[HN Gopher] Mozilla says it's finally done with Onerep
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Mozilla says it's finally done with Onerep
Author : todsacerdoti
Score : 92 points
Date : 2025-11-20 19:13 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (krebsonsecurity.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (krebsonsecurity.com)
| netule wrote:
| Good. I really wish Mozilla would rely less on these shady
| backroom deals and open up to direct user funding. The Mozilla
| Foundation accepts donations, but they don't go toward funding
| Firefox; instead, they fund advocacy campaigns.
|
| > Firefox is maintained by the Mozilla Corporation, a wholly-
| owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. While Firefox does
| produce revenue -- chiefly through search partnerships -- this
| earned income is largely reinvested back into the Corporation.
| The Mozilla Foundation's education and advocacy efforts, which
| span several continents and reach millions of people, are
| supported by philanthropic donations.[1]
|
| [1]:
| https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/donate/help/#frequently...
| dralley wrote:
| >Good. I really wish Mozilla would rely less on these shady
| backroom deals and open up to direct user funding. The Mozilla
| Foundation accepts donations, but they don't go toward funding
| Firefox; instead, they fund advocacy campaigns.
|
| Yes, charitable donations go to charitable causes, not
| development of a browser which produces profits for a for-
| profit entity. There's no legal way to channel charitable
| donations back into a business. To do otherwise would be tax
| fraud.
|
| This is not a "gotcha", this is a persistent misunderstanding
| of what is and is not possible in tax law.
| kgwxd wrote:
| Is there not a difference between a charity and a non-profit?
| PunchyHamster wrote:
| But then it would be possible to fund firefox development
| directly, just not get the tax break for it right ?
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| There are however two options available:
|
| * Make the browser development the charitable work, or
|
| * accept funding to non-charitable company
|
| However Mozilla earns "enough" from Google, so they don't
| have to try to make either work.
| alwa wrote:
| Why _isn't_ the browser development organized as charitable
| work?
|
| From the Corp's Wikipedia page [0]:
|
| > _As a non-profit, the Mozilla Foundation is limited in
| terms of the types and amounts of revenue it can have._
|
| Is this an oblique way of saying they couldn't take Google
| bucks that way?
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation
| hrimfaxi wrote:
| Yes. https://www.irs.gov/charities-non-profits/unrelated-
| business...
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > Even though an organization is recognized as tax
| exempt, it still may be liable for tax on its unrelated
| business income.
|
| So, they could still take Google's payment and they would
| still have to pay taxes on it?
| FuriouslyAdrift wrote:
| Then they wouldn't be able to pay their CEO $7 million a
| year...
| glenstein wrote:
| Search revenue minus the cost of a CEO (slightly more
| than 1% of that goes to the CEO) is still an amazing
| deal, dramatically more than what's likely on offer in
| terms of charitable giving. They would basically have to
| execute the largest donation drive in the history of the
| internet and replicate it on a yearly basis to replace
| search licensing.
| pavon wrote:
| > Make the browser development the charitable work
|
| They probably cannot do this. The IRS generally does not
| consider writing open source software to meet the
| requirements of a 501c3, for example [1]. They aren't super
| consistent about it so some groups have gotten 501c3
| exemption in the past, but for the most part there is a
| reason that 501c3 open source foundations focus on support
| activities, conferences, and not software development.
|
| > accept funding to non-charitable company
|
| They could do this, just like they did for Thunderbird, and
| I wish they would.
|
| [1] https://www.mill.law/blog/more-501c3-rejections-open-
| source-...
| babypuncher wrote:
| Maybe we can make a deal with the government. In exchange
| for making the development of open source software a tax
| exempt charitable work, we remove private jets from the
| list of purchases that can be deducted from income taxes.
| Seems like a win-win.
| fstarship wrote:
| The Bevy game is an example on an organisation that has
| gotten 501c
| glenstein wrote:
| >Make the browser development the charitable work
|
| I don't think there's a legal way to fund development form
| the profitable venture and also accept charitable
| donations.
|
| I'm sure if donations were more a better bet than search
| licensing they might go that way, but as I said in a
| different comment, the biggest annual donor drive in the
| world is probably Wikipedia, probably a best case scenario
| for that kind of drive, and it brings in less than half of
| what their search licensing gets.
| icepush wrote:
| You can make donations to a for-profit business. You just
| can't deduct it from your taxable income.
| spelk wrote:
| I don't have any input on direct user funding for Firefox,
| but Thunderbird is also developed by a for-profit entity
| and accepts direct user funding with no charitable tax
| deductions as well. [0] https://www.thunderbird.net/en-
| US/donate/
|
| [0] https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/donate/
| fhd2 wrote:
| Exactly, and to my knowledge the receiving party needs to
| pay profit tax on them. It's called a donation, but
| technically more of a pay-what-you-want model. Several
| businesses do that.
| ehutch79 wrote:
| sell $50 keychains. done.
| input_sh wrote:
| The corporation already sells user-facing products: Mozilla
| VPN, MDN Plus, Firefox Relay, Pocket (previously).
|
| Feel free to subscribe to them to give money directly to
| the Mozilla Corporation, the future you're looking for is
| already here.
| glenstein wrote:
| They sell T-shirts, totes, and backpacks:
|
| https://mozilla-na.myspreadshop.com/
| abawany wrote:
| it's particularly strange to see Mozilla engage in these silly
| machinations when the Thunderbird team has moved on to the
| model of direct user funding.
| glenstein wrote:
| >I really wish Mozilla would rely less on these shady backroom
| deals and open up to direct user funding.
|
| I have nothing against this, but at best it would be a modest
| side hustle. The major comparables in online user fundraising
| are Wikipedia, which AFAIK is the largest annual online
| fundraising drive in the world and it raises less than 50% of
| what search licensing gets. Tor is another one, but off the top
| of my head, I think it's maybe 1/20th of what Wikipedia raises.
|
| If Firefox stood up a donation drive for the first time I would
| guess Tor-level revenue and maybe it might crawl upward from
| there depending on how things go.
|
| Also, my understanding is their organizational structure is
| what legally enables them to do the search licensing which is
| their biggest revenue stream. But it means that their browser
| development is done to generate commercial revenue. If they
| moved the core browser development under the Foundation, it
| would unravel the ability to do search licensing deals to
| support development, which are much stronger than whatever
| their prospect for user donations would be.
|
| I'm a bit out of my depth here but I believe it's all about the
| search licensing.
| gldrk wrote:
| >The major comparables in online user fundraising are
| Wikipedia, which AFAIK is the largest annual online
| fundraising drive in the world and it raises less than 50% of
| what search licensing gets.
|
| All this shows is that Mozilla is even less efficient than
| Wikimedia! There are projects such as Rust and LLVM that
| rival Firefox in complexity with 1/10 the combined expenses.
| Of course Rust has a selling point and Firefox doesn't, but
| whose fault is that really?
| glenstein wrote:
| Firefox replaces more code in a month than Rusts' entire
| codebase even contains. Rusts' expenses are massively
| subsidized by donated staff time from over a dozen major
| tech companies.
|
| Wikipedia is a fundamentally different beast serving static
| content with practically zero of the engineering overhead
| associated with Rust let alone with Firefox.
| gldrk wrote:
| >Firefox replaces more code in a month than Rusts' entire
| codebase even contains.
|
| Point taken. Rust + LLVM is almost half of Firefox
| though, and probably at least equivalent in terms of
| necessary skill. It is also not clear how much of that
| code could be removed without much loss of functionality.
|
| >Rusts' expenses are massively subsidized by donated
| staff time from over a dozen major tech companies.
|
| This is called having a selling point. If Firefox offered
| anything besides not being Chromium, people would work on
| it without getting paid by Mozilla.
| aloha2436 wrote:
| > Rust and LLVM that rival Firefox in complexity with 1/10
| the combined expenses
|
| You could argue LLVM is technically of a similar level of
| complexity, but operating a browser requires far more
| actual business than developing a compiler.
|
| More to the point, those organisations get enormous amounts
| of "free" labour in the form of contributions from large
| corporations that benefit from them, in a way that Firefox
| absolutely does not.
| shellwizard wrote:
| I wish they would let users fund Firefox development directly and
| not Mozilla's own agenda
| SG- wrote:
| how much have you funded?
| stronglikedan wrote:
| Why would you think they have funded anything given that they
| clearly stated they are against funding Mozilla's agenda
| which is currently the only option?
| jamespo wrote:
| Would they otherwise? Unlikely, the internet is a moocher's
| paradise
| johnmaguire wrote:
| Um, if they are asking for an avenue to do so, probably
| yes?
|
| I personally spend hundreds a month on charitable
| donations - to political advocacy groups, social outreach
| organizations, and to open-source software that provides
| me immense value. I think this is one of the most direct
| ways I can influence the world around me.
| phyzome wrote:
| Can't speak for them, but I agree with the sentiment, and
| I've given them at least $1000.
|
| I sure as hell wouldn't give them money these days. Pretty
| pissed at the direction they've been heading.
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| _Nobody_ has funded the browser, because nobody _can_ find
| the browser. You can 't gotcha people with not giving money
| to other causes than the one they said they wanted to
| support.
| starik36 wrote:
| Browser development is done by Mozilla Corporation which is a
| for-profit entity. It's illegal to donate to it. This is by
| design of the US tax code.
|
| You can donate to Mozilla Foundation (parent entity of Mozilla
| Corporation), which is a non-profit. But you can't expressly
| state that the money go towards browser development.
| jonas21 wrote:
| It's perfectly legal under US law to donate to a for-profit
| corporation. The donor just can't take a tax deduction for
| it.
| alwa wrote:
| Do I understand correctly that the parent nonprofit
| Foundation can decide to use some of its donor money to
| fund its for-profit Corporation (with the same tax
| treatment as any other investment, and of the corporation's
| profits before they're returned to the Foundation)? But
| donors can't direct their gifts to that use if the donors
| still intend to deduct them as charitable donations?
|
| And thus I guess Foundation _has_ to do a good amount of
| conventional non-profitty stuff like "education and
| advocacy," otherwise it would just be a flimsy facade for
| what's substantially a for-profit endeavor?
|
| Why is the browser arm organized as a for-profit at all?
| input_sh wrote:
| It's the other way around, Mozilla Corporation is
| profitable and those profits go directly to the Mozilla
| Foundation which owns 100% of it.
|
| This idea that Mozilla doesn't have enough money to fund
| Firefox is just wrong, Firefox development is perfectly
| sustainable, it earns more money than it spends. If you
| want to give money to the Mozilla Corporation instead of
| the foundation, you do the same thing as with any
| company: you purchase products from them (such as their
| VPN or MDN Plus, both of which are owned by the
| corporation).
|
| > Why is the browser arm organized as a for-profit at
| all?
|
| So that they can make business deals with the likes of
| Google, which they wouldn't be able to do as a non-
| profit.
|
| Edit: I really wish there was a single thread about
| Mozilla here that doesn't devolve into this being like
| 80% of the comments. Maybe one day.
| starik36 wrote:
| Right. It is legal. But in the tax code it's called a
| "gift", rather than a "donation".
| pseudalopex wrote:
| It is legal. But most for profit corporations don't solicit
| gifts because it isn't worth the compliance costs and
| risks. Some were punished when donors took tax deductions.
| Or the IRS decided their disclosures were inadequate. Or
| they overlooked a state or province regulation. And they
| were not associated with non profit foundations with
| similar names.
|
| Anyone can give Mozilla Corporation money by purchasing
| services.
| drtgh wrote:
| This sounds extremely necessary, but what warrants the funds
| reaching such a exclusive destination?
|
| I think that Firefox needs an exclusive non-profit foundation,
| but I don't think Mozilla Corporation/Foundation would allow
| it, so a fork with a new name (marketing problem) sounds
| necessary (although splitting the forces may not be a good
| idea?), I wonder if the current Firefox's forked communities
| could join forces to create such non-profit foundation, and
| start from there, making grow the developers under such non-
| profit foundation, the new main tree.
| slabity wrote:
| Damn, I apparently missed the memo that the backend service for
| Mozilla Monitor was shady while I used it.
|
| Are there any actual services like this that work properly? I've
| noticed whenever it indicated that a service has removed my data,
| that same service would come back online as having my data a few
| weeks later.
| blakesterz wrote:
| Wondering the same thing, like is DeleteMe better? Or at least
| not like this thing?
| 201984 wrote:
| "403 Forbidden" error unfortunately.
| ugh123 wrote:
| > Onerep's founder had created dozens of people-search services
|
| How in the world was this not considered fraud, or in the very
| least - breach of contract?
| x0x0 wrote:
| those are, for better or worse, legal businesses.
|
| breach of contract: unless it was in the contract that he
| warranted that he didn't/wouldn't do this, it's not a breach of
| contract?
|
| It does showcase extremely poor due diligence from Mozilla.
| ovo101 wrote:
| Glad Mozilla finally ended the Onerep partnership--too much
| conflict of interest in the data broker world.
| knowitnone3 wrote:
| typical of Mozilla to collude with data brokers. They've been
| selling their soul it for years. Google, Perplexity, Amazon,
| Bing, etc.
| jokoon wrote:
| There is an annoying bug in firefox where user/pass autofill
| doesn't work for some websites, like reddit or others.
|
| Still not fixed
| mossTechnician wrote:
| Mozilla says they have "high standards for vendors" in their
| latest statement, but why didn't those standards apply back when
| they were told about this in March 2024?
|
| https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/03/mozilla-drops-onerep-aft...
| blibble wrote:
| just seemed obvious to me that someone asking for all your
| personal information so they can "help delete it" is probably
| crooked
|
| how do mozilla keep being fooled by these things?
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