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An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#31

Post by Uvix »

Silhouette wrote: post #23

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…

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.)

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#32

Post by tomrod »

ranger_danger wrote: post #27
comex wrote: post #19

> 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 P…

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.

Nor should you make money from data transfer.

Tax this, and give the tax back as reverse income tax to individuals.

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#33

Post by eipi10_hn »

Shank wrote: post #14

> 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 conte…

> 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.

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#34

Post by teshaq »

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

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#36

Post by ants_everywhere »

move-on-by wrote: post #4

> 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 othe…

Mozilla is continuing to dig its own grave

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#37

Post by techjamie »

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.

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#38

Post by asddubs »

plipt wrote: post #2

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.

they also couldn't have timed this better with the manifestv3 thing

Re: An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox

#40

Post by 85g5gh85g »

wwweston wrote: post #6
move-on-by wrote: post #4

> 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 othe…

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.

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.
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