an api
| passthrough will qualify.
| wtallis wrote:
| > The search engine partner using those logs is probably
| valuable consideration and hence a sale.
|
| It's not a sale when the search engine doesn't get those
| logs from Mozilla. When a user sends a search query to
| Google using a Mozilla browser, it's _Google 's_ privacy
| policy that applies, not Mozilla's.
|
| > Mozilla doesn't even need to keep the data; just an api
| passthrough will qualify.
|
| There is no API passthrough in this scenario. Search
| queries go to the search engine directly without being
| relayed through Mozilla servers. Anything that _does_ hit
| Mozilla 's servers is entirely optional and unrelated to
| the purpose of satisfying the user's request for search
| results.
|
| You don't need to speculate about how this could all be
| due to innocent ordinary operation of a web browser when
| Mozilla has already disclosed that they're voluntarily
| tracking users in ways that are not necessary for the
| operation of a web browser.
| hengheng wrote:
| This binary is known to the State of California to sell data.
| xnx wrote:
| Hasn't Mozilla gotten enough money that if they hadn't wasted
| it they could've been living solely off interest by now?
| koolala wrote:
| But then they would need to be given more money.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| $7B was not enough to be "commercially viable" it seems.
| doright wrote:
| Would it have been better if Firefox/Mozilla went under as a
| result of never compromising on their principles for income 5
| years ago, as opposed to continuing to exist in this less than
| optimal form today? If the business incompetence of where to
| put all the existing money were resolved.
|
| I feel like the people who understand Mozilla's true principles
| have long since moved on by this point, and the crowd of those
| unaware still use Firefox as a daily driver, for better or
| worse. That crowd might have just moved to Chrome without
| Firefox as an option anymore.
|
| Although, as I understand it Firefox and Chrome will be closer
| to each other in terms of 3rd-party data selling from now on
| with this ToS change.
| Idesmi wrote:
| > the people who understand Mozilla's true principles have
| long since moved on by this point
|
| Where to?
| dharmab wrote:
| I'm really liking Orion browser, unfortunately it doesn't
| support Windows or Linux yet
| yencabulator wrote:
| Mozilla had $1,006,854,000 invested at end of 2023. Drawing
| 5% of that annually for developer salaries would pay a _lot_
| of Firefox developer salaries, even with no incoming cash
| whatsoever. I 'd like to believe a world exists between
| "Firefox is a volunteer-only effort" and "Mozilla CEO is yet
| another sociopath robber baron".
|
| https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2024/mozilla-
| fdn-202...
| isaacremuant wrote:
| Mozilla died as a principled company the day they fired
| Brendan Eich because he had once donated to a cause they
| didn't agree with.
|
| It became all about the authoritarianism of wokeness. They
| wasted so much money in ridiculous tangents and became
| extremely partisan and censorious.
|
| It's still the best browser due to extensions and
| customization but it's sad to see these news making it not
| that better than chrome when it comes to privacy.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Getting $400M a year is not "commercially viable". But thanks
| for clearing this up that you want to sell my data. Switched to
| Waterfox (for now, hope for an independent fork) after 30+
| years of Firefox.
| watusername wrote:
| There is no "independent fork," unless you consider the
| Chromium skins independent forks too.
| jrockway wrote:
| I came here to quote the same sentence and ... yeah, they
| shouldn't be doing any of this stuff. It's an open source web
| browser. I type a URL into the URL bar, you send the domain
| name to my DNS server, then send the rest of the URL to
| whatever that resolves to, and then you render the content. At
| no point in this exchange is any oral communication or
| "valuable consideration" required.
|
| Like sorry, if your selling point is "privacy" then you can't
| show ads on the new tab page. Debian was onto something when
| they called this software "IceWeasel".
| zeckalpha wrote:
| Selling access to be the default search engine could count
| under this definition, which was Mozilla's primary revenue
| source for decades.
| lolinder wrote:
| Wait, what? What part of this definition would include
| selling a default setting?
|
| > selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating,
| making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating
| orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a
| consumer's personal information
|
| Mozilla doesn't need my personal information at all to set a
| default search engine.
| johnklos wrote:
| "other valuable consideration" would be what I'd consider the
| "transfer" of personal data (DNS lookups, browsing behavior)
| Mozilla makes to Cloudflare by defaulting United States users
| to using DNS-over-https without notice.
|
| This is the kind of clarification we need, the same way we need
| actual laws so that companies can't play with the definition of
| "purchase" to refer to what are actually rentals.
| blibble wrote:
| and they continue to dig themselves a bigger hole
|
| "we are selling your data, not necessarily anonymised, even
| though a month ago we had a text on our website said we NEVER
| would"
| hysan wrote:
| This pretty much confirms that this is what everyone thought the
| change was about. So we get clarity, but no actual change in
| course from Mozilla. Good. We now know very clearly where Mozilla
| and Firefox stand on privacy.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| Yup. This is almost a year exactly after they announced a
| "pivot" to "privacy."
|
| At least the most useless, overpaid person in SV is _finally_
| gone and no longer collecting her $7M salary.
|
| Not like money has ever been a problem at Mozilla - they're
| sitting on over $1.5B in assets, $500M or so in cash alone.
| That's despite a plunging market share...
| wesapien wrote:
| If one opted out of all the possible data collection and
| privacy related options, are they still able to collect your
| data? If yes, how does it work? Is this called client-side
| scanning?
| st3fan wrote:
| Yes. Any software you installed including your operating
| system can turn evil and copy anything off your drive.
|
| This doomsday scenario thinking really doesn't help the
| discussion.
| userbinator wrote:
| Companies have been long concerned about exfiltration of data
| and ran MITM proxies to stop it, which ironically has been
| the target of propaganda about "privacy" by the browser
| makers.
|
| Every home network needs a MITM proxy too.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| "Every home network needs a MITM proxy too."
|
| I have been running one for long time now. I depend on it
| so much that I cannot imagine using the internet without
| it. It is much smaller and easier to compile than a
| graphical browser.
|
| Others will have different opinions but I personally remain
| skeptical that TLS provides internet users with more value
| than it provides so-called "tech" companies that profit
| from data collection, surveillance and online advertising
| services, and the CDNs that collaborate with them. While it
| can be used to protect a computer owner's sensitive data
| from eavesdroppers as it transits across the open internet,
| e.g., during "e-commerce", in practice TLS is used to
| conceal data exfiltration from the computer owner for
| commercial purposes by so-called "tech" companies. Not to
| mention the issue of "Certificate Authorities".
|
| IMO, this is analogous to the situation with Javascript. It
| has the potential to provide value to www users, e.g., as a
| language computer owners can use to extend and control a
| graphical browser,^1 but in practice it provides the most
| value to so-called tech "companies" that are using it to
| control _someone else's_ browser to allow unauthorised
| and/or concealed data collection and surveillance.
|
| 1. https://raw.githubusercontent.com/bambax/hntitles/refs/h
| eads...
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| > I personally remain skeptical that TLS provides
| internet users with more value than it provides so-called
| "tech" companies that profit from data collection,
| surveillance and online advertising services, and the
| CDNs that collaborate with them. While it can be used to
| protect a computer owners' data from eavesdroppers as it
| transits across the open internet, e.g., during
| "e-commerce", in practice TLS is used to conceal data
| exfiltration from the computer owner for commercial
| purposes by so-called "tech" companies. Not to meniton
| the issue of "Certificate Authorities".
|
| I agree completely.
|
| Google pushed HTTPS because it ensures that they are the
| only ones who can spy on users.
| zzo38computer wrote:
| > Others will have different opinions but I personally
| remain skeptical that TLS provides internet users with
| more value than it provides so-called "tech" companies
| ...
|
| I think TLS can be helpful (for both sides of a
| communication), but the browser should not require it,
| and most servers also should not require it (but should
| allow it, if you deliberately choose to connect with
| TLS). HSTS is especially bad (I managed to disable it on
| my computer by using a hex editor so that the browser
| would no longer recognize the Strict-Transport-Security
| header).
|
| Certificates can be helpful if you actually know which
| ones you specifically trust for a specific purpose
| (rather than being automatic), and if they will tell you
| information about a business (although as far as I know,
| Let's Encrypt does not do this and only verifies the
| domain name). However, sometimes if a certificate is
| changed or superseded, due to expiry, or change in
| ownership, etc, and it does not prevent the server
| operator from sending you malware; it only prevents spies
| from doing so. If a domain name is sold to someone else,
| that does not prevent cookies and other stuff from being
| sent, or from them adding malware, etc; however, it would
| be possible for end users to know the certificate to
| trust and avoid this problem (if a browser can be
| programmed to do this).
|
| Client certificates could be helpful for authentication
| too, but this is rare with HTTPS (but it is commonly used
| with Gemini protocol). But, it does prevent someone who
| takes over the domain name from being able to use your
| information to log in, since a private key is required in
| order to use a client certificate.
|
| Furthermore, the browser really should allow unencrypted
| proxies for encrypted connections, in order that if you
| deliberately want MITM then you do not need to encrypt
| and decrypt the data multiple times.
|
| > IMO, this is analogous to the situation with
| Javascript. It has the potential to provide value to www
| users, e.g., as a language computer owners can use to
| extend and control a graphical browser ...
|
| Yes, as well as other programming languages (if a browser
| supports it, which most don't).
|
| (I disable JavaScripts on my computer, except for the
| scripts that I wrote by myself. I did write scripts to
| replace GitHub's UI (in much less lines of code than
| GitHub uses themself), and other things.)
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| (Note to self: Initially points++.)
| wtallis wrote:
| Don't forget the push for browsers to ignore your DHCP-
| provided DNS server and instead get their DNS from a server
| outside your control over an encrypted tunnel. It's an
| obvious attack on stuff like PiHole, with little to no real
| upside for users.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| I avoid DHCP-provided DNS and use a local copy of unbound
| which does DNSSEC validation. A home I control the DHCP,
| but everywhere else, you can get any sort of custom crap.
| 1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote:
| If this is in reference to DoH then I found an upside.
| Generally, DoH servers allow HTTP/1.1 pipelining by
| default. This allows one to fetch DNS data in bulk over a
| single TCP connection. The DNS specification RFC 1035
| suggests that computer users would be able to send
| multiple queries in a single _packet_: QDCOUNT is any
| unsigned 16-bit integer. The implementation of servers
| that can handle QDCOUNT greater than 1 has not happened.
| But at least with DoH I can send multiple queries over a
| single TCP connnection.
|
| Once retrieved, I load the DNS data into the memmory of
| the "MITM proxy". This eliminates the need for DNS
| queries to be immediately proceeding associated HTTP
| requests for web pages, etc., or within some DNS cache
| duration period.
|
| When I use other sources of DNS data^1, I eliminate the
| need for remote DNS queries altogether.
|
| 1. For example, I extract DNS data from Common Crawl
| data.
|
| Indeed, it does not seem like DoH was implemented to
| improve life for computer users but, at least for me, it
| can be useful. It can also be useful for example to
| computer users who use remote DNS servers where their ISP
| is hijacking port 53.
| wesapien wrote:
| Silly me, I just realized its mostly a concern for users
| using their "Sync" service. *Even a host file from
| filterlists.com won't block that unless you stop using
| their service.* A host file will stop you from using the
| service that's a better way to word this. Haha. Don't use
| their services.
| 0manrho wrote:
| > in the way that most people think about "selling data"
|
| I quite frankly am opposed to any entity selling my data, in any
| way, for any reason, without my explicit consent because it
| implies you were taking my data in the first place, which is the
| core issue. It's my data. Not yours. Taking it (eg, telemetry) is
| what I object to. You selling it, I further object to. Stop.
| Without exception. To both. Period. The how and why of it does
| not matter. Worried about the breadth of the law opening you up
| to liability? Then stop chasing enshittification for your own
| gain. Don't collect the data in the first place. Its that easy.
| hiccuphippo wrote:
| Not to mention the little market share they have is from people
| who are actively trying to avoid bullshit like that.
| issafram wrote:
| this didn't make things better
| Shank wrote:
| > It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide
| license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content
| you input in Firefox.
|
| I really struggle to understand what legal team believes this
| language is necessary in downloaded software. There is a lot of
| precedent for this kind of language in online hosted services,
| but not downloaded software.
|
| > This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content.
|
| Yes, it's a license. Nothing changes. There is no ambiguity about
| ownership in a perpetual nonexclusive worldwide license, but this
| doesn't explain why this license is suddenly necessary now and
| wasn't before.
|
| Clearly the legal team at Mozilla is struggling with multiple
| issues in this update. Why are these changes being made now, and
| what is driving them?
|
| Others have discussed the data sale issue, but I don't see a
| reasonable explanation for the license issue, and the changing
| text doesn't inspire confidence.
| MatthiasPortzel wrote:
| > I really struggle to understand what legal team believes this
| language is necessary in downloaded software.
|
| Exactly. Even if nothing is changing at Mozilla, their legal
| team has invented a new interpretation of copyright law. That's
| a huge deal from a legal perspective--Apple, Google, Microsoft,
| etc need to be rushing to add corresponding terms to their
| applications.
|
| Mozilla PR is dropping the ball completely by trying to sweep
| this under the rug as 'standard legal boilerplate' because it's
| not a clause in any other application I've ever seen.
|
| Since I use FireFox at work, I don't even have permission to
| give Mozilla a license to the content I create on the clock, so
| I will be switching browsers.
| nativeit wrote:
| Not for nothing, it is standard legal boilerplate. I just
| checked two randomly selected terms of service--one for
| ReadAI, the other for Google--and they both include a very
| similar clause with those exact parameters.
|
| That said, I'm not suggesting Mozilla isn't also being wildly
| hypocritical in their behavior, and hamfisted in their PR.
| gtirloni wrote:
| You can't download Google.
| teovall wrote:
| Both of your examples are cloud services, not software run
| locally on users' own hardware. If they intend the license
| to be limited to cloud services like Firefox Sync, then
| they should _say so_.
| usr1106 wrote:
| Switching to what? Honest question, not asking for a friend.
| Semaphor wrote:
| Not OP, but we had a waterfox thread yesterday:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43205110
| BSDobelix wrote:
| I switched to https://librewolf.net/
| fph wrote:
| Is it a reputable project? What credentials does it have?
| BSDobelix wrote:
| Well it's part of the Debian Main-repo, FreeBSD-Ports,
| FlatHub and brew on MacOS:
|
| https://librewolf.net/installation/
| fph wrote:
| It does not seem to be part of the official Debian
| repositories; searching for librewolf returns no results:
| https://packages.debian.org/search?suite=default§ion=
| all...
|
| They have their own external repository indexed by
| extrepo, but "no warranty is made by the Debian project
| as to the security or quality of the software in these
| third-party repositories."
| eipi10_hn wrote:
| > not downloaded software
|
| Tbf, any softwares that send your input to an external (like
| browsers...) should disclose like this too. The thing that
| sends those data is your software, not you. Otherwise, after
| you click on the button "Purchase" with your credit card
| information, the only way to not grant your software the rights
| to send that information is you driving to the stores and give
| them your credit card by yourself.
| wtallis wrote:
| The problem here is that Mozilla has used language that is
| what you'd expect if the browser is sending data _to Mozilla_
| ; there's no need for such language if the browser is acting
| purely as a user agent and sending data to the address you
| put in the URL bar.
| eipi10_hn wrote:
| Yeah, legal words are frustrating like that. When the law
| comes to their house, using "acting purely as a user agent
| and sending data" will just help them on reddit but not on
| court. And no, you don't always send the data to the
| "address in URL bar", there can be services that are in
| iframes or with other add-on services like their Pocket,
| VPN, AI chats (ChatGPT...), similar to any client softwares
| sending data to other services that are not their own.
|
| That's why they use these words, which actually can include
| more activities inside browser
|
| > for the purpose of doing as you request with the content
| you input in Firefox.
|
| There's a reason I won't interpret serious things by myself
| if I face legal entities without a proper lawyer.
| wtallis wrote:
| I feel like you're deliberately ignoring the crux of the
| issue: a web browser's job _does not require anything
| remotely resembling a copyright license_ from the user to
| the _browser vendor_.
|
| Yes, Mozilla has been developing and acquiring a host of
| other services, many of which _do_ involve Mozilla taking
| possession of user data and processing it. Those services
| need legal policies that cover Mozilla doing stuff with
| your data. A web browser _does not_ , because the vendor
| of the web browser does not need to know what you're
| doing with your copy of the browser.
|
| Mozilla the legal entity that can be the recipient of a
| nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license is not the
| same as Firefox with PID 3808 on my machine. PID 3808
| does not need, and cannot need, and cannot receive a
| nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to
| _anything_. PID 3808 is not a legal person. This
| fundamental distinction between code I 'm running on my
| machine and services provided by Mozilla is why the legal
| terms of use for Firefox should not be lumped in to the
| same document as the terms of use for Mozilla's various
| services.
|
| Mozilla the legal entity does not need a nonexclusive,
| royalty-free, worldwide license to the comments I post to
| HN using my copy of Firefox, any more than Netgear the
| legal entity needs a license to those comments because a
| Netgear box is transmitting those packets.
| EasyMark wrote:
| why can't they let you opt into those services and
| agreements at the opt in part? There's a middle ground
| they are completely ignoring. The only way around it is
| to install a fork of firefox that doesn't have any of it.
| abdullahkhalids wrote:
| They have for example recently added AI chat sidebar via
| Firefox Labs. So in effect, the browser itself is collecting
| and sending information to third parties. And I imagine Mozilla
| is or will get some money for these integrations. I would guess
| this is how they will try to diversify their income away from
| Google Search integration.
|
| Of course the question then shifts to, do we need AI in the
| browser sidebar?
| tomp wrote:
| > This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content.
|
| I actually disagree, fundamentally.
|
| This is digital content, so "ownership" isn't the same as for
| physical stuff.
|
| Lets look at analogies: "piracy isn't theft" (because the
| original owner still keeps their copy!). Also, surely if
| Mozilla can _sell_ your data, they must have _owned_ it first!
| But you also keep your data!
|
| So clearly, to "own" digital stuff is different from "owning"
| physical stuff.
|
| Then, how do we define "own" for digital stuff? I'd say a
| sufficient definition would be, "possess and can do whatever".
|
| So when Mozilla says "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide
| license [...] necessary to operate Firefox", and then in
| subsequent paragraphs argue that selling ads is necessary to
| operate Firefox... Yes, we can add two and two together.
|
| Now, apologists will claim that the literal statement in new
| terms is _" nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for
| the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input
| in Firefox"_, but obviously, the _DO NOT NEED A LICENSE_ for
| doing as you request in Firefox (i.e. sending POST requests
| directly to third parties), so clearly there 's some shady
| business involved.
| betaby wrote:
| Time to move on. Mozilla lost latest pieces of relevancy.
| Apparently, half a billion dollars per year can't get a modern
| browser nowadays. At least in Mozilla case.
| tofof wrote:
| While this is confirming that Mozilla is already outright selling
| data, it at least DOES provide clarity on the issues around the
| acceptible use policy.
|
| That language had been so broad that it forbade most use of the
| browser. For example, "send unsolicited communications" so no
| filing a bug report. "Deceive, mislead" so no playing Among Us.
| "Sell, purchase, or advertise illegal or controlled products or
| services" so no online refils of your antimigraine medication
| lasmiditan or your epilepsy medication (pregabalin) which are
| schedule V. "Collect or harvest personally identifiable
| information without permission. This includes, but is not limited
| to, account names and email addresses" so no browsing any forum
| where a username is displayed to you. And of course "access to
| content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality or
| violence" that rules out watching the nightly news, stream PG-13
| and R movies, to watch classic Looney Tunes cartoons, to play
| Fortnight, and on and on.
| matkoniecz wrote:
| > "send unsolicited communications" so no filing a bug report
|
| why you think that filing bug reports in place inviting bug
| reports is "unsolicited communication"?
| comex wrote:
| > Whenever we share data with our partners, we put a lot of work
| into making sure that the data that we share is stripped of
| potentially identifying information, or shared only in the
| aggregate, or is put through our privacy preserving technologies
| (like OHTTP).
|
| But if the data was fully stripped of potentially identifying
| information, then it should not count as "personal information"
| under the California Consumer Privacy Act, therefore it should
| not trigger the "sale of personal information" requirement,
| _regardless_ of how it 's transmitted or what kind of
| compensation is involved.
|
| The CCPA defines "personal information" as follows:
|
| > "Personal information" means information that identifies,
| relates to, describes, is reasonably capable of being associated
| with, or could reasonably be linked, directly or indirectly, with
| a particular consumer or household.
|
| (It also includes a list of examples [1], but the examples are
| conditional on the same "linked, directly or indirectly, with a
| particular consumer or household" requirement.)
|
| So, which is it? Is the data deidentified or is it not?
|
| Is Mozilla just trying to reduce risk in case someone argues
| their deidentification isn't good enough? If so, I'd call that a
| cowardly move.
|
| [1]
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I dunno, if legal recommends wording for your TOS you should
| probably listen to them.
| winwang wrote:
| Then comes the question: would it also obviously expand their
| domain of allowable actions to trespass on their users?
|
| Since that is a resounding "yes" and they also have the
| extremely obvious finance incentive to do so...
| rendaw wrote:
| Yes, so you claim you can do whatever you want with
| everything you can get your hands on and then social media
| blows up because it's batshit insane, but don't worry because
| you're _legally in the clear_.
|
| You're acting like they didn't have the 2nd option of just
| not selling the data so the current wording is accurate...
| saagarjha wrote:
| Legal is there to advise you. Sometimes what legal tells you
| is not in the best interests of your company. A good legal
| team will work with you to identify when maximal risk-
| averseness is not the right strategy.
| teddyh wrote:
| A normal legal team (as opposed to a good one) will always
| recommend whatever is virtually guaranteed not to come back
| to bite them.
| saghm wrote:
| On the other hand, if legal recommends that they reword their
| TOS, their users also should probably listen to them.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| How about don't send ANYONE's personal information, anonymized
| or not, to anyone including themselves? I think that's what
| people want. But that will never happen because you can't make
| money from it.
| tomrod wrote:
| Nor should you make money from data transfer.
|
| Tax this, and give the tax back as reverse income tax to
| individuals.
| mmooss wrote:
| How will Sync or their VPN operate, for example?
| wtallis wrote:
| This is about Mozilla's Terms of Use for _Firefox_ , not
| Firefox Sync and Mozilla VPN. Those services need their own
| Terms of Use that doesn't apply to using Firefox _without_
| using those add-on services.
| vitehozonage wrote:
| >there are a number of places where we collect and share some
| data with our partners, including our optional ads on New Tab and
| providing sponsored suggestions in the search bar
|
| Mozilla should commit to stop doing anything like that. Then we
| can have a nice clear Terms of Use that promises to not sell
| data. I think that would alleviate community concerns.
| Silhouette wrote:
| I'm sad and disappointed that simply charging a fair price in
| return for offering something of value - with no other strings
| attached - has become so out of fashion in tech world.
|
| Almost everyone running tech businesses seems to assume that
| subscriptions or data capitalism are the only way to make any
| money these days. But I have paid for good software in the past
| and I know plenty of indie developers who still sell software
| like a product and do OK with that model. Copies of great
| software like Firefox could surely be sold - for actual money -
| to the kind of people who value its independence, privacy, and
| user focus. Offer free security updates for some reasonable
| period similar to an LTS release. The web moves fast enough that
| a lot of people will want to buy upgrades quite regularly anyway
| just for the new features.
|
| Firefox appears to have close to 200M active users based on
| Mozilla's published data at
| https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity. If they could
| get 1/20 of those users to pay them an average of $10 per year -
| that's less than one _month_ of a standard subscription to a
| major streaming service in most Western countries - then that 's
| $100M/year in revenues. Based on the public financial statements
| that's on the same scale as their subscription and advertising
| revenue and their annual spend on development activities.
|
| Another possibility might be to hide some of the developer
| resources behind some token paywall. Almost everyone I know who
| works in web dev uses MDN regularly. Firefox dev tools have a lot
| of useful things about them. Then maybe you can even keep the
| main browser free and get some revenue from devs - who are mostly
| going to file it as a business expense anyway and whose employers
| benefit greatly from the continued existence and maintenance of
| these resources.
|
| Sure everyone would complain - just as everyone complains about
| paying a few bucks for a good text or graphics editor they use
| for hundreds or thousands of hours per year to make 1000x the
| asking price. But the value is obviously there to many people. I
| think a lot of Firefox users in particular would probably respect
| the transparent attempt to keep the lights on without
| compromising on the USPs that make Firefox attractive to those
| users in the first place.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| I think if they believed there would be enough people to
| justify charging for the software to make that model work, they
| would do it. But I don't think it's actually viable, I think
| the number of people that would pay for firefox is much lower
| than you think.
|
| Consider how many other similarly popular software programs
| charge small fees for their app... I can't even think of a
| single one. And you can only really charge for binaries,
| because as soon as one person gets the source, they can
| distribute it, and then they (or others) can make their own
| (free) binaries, and then why would anyone pay money anymore.
| Silhouette wrote:
| I don't expect a high proportion of people would pay for a
| browser. My point is that if you're starting at 200M users
| you don't _need_ a high proportion. You just need a loyal
| core of fans who see enough value to play the "whale" role
| and prop up the rest. Given the kind of people that Firefox
| has traditionally appealed to in the first place I don't
| think that's an entirely unrealistic scenario.
|
| As for other apps - for my own small development businesses
| we have spent a lot more than $10/user on all-day-every-day
| development tools like text editors and diff tools. Also on
| several other areas like graphics, business admin and
| communications. For a browser and related resources that we
| also use on a daily basis whenever we're working on web
| projects it would be a very quick decision.
|
| I don't accept your premise about only charging for the
| binaries. You're not going after the people who would rip you
| off anyway with this model. You're going after the people who
| genuinely value your product and want to support its
| continued development. They're going to pay a modest amount
| without much thought just as we do for several of the
| software packages we use - despite almost all of them having
| free (but not necessarily as good in our opinion) competitors
| available.
| ranger_danger wrote:
| > They're going to pay a modest amount without much thought
|
| Highly disagree... I think if you've been providing a free
| and open source product to your loyal fans for over 20
| years, then suddenly start charging for it, isn't going to
| get people stepping over each other to hand their money
| over.
| wtallis wrote:
| I also doubt whether that business model could work. But I
| don't think doubt is the reason Mozilla hasn't tried it. They
| won't go that route because the best-case outcome is that it
| becomes a sustainable but small business. They aren't
| interested in something that doesn't have a chance at turning
| into a jackpot.
| Uvix wrote:
| Selling browsers was tried, back in the 90s. They lost to free,
| when the audience was much more limited. Trying to sell a
| browser now is an even weaker proposition to most users.
|
| I also think you're overselling how many devs would pay for
| their resources. Individual contractors? Sure. But anybody
| salaried? My employer's response wouldn't be "sure, we'll pay
| for MDN & Firefox dev tools for all our devs"; it'll be "go use
| Chrome or Edge to debug, and use GitHub Copilot if you've got
| questions on how the web works". (I recognize that Copilot is
| crap as an MDN substitute, but the beancounters will take
| "we're already paying for that" over "new expense" any day.)
| ivanmontillam wrote:
| > _Trying to sell a browser now is an even weaker proposition
| to most users._
|
| To most users yes, but a group of power users like me can
| make them life-changing money. I'd happily pay a monthly
| subscription for my web browser.
|
| It just does not need to be a U.S. entity. Otherwise, people
| without a Visa or Mastercard will be left out.
|
| Crypto is fine for this use case.
| wyclif wrote:
| It's interesting to me the uphill battle Kagi is fighting
| to get people to pay for ad-free search and browsing. I
| wish them all the best because I think it's a fight worth
| having. https://help.kagi.com/kagi/why-kagi/why-pay-for-
| search.html
| ivanmontillam wrote:
| Kagi is fighting the good fight. I admire them, though
| I'm not yet a customer.
|
| I stumbled upon their Orion docs, I find the following
| concerning: Orion is a free, lightning-
| fast, privacy-protecting browser for Apple users, open to
| the web and all its standards and protocols. One day, we
| hope everyone will say Orion is the best browser for all
| Apple devices. We're glad you're here!
|
| That's fine and dandy, but I'm not an Apple user (I'm
| South American). I'd assume Apple is the larger user base
| for their U.S. customers, but outside of the U.S., Apple
| is not really a thing.
| inetknght wrote:
| > _Selling browsers was tried, back in the 90s. They lost to
| free, when the audience was much more limited. Trying to sell
| a browser now is an even weaker proposition to most users._
|
| So was search.
|
| Look at Kagi now.
| soupbowl wrote:
| Mozilla can't be trusted to spend their money in a way that
| improves their browser or their market share. We will never
| know, but I think Mozilla would squander $100M/year from users.
| It makes me sad because I have been a fan of Mozilla and
| Firefox for most of my life.
| cmcaleer wrote:
| > Mozilla can't be trusted
|
| This is really just the core of it. I probably trust Mozilla
| about as much as I trust Google at this point. Leadership is
| non-existent. Mission and goal is lost. Pointless
| acquisitions galore. Wasting money on innumerable social
| programs.
|
| They've been at this for maybe a decade at this point. I want
| to believe things will change, but...
| GNOMES wrote:
| I thought the initial wording/hype was around poorly phrased
| lawyer speak for "you give FF permission to interact (post/get
| requests) with a web page as a browser. Don't sue us".
|
| The whole some may consider it "legally selling your data" proves
| this is not just a Terms of Use change in good faith.
| layer8 wrote:
| Read again, they are addressing two unrelated wording changes
| in two separate documents.
| hajile wrote:
| In what countries is this FAQ (removed in their PR) not seen as a
| legally-binding contract with all current Firefox users? It seems
| like a very clear contractual obligation in the US.
| { "@type": "Question",
| "name": "Does Firefox sell your personal data?", 1
| "acceptedAnswer": { "@type": "Answer",
| "text": "Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from
| many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to
| protect your privacy. That's a promise. " 9+
| } },
| mod50ack wrote:
| Contracts in the US require consideration. A promise made in
| exchange for nothing is not a contract because there's no
| consideration.
| hajile wrote:
| That contract is made in exchange for your willingness to use
| their product and your willingness to use Mozilla is what
| gets them big contracts from companies like Google.
| cmcaleer wrote:
| I don't think there is a contract here in most parts of the
| world. But maybe there's an argument to be made for promissory
| estoppel e.g. by a company who moved from IE to Firefox based
| on these promises and spent $x moving to Firefox and now have
| to spend $x moving to something else in response to new
| information?
|
| In reality there'll probably be nothing from this, though I'd
| love to see companies get punished for walking back statements
| like these.
| teshaq wrote:
| While I agree with folks that this is a step backwards in
| privacy, I think it's a good exercise to zoom out and understand
| Firefox's position.
|
| The browser market is highly competitive, and Mozilla's
| competitors have orders of magnitude more resources at their
| disposal. As we all know Firefox's market share has been dropping
| over the past years and unfortunately the revenue supporting all
| of Mozilla comes predominantly from their Google deal (which
| itself has been risked by the ongoing case against Google)
|
| Unfortunately as well - unfortunate for Mozilla, but fortunate
| for its mission and users :) - the Mozilla corporation is wholly
| owned by the foundation, so there is no easy way to raise funds
| (donations amount to so little compared to its Google revenue).
| Given no access to traditional fundraising, Mozilla has limited
| options on sustaining its business.
|
| All this is to say, Mozilla seems to be trying to diversify its
| revenue hard, and its previous on-brand attempts (Firefox OS,
| VPN, etc) haven't yielded the return they expected from them, so
| I'm not surprised Mozilla is trying to make money off of ads and
| selling data. I disable data collection, though if it came to it,
| I trust Mozilla a tad bit more than its competitors to protect my
| data - initiatives like ohttp give me a sign that at least
| they're trying
| ndriscoll wrote:
| Mozilla were pulling in ~$500M/year on those search deals. So
| on year one, spend $15M on a team of 20+ highly competent full
| time developers for Firefox, put $450M into a trust to fund
| future development, and find something to waste $35M on. Then
| for the next 15 years, find something to waste $500M on.
|
| The amount of money they've squandered is mind-boggling. If
| their goal had been to develop Firefox/Thunderbird/Mozilla
| Suite, and they had focused on how to sustainably do that, they
| never would've needed to diversify income sources.
| NullPrefix wrote:
| >spend $15M on a team of 20+ highly competent full time
| developers
|
| Implies that the browser is the mission, not some social
| cause is the mission
| rolobio wrote:
| This is exactly it, millions spent on the product, but no
| noticeable changes? The money is going elsewhere.
|
| Wikipedia is doing the same.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| If they've had any non-code projects that had costs in the
| millions, they were catastrophic failures, so they
| shouldn't have had such a mission.
| zamadatix wrote:
| It implies maintaining the browser would better fund the
| mission in the long run than selling user data to adtech
| now as the user count continues to decline.
|
| Google pays Apple 18 billion dollars per year to be the
| default search engine on Safari. If Firefox had managed to
| stay just as popular imagine how much more money they'd
| have been making on search deals these last 5 years and how
| much of that could have went to whatever mission they
| wanted. Instead they've got a whole lot of noise adding up
| to about nothing for income + a much smaller search deal
| than they should have. That's why "having a social mission"
| isn't inherently the issue, it's all about the management
| around balancing how the investment for the social mission
| is done.
|
| I think GPs numbers are off by an order of magnitude or so
| though. I remember reading something like Mozilla spending
| 200 million/year on software development (not all Firefox)
| so it might take 300+ million/year just on Firefox to
| really have a big impact from status quo. Someone with the
| real numbers is invited to correct me on that. Browsers
| have huge teams of people, even Ladybird is using large
| components like Skia developed by other browser teams.
| leetnewb wrote:
| Firefox can't compete with iOS or Android for what should
| be obvious reasons - it is structurally impossible. Also,
| the competing browsers are way better today than in
| Firefox's heyday. There is very little reason to use
| Firefox today outside of ideological.
| sonofhans wrote:
| Yes, this is how I see it, too. They've been operating as if
| their money hose from Google was (a) infinite and (b) cost-
| free. Turns out neither is the case, and now they're
| dependent on it Google owns them.
|
| They could have funded Firefox development for the next 100
| years but they've pissed it away, and now they're selling us
| out. It's gross.
| einpoklum wrote:
| They've not developed the suite for... between 15 and 20
| years I believe; and Thunderbird for over 10 years. For the
| past several years, Thunderbird is back under the MZLA
| Technologies Corporation, but - it is funded by donations
| (and doing rather well in that respect it seems).
|
| So - Firefox is the "only" thing they need to develop.
| kstrauser wrote:
| It doesn't help that they make it hard to donate to a specific
| product's development. I'd donate to Firefox. I wouldn't give a
| penny to anything of their other distractions.
|
| (And others would support exactly the opposite, I'm sure. But
| no one gets to sponsor what they personally care about.)
| saurik wrote:
| (Would others? I don't think I have ever seen anyone defend
| that part of the equation. With Wikipedia's similar insanity
| --begging for donations to keep their servers on when they
| don't spend the money on that--I have at least seen some
| people who like what they do spend their money on as
| important to them, but I don't think I have ever seen anyone
| actively want to donate money to Firefox's random side
| projects _instead of_ Firefox.)
| zihotki wrote:
| You don't need to go far. Just look at the Thunderbird.
| People are donating to support it.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| I believe saurik is talking about Mozilla's spending on
| "advocacy" and other non-product causes, not actual
| products like Thunderbird. While there are a few actual
| products other than Firefox (like Thunderbird), most of
| the "distractions" kstrauser speaks of are of a much less
| tangible nature that basically amount to "whatever
| catches Mozilla management's fancy that month".
| kstrauser wrote:
| Probably not, but you know if I left that out, someone
| would claim the opposite just for contrariness.
| sundarurfriend wrote:
| "donations amount to so little" is very misleading stated like
| that because Mozilla just doesn't give us any way to donate to
| Firefox development or even just their FOSS efforts in general.
| Mozilla is one of the very few companies I've donated to even
| when I had little in the way of discretionary income, and is
| one of the first options people think of when they think of
| FOSS software they want to donate to. But then I learnt that
| any donations like this are highly unlikely to be spent on the
| software we're donating it for, and at that point I might as
| well donate to a random local charity instead.
|
| I'm not gonna claim that donations would have rivaled the
| Google revenue otherwise, but they will certainly be many many
| times higher than what they are. Lots of people are willing to
| and even _want_ to set up a regular donation to Firefox as the
| lone non-Chrome bulwark in the FOSS space. There would have
| been grassroots efforts to get more people to donate on the
| regular, hell _I_ would have put in serious work on such
| efforts if we actually had a way to donate to keep Firefox
| alive and healthy.
| solardev wrote:
| Their weird org structure is their own fault. Millions of
| dollars squandered on things most people simply do not care
| about, while neglecting Firefox for a decade.
|
| When Firefox/Firebird/Phoenix first came out, the org structure
| wasn't that weird yet. The hybrid structure came a few years
| later, and even then it was fine for a while, but somehow
| mission creep set in and they became this ginormous org that
| did nothing useful, but padded exec salaries at the expense of
| their only service that people actually cared about, the
| Firefox browser. They kept adding more and more ads and
| intrusive partnership and lost marketshare year after year
| until it became completely irrelevant.
|
| Meanwhile, the Mozilla org tried to become some sort of EFF-
| wannabe, but heavy on the virtue signaling and low on producing
| anything of actual value.
|
| At this point, I think Firefox would be better off spun off and
| managed by another FOSS entity altogether, not whatever the
| husk of Mozilla is today.
| EasyMark wrote:
| I too wish they would have spent money only on the improving
| the browser, obvious things like sync, and probably web
| standards, that's all they really need to do. They don't need
| to be doing stuff like "social equality" or web DEI or any of
| that. They don't need to be dabbling in a dozen side
| businesses.
| Szpadel wrote:
| I wonder how much success would have some subscription option
| (at least for small amount) like maybe $5 per year?
|
| would that be more than my data are worth?
|
| I really like Firefox and u would like it to improve over time
| and as this is one of my main tools for my work I could
| consider to spend a little on it
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| > The browser market is highly competitive
|
| And that's exactly the problem: treating it like a market. I
| don't want browsers to be a competitive market, in the same way
| that I don't want libraries, primary schools, firefighters or
| healthcare to be a competitive market.
|
| In modern society, they're essential needs, which need to stop
| catering to the capitalist overlords and need to focus on the
| needs of the many.
| kevincox wrote:
| But that ignores the reality. Chrome is implementing new
| (often privacy harmful) features and because the Chrome
| market share is high enough websites depend on them. Then the
| average user has to pick Chrome because "Firefox is broken".
|
| The network effects between website and viewers make the
| market real and failing to gain a significant market share
| results in you effectively being cut out and failing to serve
| the needs of most of your users (unless you can match
| Chrome's insane pace of development bug-for-bug).
| EasyMark wrote:
| Firefox isn't broken, I literally use it all day long as my
| browser for work and home usage. Rare occasions I pull out
| brave, maybe once a month, for something that has an issue,
| and usually that's not it, it's an extension or something.
| kevincox wrote:
| I also use it almost exclusively, but sites that don't
| support it (or more often that just don't test against it
| and have various broken features) are becoming more
| common. As the market share shrinks this will become more
| and more common.
| h4ny wrote:
| Reasonable people want people running the product they love to
| succeed, too. But when the equation involves obscene executive
| salaries, back tracking on _promises_, terrible decision that
| lost money, and overall just too much money to justify what's
| being done. The end result is what you see now: a lot of upset
| people and there is nothing _unfortunate_ for Mozilla.
|
| I have a lot of trouble seeing what you are trying to defend
| here -- I really tried but couldn't. I find it pretty
| hypocritical to say that you disabled data collection while you
| trust them over your competitors to protect your data -- so you
| are saying that you trust them but you won't adjust your bottom
| line to help them succeed anyway?
|
| I really mean well: sometimes you just shouldn't try to appear
| to be reasonable to a situation that isn't, it actually makes
| things worse for everyone. I used to do that and have learned
| some hard lessons.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Or, hear me out, surprising, crazy, I know: Sell the browser!
| rbc wrote:
| Maybe this will provide some momentum to SeaMonkey or other
| browsers?
| techjamie wrote:
| I use Firefox Nightly on Android, and originally had location
| sharing on for the handful of websites where I'm fine with
| sharing it. But today, my phone notified me that Nightly updated
| what it does with location data on the play store to include
| using location for marketing or advertising purposes.
|
| Changed it to ask every time instantly, and I'm not going to be
| giving Mozilla nearly as much trust ever again.
| ants_everywhere wrote:
| It may be relevant that Mozilla recently acquired a Meta-created
| ad tracking company and is now awash with Meta ad execs. [0]
|
| It may also be relevant that Meta is recently upsetting people in
| Europe for tracking and targeting people in spite of Europe's
| data protection rules [1].
|
| My guess (and this is just speculation at this point) is that
| Meta and Mozilla think they're being clever and getting away with
| some "private" ad tracking and are underestimating how much
| damage they're doing to Mozilla's reputation.
|
| I doubt the Anonym tech has been built into Firefox yet, but it's
| clear that the corporate strategic direction is to bet on some
| concept of "acceptable ads" like Google did in the 90s.
|
| [0] https://www.adexchanger.com/privacy/mozilla-acquires-
| anonym-...
|
| [1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/digital-rights-
| activists-...
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Facebook is sort of tech's Enron / McDonnell Douglas.
| nerdponx wrote:
| > "private" ad tracking
|
| My guess is that they're aiming to pivot to become a Brave
| competitor, and either find a new (profitable) niche in the
| market, or just ride the business down to collapse.
|
| Don't forget that private, hard-to-access data is now doubly
| valuable as AI training data.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Ahh, the Unity game engine special.
| cmcaleer wrote:
| Mozilla mentioned their viability in this statement, but one
| has to wonder how much more viable they'd be had they not
| wasted tens of millions of dollars on acquisitions such as
| this, Pocket, and of course their former CEO's salary. I would
| happily donate to a company that focussed on just making
| Firefox and Thunderbird, but the reason why I don't and
| probably will not donate to Mozilla ever again is that I have
| no idea what hare-brained acquisition they'll do next.
|
| Their mission and plan for the future is so incomprehensible
| that it's probably just easier to assume actual malice.
| Vegenoid wrote:
| > it's probably just easier to assume actual malice
|
| The easiest assumption to make is greed and foolishness.
| dns_snek wrote:
| Dishonesty in pursuit of greed equals malice.
| mmooss wrote:
| What is their profit or loss from Pocket?
| debugnik wrote:
| > but the reason why I don't and probably will not donate to
| Mozilla ever again is that I have no idea what hare-brained
| acquisition they'll do next.
|
| You can't donate to Mozilla _Corporation_ at all, which is
| the entity maintaining Firefox and running these
| acquisitions. You can only donate to the Mozilla _Foundation_
| , which funds other campaigns.
| gabeio wrote:
| > You can't donate to Mozilla Corporation at all, which is
| the entity maintaining Firefox and running these
| acquisitions. You can only donate to the Mozilla
| Foundation, which funds other campaigns.
|
| The Mozilla Foundation is the parent of the Mozilla
| Corporation.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
| lolinder wrote:
| But donations to the Foundation cannot legally be spent
| on the Corporation's projects, of which Firefox is one.
| mmooss wrote:
| > It may be relevant that Mozilla recently acquired a Meta-
| created ad tracking company and is now awash with Meta ad
| execs. [0]
|
| That greatly misrepresents what the article says; really
| Mozilla acquired a company with a mission to get user data out
| of the advertising industry, which happened to be founded by
| former Meta employees:
|
| _Two years after leaving Meta to launch their own privacy-
| focused ad measurement startup in 2022, Graham Mudd and Brad
| Smallwood have sold their company to Mozilla. ...
|
| Mozilla had initially been talking to Anonym, which uses
| privacy-enhancing technologies to build measurement and
| targeting solutions, about a potential partnership.
|
| "But that quickly turned into, 'Wow, our missions are basically
| the same,'" Chambers said. "We realized that together we could
| move a lot faster."
|
| That shared mission is predicated on the notion that
| advertising and privacy are not - or at least don't have to be
| - mutually exclusive.
|
| "We both believe that privacy-preserving technologies are a
| critical part of the solution to the privacy problem in digital
| advertising," Chambers said. ...
|
| Anonym also has technology that allows ad platforms and
| advertisers to securely share encrypted impression and
| conversion data within a trusted execution environment for
| attribution, causal lift measurement and lookalike modeling. (A
| trusted execution environment is the secure area of a main
| processor where code can be run safely and in isolation.)
|
| To be fair, the major ad platforms have long offered
| attribution and measurement solutions, Mudd said. "But they
| required the data to come into their system," he added. "In
| this world, that doesn't have to happen."_
| wtallis wrote:
| > Anonym also has technology that allows ad platforms and
| advertisers to securely share encrypted impression and
| conversion data within a trusted execution environment for
| attribution, causal lift measurement and lookalike modeling.
|
| Wow, "secure", "encrypted", and "trusted" all in one
| sentence. They're trying to make it sound as reassuring as
| possible, but they're still doing tracking.
| mmooss wrote:
| They're not, in fact. That's the whole point of their
| business. Where does it say they are tracking anyone -
| which means recording personal information?
| wtallis wrote:
| "impression and conversion data", "attribution, causal
| lift measurement and lookalike modeling". These are all
| terms of art in the field of _tracking user behavior_ :
| collecting information, and using it to infer what you
| can't collect directly.
| mmooss wrote:
| That data only exists in encrypted form and in a trusted
| execution environment, based on the evidence. I mean,
| everything you do on the computer is also in RAM - is
| that tracking too?
|
| There is no evidence of risk. A general freakout is not
| evidence of anything besides maybe some bad acid.
| wtallis wrote:
| > That data only exists in encrypted form and in a
| trusted execution environment, based on the evidence.
|
| First of all, please don't try to pretend that claims
| that the data remains encrypted and secure and only in
| trusted environments are claims that should carry any
| weight. The data cannot _only_ exist in encrypted form.
| The entire goal of these systems is to mangle and
| aggregate the data "enough", then share that result as
| plaintext with the highest bidder.
|
| > I mean, everything you do on the computer is also in
| RAM - is that tracking too?
|
| No, not everything I do on my computer is tracking. Most
| software _doesn 't_ keep a long-term record of detailed
| interaction data. I don't expect my window manager to log
| how much time each app spends in the foreground. But even
| for the stuff that _is_ logged, you should be able to
| understand that the real concern comes from when that
| information is exfiltrated from my computer, processed by
| a third-party, and sold.
| saghm wrote:
| How exactly would you suggest one looks for "evidence of
| risk" in this scenario? We already don't have any clear
| visibility into what companies do with our days (which is
| kind of the whole reason everyone is upset about the
| changes to the privacy policy that everyone is discussing
| here in the first place), so if a new company comes in
| and also starts doing _something_ with data that we also
| have no visibility into, we should just assume that they
| aren't doing anything sketchy because they didn't happen
| to say anything incriminating? What would you expect a
| company that _is_ doing something sketchy to say in this
| scenario? You don't think that's a company might just lie
| about something that they know no one can disprove?
|
| Your "no evidence of risk" is my "no evidence of a lack
| of risk", and at the end of the day, I don't see any
| reason to blindly trust any company on their claims of
| being benevolent, let anyone one operating in such a
| historically sketchy one like adtech.
| h4ny wrote:
| > I mean, everything you do on the computer is also in
| RAM - is that tracking too?
|
| Uh... what do you mean? It's not like every programs has
| free access to the RAM and can just whatever that's in
| it, there are boundaries. Just because something exists
| in RAM doesn't mean it can be read, collected and
| analysed by someone else.
|
| Also, data existing in "encrypted form" and being
| executed in a "trusted execution environment" mean
| nothing either. People whose goal is to collect the data
| can still decrypt it and read it, and a "trusted
| execution environment" basically means nothing if they
| whatever they get by analysing that data in that "trusted
| execution environment" is going to be disseminated to
| third parties who may or may not have the capability to
| use that data to identify you.
|
| It's not nice to accuse people of freaking out over
| "maybe some bad acid". Even if it's "freaking out", in
| this case it's actually safer to "freak out" and avoid it
| than taking your ill-reasoned advice.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Hard uninstall. Can't believe I'm mainling Kagi's Orion browser.
| Yet here we are.
| wyclif wrote:
| I think you made the right decision. Becoming an active Orion
| user will help the browser ecosystem improve, while Firefox is
| clearly a dead end.
| ajdude wrote:
| I made the same decision earlier today. Migrating to Orion as
| we speak... It's frustrating because I've used Firefox since
| 2006 and have stuck by them and defended their decisions for
| decades. I still won't touch anything chrome-based, but Mozilla
| has sold out their customers and I cannot deal with that.
| tuananh wrote:
| is it open-source? doesn't look like it.
|
| if it's not, why are you putting trust on them more than
| firefox?
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _why are you putting trust on them more than firefox?_
|
| Literally this article. I care about my privacy more than
| open source. And I care about honesty above both. If open
| source can't deliver, so be it.
| nickthegreek wrote:
| Waterfox or Librewolf aren't viable alternatives?
| mmphosis wrote:
| The reports about this Terms of Use for Firefox pushed me
| to build from source and run LibreWolf. In the past, I
| have not been able to successfully build FireFox. Today
| was a breakthrough for me as I was able to successfully
| build and run LibreWolf. Things I like so far:
| open ... "about:telemetry" Blocked Page
| Your organization has blocked access to this page or
| website. Lots of sane defaults that actually
| respect privacy and security. uBlock
| Origin is installed by default. No
| information is sent back to Mozilla.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| Not really. What does it provide that other browsers
| don't? What must I give up? The open-source tax isn't one
| I am willing to bear. That doesn't mean it's the case for
| everyone. But while it has value for me, it's hot a hard
| limit.
| koolala wrote:
| How do you turn off getting your search history sold? You can
| turn off seeing the suggestions. Can you request they don't sell
| it though? The company they sell your search profile to could
| then sell that to someone else.
| mmooss wrote:
| Where does it say your search history could be sold? They say
| they will use your data only to do things you request -
| probably you aren't requesting that.
| koolala wrote:
| "there are a number of places where we collect and share data
| with our partners, including our optional ads on New Tab and
| providing sponsored suggestions in the search bar"
|
| These are the places they say they sell user data to be
| commercialy viable. Search history data is the most valuable
| data they could steal. Selling it for suggestions turns
| giving it away to companies into a feature. You can turn off
| 'showing' the suggestions but the feature could still be
| active.
| diggernet wrote:
| > You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This
| includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox
| Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free,
| worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with
| the content you input in Firefox.
|
| You don't need a license for data you never see. When I use
| Firefox to type a comment on HN, that comment goes from me to HN.
| It doesn't go to Mozilla. Mozilla does not need a license. (And
| no, Firefox doesn't need a license either, because licenses are
| granted to people and organizations, not software.)
|
| The only possible reason for _Mozilla_ to need a license to the
| data I type into Firefox is if Mozilla _intends_ to have Firefox
| send that data to them.
| usr1106 wrote:
| Right. Some people want Sync, Pocket, oneline translation, etc.
| Others like me just want a browser. There should be a simple
| option to choose between a browser and some multifunction beast
| that some people and even more managers at Mozilla are dreaming
| of.
| diggernet wrote:
| Those things are Mozilla services. If they spoke of operating
| Mozilla services and data you input into Mozilla services,
| it'd be fine and expected. But instead they speak of
| operating Firefox and data input into Firefox, which is much
| more broad, and just happens to give them coverage for all
| kinds of data collection and abuse.
|
| The fact they've issued this update and not clarified the
| scope as Mozilla services is disturbing.
| usr1106 wrote:
| Thanks for the terminology clarification. So ideally the
| services would be used by an extension that users are
| offered to download. Next best would be a simple choice do
| you want any services or not. If yes, all of them or
| customize.
| mmooss wrote:
| I thought they removed the reference to Firefox?
| wtallis wrote:
| From TFA:
|
| > Here's what the new language will say:
|
| > You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate
| Firefox. This includes processing your data as we
| describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes
| a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the
| purpose of doing as you request with the content you
| input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any
| ownership in that content.
|
| They're still broadly referring to "Firefox" with
| alarming language.
| mmooss wrote:
| Thanks.
|
| > They're still broadly referring to "Firefox" with
| alarming language.
|
| "alarming" is a low standard - people get alarmed because
| they see everyone else throwing a fit.
|
| They say it's only for "doing as you request with the
| content you input in Firefox" - how is that alarming?
| wtallis wrote:
| > They say it's only for "doing as you request with the
| content you input in Firefox" - how is that alarming?
|
| Nothing that I intend to do with Firefox requires any
| such statement. The mere existence of the statement is
| evidence that Mozilla's intentions are drastically out of
| line with what a web browser should be doing.
| mmooss wrote:
| > Nothing that I intend to do with Firefox requires any
| such statement.
|
| So what? Millions of people use Firefox. Lots of things
| in Firefox and their ToS don't apply to me, of course.
| None of my personal info will be collected at all, based
| on what I've read.
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| "There should be a simple option to choose between a browser"
|
| Less money, not going to happen.
| wilkystyle wrote:
| From the page:
|
| > _TL;DR Mozilla doesn't sell data about you (in the way that
| most people think about "selling data")_
|
| Three paragraphs later:
|
| > _In order to make Firefox commercially viable, there are a
| number of places where we collect and share some data with our
| partners, including our optional ads on New Tab and providing
| sponsored suggestions in the search bar._
|
| Sharing our data with advertisers in return for money is exactly
| the way most people think about "selling data".
| user3939382 wrote:
| Fixed headline: Mozilla adds insult to injury by trying to PR-
| talk their way out of their Judas-level piece of shit license
| change
| dietr1ch wrote:
| BS we're sorry you noticed announcement.
|
| There's a few ff forks that may work for you. So far I'm quite
| happy with Librewolf since I migrated this morning, there's other
| forks that also cover Android, but there's more privacy-related
| research to do there as alternatives like Waterfox have past
| drama.
|
| You can delete your Mozilla account here if you want to send a
| strong signal that privacy matters,
|
| - https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-do-i-delete-my-fire...
|
| ---
|
| I'm quite concerned about the web becoming closed at this point.
| Bigger websites are mostly walled gardens, there's an
| increasingly big amount of generated crap (even before LLMs), and
| on top of that Chromium is the new IE, which on it's own a bit
| better than before since the core is open, but still a bad cherry
| on top, especially since the Ad push from Google. I don't want
| `chrome://settings/adPrivacy` on my browser as the optimal amount
| of ads and tracking is zero.
| userbinator wrote:
| _and on top of that Chromium is the new IE, which on it 's own
| a bit better than before since the core is open_
|
| The original IE was closed source, yet it wasn't anything more
| than _just a browser_ , and people trusted MS on that.
| sabareesh wrote:
| Hate to say it but seems Safari might be the alternative. Only
| missing piece is ublock origin
| Vegenoid wrote:
| Unfortunately, I don't believe there are any adblockers on
| Safari that are very effective. I'd love to be proven wrong.
| monkeyshelli wrote:
| I moved from Wipr to this, have been pleasantly surprised.
|
| https://github.com/0xCUB3/wBlock
| Aaron2222 wrote:
| There's also this[0] that was posted here yesterday.
| Haven't tried it myself, I've personally found
| Wipr/1Blocker to be sufficient.
|
| [0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43204406
| solardev wrote:
| TLDR Firefox has been selling your data all along in exchange for
| ad money, but now state laws with more teeth forced them to come
| clean about this behavior.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| I wouldn't put it as _all along_ ; it's only been in the last
| few years.
| mmooss wrote:
| Could you quote where it says that?
| solardev wrote:
| Sure. It's the part right after the horizontal rule line.
|
| > The reason we've stepped away from making blanket claims
| that "We never sell your data" is because in some places, the
| LEGAL definition of "sale of data" [is the transfer] of a
| consumer's personal information [from one business to another
| in exchange for something of value].
|
| > [...]
|
| > In order to make Firefox commercially viable, there are a
| number of places where we collect and share some data with
| our partners, including our optional ads on New Tab and
| providing sponsored suggestions in the search bar.
|
| This is them saying "it's not that we've suddenly become more
| evil... we've been doing this for a while... we gotta make
| money somehow, and advertising and sharing your data is how
| we do that, but now state privacy laws make us have to be
| clearer about it".
|
| Firefox gets almost all of its money from Google Search
| sponsorships and other ads. (https://www.investopedia.com/art
| icles/investing/041315/how-m...). It's not really that
| different from any other adtech company. It's just one degree
| away, but most of that sweet user data still flows to Google
| in the end. Sure, they might obscure some of the PII... but
| so did FLoC, Google's controversial attempt to keep tracking
| users after third-party cookies.
|
| Firefox is just a privacy laundering operation for Google and
| some smaller advertisers. Then Mozilla uses most of that
| money on unrelated marketing and virtue signaling, pretending
| like they're some sort of privacy / civil rights champion,
| when in reality they're not really very different from any
| other ad-based browser maker -- except that they're horribly
| inefficient at using their millions. All that money and
| Firefox has still fallen way behind, all while Mozilla keeps
| pretending they're some sort of enlightened think tank.
| Nobody actually pays attention to any of their think-tank
| related work or their other services. Either as a browser
| maker or a privacy-oriented nonprofit, they're completely
| ineffective.
|
| If Google stops funding them, they'd shut down overnight,
| losing 90% of their revenue. And maybe that's a good thing...
| it's time for a more capable org to take the reins. Mozilla
| has been a terrible steward, and Firefox went from the thing
| that saved the internet (from a Microsoft IE monopoly and the
| super-bloated app suite that Netscape Communicator / Mozilla
| Suite became) to then crumbling under the poor leadership of
| its lost decade.
| lurk2 wrote:
| The one thing I haven't seen in any of these threads is where
| privacy-conscious users are supposed to go now. Are there any
| viable alternatives to Firefox?
| solardev wrote:
| Maybe Orion, if you trust Kagi enough?
|
| https://kagi.com/orion/
|
| It's webkit-based, and you can pay for it ($150 for a lifetime
| license).
| lurk2 wrote:
| Proprietary?
| solardev wrote:
| Yes. Webkit-based but closed source for now. And terribly
| unstable... I tried it for an hour just now and it crashed
| 5-6 times for me, including while I was filling out a bug
| report, lol.
| solardev wrote:
| Actually, I just tried it for a bit, but I can't recommend
| this right now. It crashed several times in the hour I was
| using it. Very unstable, along with a host of other bugs.
| Seems like an early alpha/beta.
| JadeNB wrote:
| We just had a thread on Ladybird that seemed positive, but I
| haven't tried it and so don't know what it's like as a browser.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43200604
| solardev wrote:
| It's in a pre-alpha state and nowhere near ready yet :(
| myaccountonhn wrote:
| I think the closest is librewolf and holding out for Ladybird
| noisy_boy wrote:
| Don't care, already moved on and happy with Librewolf
| (https://librewolf.net/)
| acheong08 wrote:
| Submitted and helped with debugging my first bug report to
| Ladybird browser today. Starting to use it with as many sites as
| possible. I really hope it can grow to replace Firefox
| elchief wrote:
| I cant see Mozilla surviving this. This is something monopolies
| get away with, not also-rans
| cryptonector wrote:
| How many times have we seen this ploy? First you have a nice
| policy, then you change it to something _extreme_ that causes
| outrage, then you walk back most of the change saying you had
| legal or whatever baloney reasons to make the change in the first
| place and somehow couldn 't wordsmith the language well enough
| the first time.
|
| I don't buy it. I hope some day business schools begin teaching
| that this ploy is a very bad idea. And if this really is the
| corporate lawyers being greatly insensitive then force PR and
| others to review every change they make to any policies that
| could destroy the company.
| chrismorgan wrote:
| In this instance, they haven't walked anything back yet:
| rather, they're trying to explain why they've done what they've
| done, why it isn't as bad as it looks but is just a matter of
| others using the wrong definitions... and then demonstrating
| that it's them that have the wrong definition after all, and it
| is _exactly_ as bad as it looks. And that the Mozilla of even
| ten years ago wouldn't have been in this bind.
| exodust wrote:
| > " _...for the purpose of doing as you request with the content
| you input in Firefox_ "
|
| I'm still confused about the scope of what this means. Is this
| post I'm writing now considered "content I input in Firefox"? If
| I upload an image to my own website, is that content I input in
| Firefox?
|
| From my perspective, I'm not submitting anything "to Firefox",
| I'm submitting the content to remote servers and websites. I
| don't use Firefox cloud services or bookmarks or Mozilla account
| or anything. Even my bookmarks, I use raindrop.io at the moment.
| dang wrote:
| Recent and related:
|
| _Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for
| Firefox_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43185909 - Feb
| 2025 (1060 comments)
| brtv wrote:
| > It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide
| license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content
| you input in Firefox.
|
| Do I understand it correctly that they can now use everything I
| read or type in the browser as they please, including for AI
| training?
|
| Considering that I do most of my work in webbased enail, issue
| tracker and other internal tools, this sounds like a direct
| violation of my NDA.
| Panzer04 wrote:
| Presumably they mean that if you want to post a comment to
| hacker news you give them the right to do what you want them to
| do.
|
| I'm presuming there's no catchy legal gotcha around the "doing
| as you request" clause.
| jimjimwii wrote:
| That's nice and all, but most people are worried about the
| other "rights" this would grant them and their partners.
| (What they can vs what they say they will)
| mmooss wrote:
| "It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide
| license for the purpose of doing as you request with the
| content you input in Firefox."
|
| > Do I understand it correctly that they can now use everything
| I read or type in the browser as they please, including for AI
| training?
|
| Have you requested that?
| CrimsonRain wrote:
| I've said it countless times. Mozilla is the downfall of Firefox.
| Get Firefox out of Mozilla and the current administration, what
| Firefox getting better and better.
| iso8859-1 wrote:
| Does this new TOS also apply to Firefox as distributed in Linux
| distributions?
|
| Will Debian's default browser get switched out for LibreWolf?
|
| https://wiki.debian.org/DefaultWebBrowser
| jimjimwii wrote:
| I assume not since i never agreed to such a terms and only
| learned about them yesterday. How on earth did we get to a
| point of hidden privacy policies on desktop open source
| software...
| Panzer04 wrote:
| Seems a bit weasle-y. How hard is it to be straightforward?
|
| I don't mind Firefox doing what it needs to to fund itself. I do
| mind when it seems like they try to hide what specifically that
| is. Saying that some places define "sell" as more broad than what
| you think of is a total cop-out.
|
| Just put up a page that describes every single thing that is
| taken from the browser for revenue purposes. Maybe it's
| reasonable, maybe it's not, but it seems like everyone is
| defaulting to unreasonabl, so..
| mrwww wrote:
| Safari it is.
| mmooss wrote:
| People love to pile on - it's a popular modern social game.
|
| But in this case they are damaging something especially valuable,
| one of the leading privacy and freedom organizations in the
| world, during a very dangerous time. (And also one that doesn't
| buy or organize an army of 'grassroots' support.)
|
| _Cui bono?_
|
| I think Mozilla has made clear that they use the data for things
| the user requests. If someone thinks otherwise, please quote the
| current language (not the language from two days ago).
|
| They also are innovators in privacy-preserving advertising.
| Almost anything else on the web is much worse: it has ads and
| collects personal data. Not only does Mozilla not collect
| personal data, if they can create effective privacy-preserving
| advertising, they could transform privacy (again) by not only
| sharing this technology but demonstrating to government that the
| privacy violations are unnecessary for business profitability.
|
| Yet people are throwing all that out for the energy and
| excitement of piling on. That's a really bad choice, as far as I
| can see. If that's not what's happening, why are almost all posts
| expressed that way? How about some reasonable, calm discussion?
| mort96 wrote:
| Sorry, but only Mozilla is damaging Mozilla here. Anyone could
| have predicted that their actions these past days would be
| devastating to their reputation.
| xvilka wrote:
| At this point, I believe, it's important to accelerate
| development of Servo[1], which not only provides better browser
| security because of memory safety (getting rid of the stupid
| mistakes like OOB access or UAF), but is also managed[2] by Linux
| Foundation Europe[3], which gives more hope from the privacy
| standpoint.
|
| [1] https://github.com/servo/servo
|
| [2] https://servo.org/about/
|
| [3] https://linuxfoundation.eu/
| einpoklum wrote:
| Are we able - with the version of FF currently out - to
| completely disable all transmission of data to Mozilla?
|
| Of course this might change with these announced plans, but I
| want to know if the current baseline can be safe to use (without
| patching), or whether it's already rather far-gone.
| kristjank wrote:
| They believed we misunderstood and they were very much wrong. We
| know what you're trying to achieve and we're telling you not to
| do it. I have already cancelled my existing Mozilla subscriptions
| and am actively looking towards alternatives that either respect
| my privacy better (seems like Waterfox or Ladybird are the
| candidates), or remain as bad for privacy as Mozilla but provide
| more functionality than Firefox (Vivaldi, Brave).
| drpossum wrote:
| "We were actually selling your data according to 'courts' so
| instead of making good on our promise to literally never do that
| we just memory-holed it. Not sure what the big deal is please
| continue to trust us."
| sciens3 wrote:
| I've used Netscape, the Mozilla browser, and then Firefox, so I
| guess I'm a long-time user. But as of today, I'm no longer using
| Firefox because of this.
| fimdomeio wrote:
| Dear Mozilla, just give an option to pay you money for a browser
| that does not make any compromise in privacy.
| danlitt wrote:
| I get that people are hung up on the "licensing" clause, but for
| me it is not the most egregious part. They say elsewhere,
|
| > Mozilla can suspend or end anyone's access to Firefox at any
| time for any reason, including if Mozilla decides not to offer
| Firefox anymore.
|
| This is a direct contradiction of Freedom 0, and is at best a
| meaningless clause (very bad in a ToS) and at worst a reframing
| of Firefox to be non-free, either by casting it as a service or
| something else.
| greatgib wrote:
| "we never sell your data" but we actually do it...
|
| For me, sharing my data even with "privacy preserving way" is not
| ok with the spirit I expected from something like Firefox.
|
| Even just something like "someone open new tabs 50 times with
| your advertisement there" or "someone went to your website last
| Friday" is not ok to share about me and my activity!
|
| So sad that corporate assholes took control of the project and
| try to confuse us with bullshit.
| akomtu wrote:
| Some higher ups at Mozilla have realised an _opportunity_ to
| train an AI on user data. Theft of user data at this
| unprecedented scale will be covered by the fig leaf of ToS, at
| least it 's their plan. They really belong to prison, but the gov
| is knee deep in the same business, and so it's not going to do
| anything about it.
| TheChaplain wrote:
| I find it interesting that Mozilla actually believes that
| everyone of their users are idiots.
|
| Going from "We never sell your data" to whatever those weaseling
| paragraphs attempt to say, is quite obvious that the users are
| going to be the product. And it would be better if they'd be
| straight about it.
|
| I wish they'd rather say "pay us $100 a year, and you'll get a
| modern browser on all platform that will stop ads and make
| tracking difficult".
| KingOfCoders wrote:
| Their stance is: "The post office needs an unrestricted license
| to the content of your letters to transport them". This is beyond
| ridiculous.
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| More like Bic needs unrestricted access to your letters so
| their pen can write them for you.
| eitland wrote:
| And the sad outcome is probably more people will go to Chrome,
| which 1. is already worse wrt privacy 2. if they get monopoly
| will absolutely destroy the open web (already busy doing what
| they can already get away with).
| pca006132 wrote:
| I'm just curious if it is possible that some former/current
| employees in Mozilla can just form an org, say they will maintain
| a fork of Firefox, and accept donation from the users that were
| pissed and maybe apply for some funding from EU NGI?
| GrantMoyer wrote:
| Each update from Mozilla about this issue has Mozilla claiming
| users are confused (which may be true; I don't follow the larger
| social media ecosystem), then doubling down on the part I'm
| personally concerned about.
|
| I'm worried that Mozilla is asserting it needs a license for the
| information input into Firefox for Firefox to do it's job, since
| that's factually untrue. So either Mozilla is genuinely confused
| about this point, which I find unlikely, or they have some
| ulterior motive. I can't say with any confidence _what_ the
| ulterior motive is, but I can be pretty sure there _is_ one, and
| that worries me about the future of the browser landscape.
| MaxBarraclough wrote:
| > we've removed the reference to the Acceptable Use Policy
| because it seems to be causing more confusion than clarity.
|
| Weak sauce. Mozilla ought to be apologising here, not blaming its
| community for being upset at Mozilla's efforts to impose
| restrictions on its binaries that are in direct conflict with the
| core principles of Free and Open Source software.
|
| We were discussing this yesterday. [0] It's not 'confusion'. We
| saw what they were up to, and we weren't happy about it.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43207456
| simpaticoder wrote:
| This is the upside of doing what I did yesterday, which is to
| realize Mozilla cannot recover from this, which makes such
| follow-on mistakes easier to bear. The shock has been absorbed.
| I have installed a few alternatives and will be deleting FF as
| soon as possible. I will also continue to advocate for privacy
| and user-rights preserving software - a set that does not
| include anything from Mozilla. The bridge is well-and-truly
| burned. They had a 2% marketshare based on goodwill with
| privacy rights geeks, and managed to destroy it overnight.
| There is no recovery for them.
| badgersnake wrote:
| "You all read it wrong, we're not evil really. We pinky promise.
| Don't look behind the curtain."
| cybwraith wrote:
| Its been a nice 25 years, Mozilla browser(s). So long, just
| another old guard leaving for new pastures here.
| 256_ wrote:
| I see a bunch of people saying that Firefox "needs to make money"
| or something to that effect, like they've never heard of free
| software.
|
| When Flash was killed, enthusiasts re-implemented it entirely
| from scratch. I'm sure if Mozilla exploded today people would
| take the source code and continue maintaining Firefox. I'm aware
| maintaining a browser is complicated, but maintaining an
| operating system is even more-so, and that never stopped GNU.
| r2b2 wrote:
| Firefox should make it clear that Firefox (browser) will not
| collect, transmit, nor sell user data beyond what is technically
| required for interaction between the browser and other computers
| over networks.
|
| Anything less and people stop using Firefox.
|
| If other Mozilla services need broader terms, those should be
| separate.
| Boldened15 wrote:
| Curious what people would see as the longterm future of Firefox
| in the ideal world. Just being privacy focused isn't enough
| especially for the layperson, it needs some actual benefits like
| being faster or at least as fast, plus mindshare from
| developers... but it seems impossible to compete with Google's
| resources on any of that. Even if Firefox committed the resources
| to come ahead for a moment Google could just match it easily, in
| addition to building better dev tooling, etc.
|
| That being said I'm surprised they dropped the Servo project, it
| seemed like a step in the right direction?
|
| I actually think working adblockers is a great pitch, not sure
| what sites specifically the Manifest v2 version of uBlock Origin
| doesn't work on, but "download Firefox to watch ad-free YouTube"
| is a great pitch to convince people to use it. Sucks that Apple
| limited custom browser engines on iOS to just the EU, otherwise
| Mozilla could focus on full-fledged extension parity on iOS and
| the pitch would be to get sync + ad-free.
| martinsnow wrote:
| I applaud Firefox for lower memory usage but it constantly
| shits the bed when resuming a new instance with previous tabs.
| If a tab crashes the whole thing crashes for me and the dev
| tools are really behind chrome for front end dev. I would also
| like if they would support input=type number ffs
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2025-03-01 23:02 UTC)