From the new terms:
When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.
Does having a ToS mean that Firefox is no longer FOSS? Freedom 0 of FOSS is: “The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose”. Isn’t that violated if you can only use the software under the condition of accepting terms of service?
Arguably no. It’s not “you may not use this if you don’t agree.” It’s “the software does this and here is your warning.”
Still incredibly fucked.
Firefox is FOSS, Mozilla’s backend services are not.
I think they mean Mozilla services such as ai, sync, etc. The browser itself probably doesn’t fall under it.
Mozilla updated their post at the top:
UPDATE: We’ve seen a little confusion about the language regarding licenses, so we want to clear that up. We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example. It does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice.
Clarifying literally nothing.
“We couldn’t use information typed into Firefox.” Good. You don’t get that information. My software, on my computer, does. Will some insane new law suggest Notepad spies on users by capturing their keystrokes? No? Then this aggressively vague bullshit is justifying a of data-collection scheme. Metadata is still data.
We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible.
You have that! It’s implied by provision when you distribute your software under eg.: GPL!
We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible
Gee whizz, like what? What “basic” functionality is missing that can only be solved with a ToS saying they’re going to track how I use their browser?
Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox
That’s what I needed to see. So it’s not missing basic functionality, they just want to make it legal to track your browser usage.
That’s a nice disclaimer. They should clarify that in their privacy policy directly instead of just saying “oh that’s not what we meant guys, pinky promise 😉”
They mean there stupid services such as sync and ai, but the idiots who wrote this should have clarified that this doesn’t encompass the browser. They do require your data to provide those afterall.
The way it is worded is just bad they shoudl have specified services that need data like ai in the wording:
When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.
Yeah, something like:
When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to provide the following services:
Then list the specific services.
If I don’t use any of the services, they have no right to use any of my data.
Seriously Firefox include many services, specifying the TOS for the entire browser is stupid.
What is worse is that people are asking for clarification and there is no response from Mozilla:
https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e
Yeah, they should have a general one that lays out their intentions, and then addendums for each service. It’s hard to tell which are intended to apply strictly to Firefox and which are intended to apply to other things, like AI, Pocket, Sync, etc.
Keep the base one small and tight, and then have specific exceptions for services that require them.
Firefox “never has and never will” sell your personal data was removed.
https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e
It was moved here, but there is no never will: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/faq
It seems like every company on the web is buying and selling my data. You’re probably no different.
Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you, and we don’t buy data about you.
Search for
firefox-tou.
The presence of that now magically removes mentions of privacy and not selling user-data in multiple places.- <p> - Firefox is independent and a part of the not-for-profit Mozilla, which fights for your online rights, keeps corporate powers in check and makes the internet accessible to everyone, everywhere. We believe the internet is for people, not profit. Unlike other companies, we don’t sell access to your data. You’re in control over who sees your search and browsing history. All that and exceptional performance too. - </p> + {% if switch('firefox-tou') %} + <p>Firefox is independent and a part of the not-for-profit Mozilla, which fights for your online rights, keeps corporate powers in check and makes the internet accessible to everyone, everywhere. We believe the internet is for people, not profit. You’re in control over who sees your search and browsing history. All that and exceptional performance too.</p> + {% else %} + <p>Firefox is independent and a part of the not-for-profit Mozilla, which fights for your online rights, keeps corporate powers in check and makes the internet accessible to everyone, everywhere. We believe the internet is for people, not profit. Unlike other companies, we don’t sell access to your data. You’re in control over who sees your search and browsing history. All that and exceptional performance too.</p> + {% endif %}Difference here is
Unlike other companies, we don’t sell access to your data.- <h2 class="c-section-title">The best privacy</h2> + {% if switch('firefox-tou') %} + <h2 class="c-section-title">Always protected</h2> + {% else %} + <h2 class="c-section-title">The best privacy</h2> + {% endif %}Pivoting from privacy to security in the tos.
- <li> - <h2>{{ ftl('does-firefox-sell') }}</h2> - <p>{{ ftl('nope-never-have', url=url('privacy')) }}</p> - </li> + {% if not switch('firefox-tou') %} + <li> + <h2>{{ ftl('does-firefox-sell') }}</h2> + <p>{{ ftl('nope-never-have', url=url('privacy')) }}</p> + </li> + {% endif %}As you mentioned they will apparently sell your data under tos.
Where does the tos apply and where the mpl now?
They would have removed all those mentions of privacy entirely if the mpl had no use anymore, wouldn’t they?I can’t wait for ladybird, firefox is going downhill because of the Mozilla Foundation
Mozilla seemingly can’t help shooting themselves in the foot, but I refuse to use Ladybird given its leadership.
…Also, although this is minor, LB effectively doesn’t exist, so of course it’s unblemished—it hasn’t had time to fuck up yet. Even the prettiest, sweetest organizations screw up in various ways. I see no reason to believe LB will be different in the real world, outside of announcements and fundraisers. Let them launch first, give them a year or two (Mozilla’s been at this for decades…) before deciding whether they’re fit to be Firefox Killer.
That said, I’d love to be proven wrong. Even if only to have something I could point at, show to Mozilla, and say “Look. That could’ve been you. Where did things go wrong, and what will you do about it?”
I don’t want Ladybird to be a Firefox killer, I don’t even think Mozilla will care, I just want another competitor in the browser market, and I have faith it will at least be as good as firefox and we’ll see from there
It’s just a lousy, metaphorical title. The real Firefox killer already exists, and its name is Chrome. I didn’t mean to imply something about your expectations for Ladybird, my bad.
It felt so weird to upvote this. Thanks for pointing that out, but also uuuuuuuuuuuuggggggggggghhhhhhhh
This is unfortunate. I’ve been advocating for Firefox and managed to switch many of my friends. This is where I draw the line.
Time to switch to something else.
to what tho?..
May I suggest we switch to a gopher or gemini internet?
One thing about gopher/gemini is that it’s practically designed to be easily scraped by AI.
But what if I need info from the main web?
You draw the line at any TOS?
Good day sir!
I am so tired of feeling like I have an adversarial relationship with everything in my life
It’s because This Is The Bad Place
We’re in the era of Sinisterization
I selfhost and use mostly FOSS and have ways of blocking 99% of ads and locally control all my IoT so if you’re willing to learn then you don’t have to feel that way. Because I feel in full control and in harmony with everything.
Sure, Jan. I guess you’re not using a web browser to post this? Not using an app, because that would mean having an Android or Apple phone?
I think you underestimate just how shitty everything now is, even if you’re putting a massive effort in by using almost exclusively FOSS and maintaining a stack of ad blockers.
My phone is running LineageOS without GAPPS. I use Firefox but with the advent of this news, will be changing to more hardened versions of it. I spend no effort maintaining my ad blockers past the initial setup, the fact that you have no idea how much work is involved shows that you have no idea what you are talking about… you are a smoke blower.
I’m more than happy to go back and forth with you and give you specifics to show just how little you know, but I’m curious. Why did my comment seemingly irk you? Do you feel insecure because are lazy and adopted a defeatist attitude to justify your laziness and/or lack of knowledge? Because it is 100% possible to control your devices and data, honestly, you’re probably just kinda dumb buddy. But again, if you want to learn, I’ll happily educate you on specifics.
It’s what’s known as “vulture capitalism” or “parasitic capitalism”, where sociopathic kleptocrats are allowed control and treat all aspects of life as hostile and adversarial — value must be extracted and stolen from others — rather than a mutually beneficial relationship to improve and enrich the experience for everyone.
This is exemplified by the stock market and “line must go up” — the belief that stable, sustainable profits are a failure and growth must be continuous and exponential, in a planet and civilisation of finite resources, analogous to cancer.
It’s what’s known as “vulture capitalism” or “parasitic capitalism”,
So, capitalism.
Or please kindly enumerate what other kinds of capitalism provably exist.
There is even a rumor that, perhaps, no other form of capitalism truly exists.
I was about to say that just sounds like capitalism.
Hard agree. It does feel like we’re entering an age where that may start to shift, though. Well, not so much a shift in the “mainstream”, but it feels like we’re starting to see more and more parallel products and services that have anti-enshittification built in. And I think that’s our best path forward, all of us who care should work towards a parallel ecosystem that cuts these practices out as much as we can.
And be vocal about it! People are usually surprised in how I run services. Many many people won’t be able to, but many people can, so let them know they don’t have to be locked into paying for services.
For example “ugh Google, I hate paying for drive every month”
What do you use it for?
Oh just backups really.
Why not just an external hard drive then, or there are more expandable options out there.
Oh yeah, I forgot about those… Maybe I should look into them again…
This!!! All this!
I read the article but still don’t understand what this means:
You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet.
When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.
I’ve seen corporate mission statements that were clearer.
I read it as “you type a URL in the address bar, we’ll take you there. You want to search for something using the search bar? We got you, we’ll forward your search to the search engine of your choice. All free of charge.”
It’s just worded in such generic legal wording it makes you gag. But them pointing it out so explicitly just makes me more suspicious lol. I think it’s fine for now, just another wall of text to keep an eye on for any future modifications.
A more factual and literal reading:
You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox,
“If we deem anything as “necessary to operate Firefox”, such as selling your data, then you automatically grants us all rights to do that”.
“help you … experience … content” = Ads
That’s the more vicious part of it. How do we know what this experience they want to serve us is. A more pessimistic read could be they sell everything we type to ad companies and claim targeted ads are totally enhancing our experience.
Before everyone freaks out over “terms of use = Firefox bad now” (I’m citing the actual Terms of Use and Privacy Notice)
I’ll add emphasis as needed.
You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet. When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.
This doesn’t mean you’re giving them a license to do whatever they want with your data, it means you’re giving them the ability to use that data explicitly as you choose to navigate the web. (e.g. you use Firefox to make a post, they have to process those keystrokes through Firefox to send it to the server, and thus could require permission to do that in the form of having a license)
They explicitly have the license only to use the information in line “with your use of Firefox,” and to “navigate, experience, and interact with online content.” not to do whatever they want. They should have worded this better, but this isn’t one of those “we own everything you ever put in your browser” kind of clauses.
If you give Mozilla any ideas, suggestions, or feedback about the Services, you give Mozilla permission to use them for free and without any additional obligations.
This is standard on basically every site, and kind of obvious. You shouldn’t be able to say “you should do this thing,” have them do it, and then say “actually I own the license to this and you have to pay me”
These Terms apply until either you or Mozilla decide to end them. You can choose to end them at any time for any reason by stopping your use of Firefox. 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. If we decide to suspend or end your access, we will try to notify you at the email address associated with your account or the next time you attempt to access your account.
Nothing requires you to stay in this contract after you stop using the services, and this is just reaffirming the fact that, yes, they can stop offering Firefox in the future if they simply can’t sustain it, without somehow breaking contract. More legalese just to protect them from frivolous lawsuits.
Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.
You agree to indemnify and hold Mozilla and its affiliates harmless for any liability or claim from your use of Firefox, to the extent permitted by applicable law.
This basically just means “don’t do crimes using our browser.” Again, standard clause that basically everything has to make sure that nobody can claim in court that Firefox/Mozilla is liable for something a user did with their software.
To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree that Mozilla will not be liable in any way for any inability to use Firefox or for any limitations of Firefox. Mozilla specifically disclaims the following: Indirect, special, incidental, consequential, or exemplary damages, direct or indirect damages for loss of goodwill, business interruption, lost profits, loss of data, or computer malfunction. Any liability for Mozilla under this agreement is limited to $500.
Standard liability clause, basically everything also has this.
And that’s it. That’s the terms of use. Nothing here is out of the ordinary, uncalled for, or unreasonable for them to have.
Now let’s move on to the new Privacy Notice.
You have the option to use a third-party AI chatbot of your choice to help you with things like summarizing what you’re reading, writing and brainstorming ideas, subject to that provider’s terms of use and privacy notice.
If you choose to enable a chatbot in the sidebar and/or through a shortcut, Mozilla does not have access to your conversations or the underlying content you input into the selected chatbot. We do collect technical and interaction data on how this feature is used to help improve Firefox, such as how often each third-party chatbot provider is chosen, how often suggested prompts are used, and the length of selected text.
This just states that if you use the chatbots, you’re subject to their policies, and also Mozilla will collect very light amounts of data to understand how often and to what degree the feature is used. The first part is functionally no different from saying “If you go to OpenAI’s website and use ChatGPT, you’ll be bound by their ToS.” Yeah, of course you will, that’s obvious.
Review Checker is a Firefox feature that helps you determine whether reviews are reliable when you shop online with sites like Amazon.com, BestBuy.com and Walmart.com. If you opt in to using Review Checker, Mozilla will process information about the website and the product identifier of the products you view using our privacy preserving technology called OHTTP. OHTTP combines encryption and a third party intermediary server, helping prevent Mozilla from linking you or your device to the products you have viewed. We also collect technical and interaction data on how this feature is used to help improve Firefox.
By opting in to using Review Checker you also agree to be shown product recommendations and sponsored content. If you do not want to receive product recommendations and sponsored content, you can opt out of this feature under Review Checker settings at any time.
Another optional feature that, if you choose to turn on and use yourself, will obviously have to collect data that is required for such a thing to work. It can’t check reviews if it can’t see the reviews on the website. As for the product recommendations and sponsored content, that’s not desirable, but they do very clearly mention that you can just turn it off in settings.
You can install add-ons from addons.mozilla.org (“AMO”) or from the Firefox Add-ons Manager, which is accessible from the Firefox menu button in the toolbar. We process your search queries in the Add-ons Manager to be able to provide you with suggested add-ons. If you choose to install any add-ons, Firefox will process technical, location and settings data, and periodically connect with Mozilla’s servers to install and apply the correct updates to your add-ons. We also collect technical and interaction data on usage of add-ons, to help improve Firefox.
If you search on their site for extensions, they have to process your search, and if you need to install addons, they’ll have to connect to Mozilla’s servers and collect the relevant data to make sure the extensions are available where you are. Shocking. /s
Mozilla runs studies within Firefox and makes certain experimental features available through Firefox Labs to test different features and ideas before they’re made available to all Firefox users or become part of the core Firefox offering — this allows us to make more informed decisions about what our users want and need. This research uses technical, system performance, location, settings and interaction data.
We also need to process data to keep Firefox operational, improve features and performance, and identify, troubleshoot and diagnose issues. For this we use technical, location and settings data, as well as interaction and system performance data (such as number of tabs open, memory usage or the outcome of automated processes like updates). In the rare situations where the information needed also includes limited browsing data (e.g., Top Level Domain annotations for page-load performance monitoring), it will be transmitted using OHTTP; this helps prevent Mozilla from linking you or your device to the data collected for this purpose.
This has been around for a while already. If you choose to use beta features, then yeah, they’ll collect some diagnostics. That’s why it’s in beta: to get data on if it’s working properly.
Because maintaining the latest version of Firefox helps keep you safe against vulnerabilities, desktop versions of Firefox regularly connect to Mozilla’s servers (or another service that you used to install Firefox) to check for software updates; updates for Android and iOS versions of Firefox are managed by Google’s Play Store and Apple’s App Store, respectively.
We also process technical data and settings data to protect against malicious add-ons. In addition to these standard processes, we use Google’s Safe Browsing Service to protect you from malicious downloads and phishing attacks, and validate web page and technical data with Certificate Authorities. As part of our work to improve privacy and security for all internet users, we collect technical data via OHTTP, to better understand, prevent and defend against fingerprinting.
Checking for updates and providing malicious site blocking requires connecting to servers to download the updates and having a list to block bad sites. Again, very shocking. /s
And that’s basically it for that.
I seriously don’t understand the reactionary attitude so many people have towards things like this. Read the policies yourself, and you’ll see that their explicit purpose is either:
- Legally clarifying things to protect Mozilla from legal liability they shouldn’t have, and frivolous lawsuits.
- Making sure it’s clear that to do certain things, they have to, y’know, process the data for that thing.
- Explaining where different features might rely on parties outside Mozilla.
None of this is abnormal.
Honestly you already start at paragraph 1 with a wrong premise and then go down from there. Allow me to point you to the very beginning, to your first emphasis:
You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox,
This doesn’t mean you’re giving them a license to do whatever they want with your data, it means you’re giving them the ability to use that data explicitly as you choose to navigate the web.
Here’s the trick: they are not operating Firefox, we are. It’s a system that runs locally and under our instruction on our devices. When I type something in the URL bar, or when I click Open File, or when I mouse over the screen, Mozilla doesn’t have to do anything: everyhting happens locally. No data should be being transmitted or be processed over their systems: Firefox is not a remote desktop / “live service” application.
…Unless…
And there you have it. That’s why those terms are here.
None of this is abnormal.
Yes, it absolutely is. I do not say this lightly. While I’m not an attorney, I review FOSS licenses regularly for my personal projects and for work. Consider:
- Linux Mint uses GPL2
- LibreOffice uses MPL 2
- Countless, countless FOSS software all use free, open-source licenses
They all take user actions and user content. None of them have anything like this.
This is very worrying because each of these points can be refuted with the same quotes. I’ll add my own emphasis:
You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet. When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.
If Mozilla wants to limit their use of my input, why the do I need to give them a full, non-exclusive license? This is the very language that LinkedIn, et al have used to train their LLMs and said that we all gave them permission to do so. While the letter of the law that may be true, we know that if we had the option to opt out, we would have.
This doesn’t mean you’re giving them a license to do whatever they want with your data, it means you’re giving them the ability to use that data explicitly as you choose to navigate the web.
I’m sorry but the license does not say that is the only way they will use this data. It’s not explicit, like you claim. It’s implicit. The explicit part is “nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license”. They say that it will be used to “help you navigate the internet” but what the does that mean?!
“Navigating the internet” does not require me to grant a license. Much of this would fall under fair use and to this day, it’s fallen under fair use. And even if it did require a license, why have it be nonexclusive? Language that specifies the length of the license shall be limited to the amount of time necessary to make the connection to a website, provide the necessary services of a website, etc. would all that would be needed.
And this is even BEFORE we get into the whole reasoning of even needing a license. The only reason you need a license from anyone is if you plan on storing, transmitting, transferring, or otherwise utilizing a right protected under copyright law. The only reason why Mozilla could possibly need a license is if they plan on storing or processing your data outside of your device. Best case scenario: they are using your data to “speed up” connections by processing it through their servers. Worst case (and more likely scenario): they want the data to train AI.
These Terms apply until either you or Mozilla decide to end them. You can choose to end them at any time for any reason by stopping your use of Firefox. 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. If we decide to suspend or end your access, we will try to notify you at the email address associated with your account or the next time you attempt to access your account.
Nothing requires you to stay in this contract after you stop using the services, and this is just reaffirming the fact that, yes, they can stop offering Firefox in the future if they simply can’t sustain it, without somehow breaking contract. More legalese just to protect them from frivolous lawsuits.
While you are factually correct, Firefox is explicitly stating here that they have the right to terminate an individual’s use of their browser, a freedom that was protected under the MPL.
Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.
This basically just means “don’t do crimes using our browser.” Again, standard clause that basically everything has to make sure that nobody can claim in court that Firefox/Mozilla is liable for something a user did with their software.
This part really made my brain itch so I had to dig deeper. This is worse than I initially thought: Mozilla is replacing the MPL as the governing license for their executable and replacing with their TOS.
I’m not sure how I can read their TOS as anything but “terms of use = Firefox bad now”. You are losing your freedom under the MPL to use Firefox however you see fit. What concern does Mozilla have if I decide to use their browser for crimes? They aren’t facilitating it and under the MPL, they were protected from it. Since the TOS is now replacing the MPL, introducing an “Acceptable Use Policy” no longer makes this FOSS. It makes it Source Available.
As an avid Firefox user for decades and a former supporter of the Mozilla Foundation, this is the last straw for me. I will not agree to use a browser where my data is going to be used by them without any exclusions.
I hope you are right and I’m wrong. But given the current landscape, Mozilla likely feels the pressure to “do something with AI” and we’re their products. You can continue to use it, but I’m spending the weekend figuring out alternatives.
While you are factually correct, Firefox is explicitly stating here that they have the right to terminate an individual’s use of their browser, a freedom that was protected under the MPL.
Shit, just noticed this. This means Firefox stops being FOSS and can’t any longer be distributed by several distros, right?
I wonder if Debian is going to restart Iceweasel…
I’m not 100% sure how Firefox gets included into distros (e.g. licensing, etc.).
I think it’s worth me making a clarification on this because I was thinking about it early this morning.
Mozilla is making a similar distinction to their pre-built executable as Microsoft does with VS Code. Microsoft distributes VS Code binaries under a non-free (libre) license whereas their source code is licensed under MIT. VSCodium fills that gap by taking their source code and compiling it under MIT. The two versions are more-or-less the same and extensions work without any compatibility issues.
I suspect in the near future, we’ll have something similar for Firefox where someone forks the project and keeps up with the upstream, releasing libre versions of it without the TOS.
So to clarify: Firefox source code is still fully FOSS under their MPL2 license. Firefox executable is source available.
Linux Mint uses GPL2 LibreOffice uses MPL 2
Those are licenses for you to use the software. They aren’t licenses for the software maintainer to use your information.
There’s an important fact you may not know: Politicians often have no understanding of things they are regulating. Why is this important? A future privacy law could easily be written such that a browser doing browser things (like submitting a comment on an unrelated website) could be construed as the maintainer using user data. They are getting ahead of that possibility by requiring that you give them permission to do the things you want them to do.
I agree that politicians are idiots but we’re not talking about politicians.
And even if we were, the case law around privacy pales in comparison to copyright law.
There is no reason why a browser that sits on devices under my control requires me to give an unrestricted license to the software maintainer.
If Mozilla wishes to bundle their AI slop and issue a separate license for that where I can disagree to my use of it, that would be one thing. But the TOS, as currently written, allows for any use of my data.
Personally, I’ve never seen a Terms of Service about granting any software a license to do things on my own device before.
- I have a monitor, I don’t think I signed a Terms of Service that says I gave it a worldwide license to function by piping video from an HDMI cable onto its panel.
- I don’t think I signed a Terms of Service for my keyboard to send royalty-free keystroke signals to a USB port.
- I don’t think I signed a non-exclusive license for my mouse to transfer motion detection into USB signal output either.
Is this normal? Have I just not been looking in the right places?
I’m not an expert, so take what I say with a grain of salt, but here’s what I feel has been more and more the case… It’s interesting that the examples you set are all hardware communicating with other hardware. That is a key point because any company selling you those devices can easily defend themselves legally if you decide to sue them for using your data just by saying “how else would we get the device working? It is fundamental to read your data to make the device do what is advertised for” and the case would be dropped faster than my dog comes when I open his food. Now imagine the keyboard company is caught sending the key strokes to their servers… Without a good terms of use contract they would lose immediately against legal action. And even a terms of use contract might be considered null if it is proven to be abusive or something.
When it comes to a software company things get a lot blurrier. It’s harder to define the needs for some actions and how things could work vs how they work. So I think it’s not uncommon to have this kind of clauses in such cases, specially for getting user data for maintenance and so on. It was less common in the past but as there are more practical cases and experience of where the law draws lines and limits this kind of additions and edits of user contracts are becoming pretty normal.
You make a fair point, and I think I did stumble into a bit of an apples and oranges comparison here.
As far as I know, though, even software with expansive functionality – including other web browsers, and whole operating systems like Linux itself – don’t have these types of TOSes either. And if we look at Linux in particular, several flavors of it are maintained by some pretty big companies. Red Hat and Ubuntu are heavyweights in the server industry; they’re not as big as Microsoft, perhaps, but I imagine they have their own legal teams.
Yeah, absolutely, I think these changes done for Firefox are not “that” common, but they are not unheard of either. I have been trying to remember what was it the news that made me think of this kind of terms of use before, some other service doing very similar changes with similar intent. But I just can’t remember it…
With all of this I dont intend to imply that we have nothing to worry and we can trust in Mozilla without second thought. Each of their actions need to be consider as their own and it wouldn’t be the first time they have some misstep. With that out of the way, this particular situation is not the red flag or big issue that many might immediately think it is.
As for the reasons as to why this is happening right now, I have a couple of guesses. One is AI, and the usage of user data for their training and so on, Mozilla is just trying to clarify in legalese what they are allowed to do with our data when we use their software, likely looking towards the future to protect themselves in case it’s needed. The other guess I have for this kind of change is the current situation with IP owners and intermediaries. In essence I am talking of how ISPs and VPNs are under attack for the use of their services by their users.
But anyway, like I said I’m no expert in legalese, this whole topic seems “OK” to me, but we’ll need to keep our eyes open for any future misconduct or overreach by Mozilla with these new terms.
You’re correct that this isn’t exactly common practice, but it does generally make sense from the stance of legal protectionism. Mozilla just wants to make sure that no maliciously inclined user can try and argue that Mozilla didn’t have a right to use the content they put in the browser, when the browser could only do what that user wanted by putting that data in.
It’s not exactly necessary based on existing precedent, but to me at least, it seems like they’re preparing for situations where cases are brought and try to argue based on things that don’t have existing precedent. For instance, if you look at how new a lot of the arguments and defenses of AI are in court, if a user tried to argue that Mozilla didn’t have permission to send their data to an AI company if they highlighted some text and sent it to the AI sidebar, there’s a chance the court wouldn’t go based on existing precedent, and instead try to argue based on if Mozilla had a right to send that data, which this clause would then clearly, very objectively cover.
TLDR; I personally don’t think they really needed to do it, but it doesn’t functionally change anything about what they’re capable of doing compared to before.
For me the problem is the use of the phrase “to help you…” because I think that means something different, something more, than what you’re saying it means. That’s not a phrasing that evokes, to me, the deterministic nature of the way a web browser operates (or used to operate). Traditionally, I give a web browser a command and it executes it, such as “go to this web address” or “print this page” or “save this as a bookmark”. Helping me, on the other hand, would involve some processing of data to attempt to understand my desires. I don’t want Mozilla or Firefox to be doing that at all.
Maybe it’s just “readable” language that is read much more narrowly legally to mean just what you’re saying. But maybe it opens the door for Mozilla to use it to help me experience online content by learning my habits and demographics in order to lead me to places I indicated I would be interested in by my use of the browser.
Exactly. I’m concerned they’ll use it to train an AI or something to “help me” use the internet and “make the most” of their services. I don’t want that, I want the browser to… browse, and only what I tell it I want to browse.
I understand that, but I’ve seen that language commonly used in nearly identical clauses before, and as far as I’m aware, the courts seem to interpret that as “to do the thing that’s required, or to make it more possible than otherwise,” rather than “anything they deem to be ‘helpful’”
If Mozilla wants to limit their use of my input, why the do I need to give them a full, non-exclusive license?
If its all normal shit that is totally needed to operate then why didn’t they need an agreement before now?
Most of what I put in my comment was there beforehand. (most of it was the Privacy Notice, not the brand-new Terms of Use)
I simply wanted to cover as much as possible since I figured most people hadn’t read the whole document. Apologies if it seemed like everything I was covering was brand new.
To be fair though, not all of it is necessary, but it does provide a benefit such that most companies will use it because it keeps things from getting too ambiguous, legally speaking. Most of the changes Mozilla made seem to just be clarifying existing things that should generally be obvious, to ensure that any frivolous legal argument against them is very clearly able to be dismissed.
Hey, I will be sharing your comment in another post with the source, hope you don’t mind.
People aren’t reading the actual EULA, just a headline and maybe, if you’re extra lucky, the article where a third party tells them what to think about it.
Great analysis you did there of the terms of use and the privacy notice! Just as soon as I read the title of the post I knew people would have a knee-jerk reaction to it. We can blame them for not actually going to read exactly what it is about, but I can’t blame them for the pessimistic point of view, although it seems to be very prevalent around Lemmy where you are supposed to hate everything and everyone that does something against their opinion. I wish people would try to put more attention into not being manipulated on their opinions by every sentence they read, specially when it aligns with their beliefs.
Again, thank you for putting the effort of sharing your opinion and checking the ToU.
I feel like everyone would have the knee jerk reaction. It’s how you think about it and actually respond that’s important.
But that initial stomach drop feeling is pretty natural. On its own without context, that’s scary af
Oh yeah, absolutely, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have that reaction. And especially related to Mozilla, for two reasons, how important I think it is in the future of the internet and how much at risk it is from any entity that would like to have control over that and break the progress of Mozilla.
Thank you, this is a great take and exactly how I’m reading all this as well. People need to stop reacting to headlines and actually read what they’re arguing about.
Yeah this is a crazy amount of backlash for what the policy actually is.
Fuck your Ai and your license agreement. Enshittification stops at no company.
Maybe going from community effort to company driven isn’t so great after all. people say that Open source projects need to do that to stay alive or be worth while. Though all that has been happening with companies lately points to a different conclusion.
It seems that every time a group says a project needs to be company driven, they always end up at the top of that company reaping in the profits.
It does seem that way sometimes, though mostly I was talking about stupid people online who claim to be open-source enthusiasts but still say that.
It was on the horizon ever since the new leadership took over. Sad but predictable.
Come on Mozilla, what the fuck are you guys doing? You don’t have the luxury of monopoly and you’re going to alienate those few diehard fans who stick with Firefox because alternatives are shit and they all run Chromium even if they aren’t.
Ladybird needs to materialize fast before it’s too late.
I’d go Waterfox, but I really like the on-machine translation in Firefox that Waterfox doesn’t have it.
LibreWolf has the on-machine translation and when you disable some of the hardcore privacy defaults it is a quite good Firefox replacement.
Why are none of these Firefox alternatives in my distro’s repository?
Nix, Guix, and Flatpak have Librewolf so you can use one of them
Bad distro? They are in mine 🤷♂️
Well, it’s Kubuntu, so yeah, I guess.
But it’s a popular bad distro, so that’s still a problem for a lot of people.
But has no mobile version effectively making it useless.
Firefox Desktop doesn’t have a mobile version, they just call an entirely separate codebase for the mobile version Firefox as well. If you want a mobile alternative there is Fennec.
Just use something else on mobile. I use mull (until it becomes insecure because I think they stopped working on it) and fennec.
Fennec supports extensions and syncing so it should be okay for most use cases.
IronFox is a fork of Mull when you decide it’s time.
please consider switching to ironfox, it’s a mull fork
I need sync…
You can selfhost it too.
Fennec and Librewolf support logging into a Firefox account and thus sync. However, that obviously partially brings you back to the Mozilla problem…
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So much for being a “private browser.” It literally says that on the app store in the title.
I’m paying for a search engine subscription, do I have to pay for a browser too?
Honestly, if it was actually economically viable and made all bullshit go away, I’d happily pay for a browser.
I don’t think Mozilla could switch to that model without significant restructuring the likes of which they’ve little inventive to go for.
I await to see technical enforcement of it. Anyone can write rules on a piece of paper, but without collecting information physically, or having someone enforce it, it’s useless words. And so far it seems a lot of people and companies make rules and claims without technological enforcement.
I imagine though at worst you can simply block all of mozilla’s domains through /etc/hosts and their IPs or IP range with a firewall rule. Still sucks but you do not need to comply with it, no matter what anyone says. It’s the technical aspects that are the most thorny, not the words on a page.
By reading this comment you hearby agree to send Draconic NEO no less than $400 in the currency of AnimalCrossing bells, applies for each time you read it, and re-reads of words also count. You will also be required to stand on your head for 30 minutes for every instance of reading this comment or re-reading a word. Compliance with these terms is mandatory.
Of course the implementation itself matters more than the promise to implement it, but the one is specifically intended to lead to the other. We shouldn’t be saying, ho-hum, they’re only threatening to f*** with our privacy in the future, when in fact this is the step before they actually do that.
I’m curious about the conversion rate from USD to Bells, and also which AC version it’s applicable to. /lh /hj
It’s roughly equivalent to JPY, at the time of the game’s original Japanese release. For ports or Localizations they’ll be largely the same as their original Japanese counterparts.
Some things in the games are skewed incredibly optimistically, like housing and renovations.
Furniture, decoration, and clothing costs are relatively accurate though.
Fantastic, guess I’ll be looking for an alternative to Firefox.
From what I can tell the general consensus is LibreWolf.
And IronFox for Android.
Im not even seeing that as an option when I search the playstore for that.
Here you go!
That one is new to me. Just heard about one called Floorp. Anyone hear anything about it?
Omfg I’m sick of this bullshit
Sigh.
Is it so hard to just be an ethical company? Must every product and service become enshittified?
Couldn’t they have just made these “features” an add-on that the user can choose to install (and agree to a separate ToS to use), rather than have it baked into the browser code?
There was a time when you could use the same piece of software or service for decades without worry. Now, I feel like I’m replacing software every few months because of enshittification.
Is it so hard to just be an ethical company?
Companies, by definition, can not be ethical.
What we need is for Mozilla Fd to become a employee coöp.
Companies, by definition, can not be ethical.
Why not?
It’s not necessary to treat employees like garbage. To treat private data like a form of currency. To not give a damn about the environment or the future of humanity.
These are choices that the head of these companies decided would be either easier and/or more profitable, and society should be punishing those behaviours.
Is it so hard to just be an ethical company?
Well, assuming by company you mean a for-profit entity, then yes.
I mean company*
*organisation, non-profit, for-profit, family-owned, corporation, etc.
Why is it so difficult to be ethical? Why the hell is being unethical rewarded by our society? We have everything so ass backwards.
Because in order to create a society that rewards ethical behavior, you have to get rid of the all the unethical people in positions of power and privilege, and they are the ones with the power to actually change society, because society rewards unethical behavior?
There are lots of ethical non profits and organizations, with a big asterisk that of course ethics are relative.
I agree with you. I don’t think there are any ethical way to make money. You always have to exploit someone or something affecting third parties. Yes, you could reduce to minimal expression, but it will never going to be zero. And at the end, I think this is the problem with most forms of life, the predatory model. With some plants and bacteria exception. But yeah, nature knows nothing about justice because it is a human construct, but still…
