An update on Mozilla's terms of use for Firefox • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by rtpg » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 10:00 AM UTC

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…

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!

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

#202

Post by drpossum » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 10:02 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #201

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…

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…

> let's see if we can make this honest!

They're beholden to who gives them money, which is not us.

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

#203

Post by rtpg » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 10:02 AM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #79

chrismorgan wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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.

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

#204

Post by WhyNotHugo » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 10:02 AM UTC

teshaq wrote: post #34

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 predominantl…

> 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.

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

#205

Post by eps » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 10:04 AM UTC

rtpg wrote: post #201

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…

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…

> Firefox using your IP address ... to show you an ad

Why do you imply that Firefox showing ads is acceptable ?

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

#206

Post by h4ny » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 10:04 AM UTC

teshaq wrote: post #34

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 predominantl…

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.

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

#207

Post by saghm » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 10:07 AM UTC

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…

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?

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

#208

Post by WhyNotHugo » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 10:18 AM UTC

wtallis wrote: post #110

userbinator wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

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.

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

#209

Post by saghm » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 10:20 AM UTC

mmooss wrote: post #187

wtallis wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

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.

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.

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

#210

Post by hengheng » Sat, Mar 01, 2025, 10:20 AM UTC

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…

This binary is known to the State of California to sell data.