You see this situation completely differently than I do. Mozilla is historically bad at handling things correctly. When this first showed up in the news it was abundantly clear that Mozilla was just rewording the ToS because legal definitions had changed in the areas they operate in. Users interpreted this as the ToS changing when in actuality nothing at all was changing. This is par for the course. Mozilla does something, privacy people jump to conclusions and completely misunderstand something, especially if it involves legal, and then claim that FF is going down the drain.
Nothing has changed, Mozilla is required by law to change ToS when legal definitions change, even if literally nothing about the ToS changes. I really wish people would stop jumping to the conclusion that everything Mozilla does is bad. If you want to stop using FF then stop, but leave the people that actually pay attention to what’s happening alone.
This isn’t a one-off thing, it’s part of a trend, and that’s the part that I’m worried about. If everything was peachy except for one small TOS change I’d shrug and say it was an oversight. Mozilla is dipping their toes into advertising though, which IMO has a corrosive effect that will keep nudging them towards privacy invasion. Here’s a few examples:
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.
Why would they go out of their way to remove that unless they’re selling it or are planning to? (before and after)
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.
They’re selling your data and it’s opt-out, not opt-in. That’s not cool IMO. They also bought an advertising company, and they’re not doing that because they’re moving away from advertising as a business model.
Yes, they’re saying a few nice things about “privacy-preserving”, but good anonymization is hard, they’ve got a clear trend towards advertising and making money off of selling your data, and there’s no good reason for the trend to stop at “just the tip”. So to wrap that all back around to the submitted article, here’s what they changed to it first:
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.
That’s super vague, does “selling my data to advertisers” count as “helping me experience online content”? I obviously don’t think so, but does Mozilla agree? Here’s the updated one after the backlash:
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.
“Purpose of doing as you request with the content you input” is a lot better language that is less vague. It’s not perfect (silently adding in opt-out features probably counts as “doing what I request”), but is still way better.
Which is all to say that I think this change was indeed cause for concern, the backlash helped improve the language, and that Mozilla no longer sparks joy.
No, because it’s the first time they added a useless ToS to Firefox. The ToS is not changing, and that’s the main worry, it is being created.
There was no ToS before, for 20 year and maybe more.
They don’t need a ToS for Firefox only.
Its existence violates the first freedom of open-source applications: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (aka “freedom 0”).
They refuse to explain why they need one despite developers knowing fully well that it is not needed unless you’re trying to do bad stuff.
Yes, something bad has changed. The whole organization was a mess but it never changed or involved Firefox. It has now and they pretend that we are too stupid or confused to understand what is happening.
If you want to stop using FF then stop
That’s what I’m doing because it never was that bad. I already trusted Mozilla as much as I trusted Google, but it was fine since it never involved Firefox. I wish them good luck with their ads and AI experiments.
No, because it’s the first time they added a useless ToS to Firefox. The ToS is not changing, and that’s the main worry, it is being created.
There was no ToS before, for 20 year and maybe more.
They don’t need a ToS for Firefox only.
Its existence violates the first freedom of open-source applications: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (aka “freedom 0”).
They refuse to explain why they need one despite developers knowing fully well that it is not needed unless you’re trying to do bad stuff.
they’ve had a privacy policy for years and yet that wasn’t a problem? Only the ToS is a problem?
Its existence violates the first freedom of open-source applications: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (aka “freedom 0”).
lol no it doesn’t. stop making shit up.
They refuse to explain why they need one despite developers knowing fully well that it is not needed unless you’re trying to do bad stuff.
they literally did explain, in the first paragraph, why they need one. People like you just refuse to believe it.
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
They literally restrict the usage of Firefox by applying their policies. It’s written.
We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible
Why are they doing stuff on my behalf instead of relying on the programming language that already does everything. That’s another lie of course. Mozilla does nothing but they pretend they do in order to get more data and credentials.
Mozilla should have no fucking role when someone uses Firefox.
And stop with the Sync crap, it has already been dealt with when the user subscribed to the service.
If you dont understand why people are pissed that a company demands any kind of overreaching control that has never existed so far, you must be working for Mozilla but it’s not very convincing.
They literally restrict the usage of Firefox by applying their policies. It’s written.
They apply a license. that’s how open source projects work. You said:
Its existence violates the first freedom of open-source applications: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (aka “freedom 0”).
which is just fundamentally incorrect. go look at the GPL and look at how many restrictions there are. The same applies to every open source license. If you apply a license you by definition are restricting someone to follow that license. If you do not add a license to your project then your project is not open source and cannot be used due to how copyright laws work across the planet.
Why are they doing stuff on my behalf instead of relying on the programming language that already does everything. That’s another lie of course. Mozilla does nothing but they pretend they do in order to get more data and credentials.
what are you talking about…
Mozilla should have no fucking role when someone uses Firefox.
that’s not how browsers work. go use Lynx if you want that.
And stop with the Sync crap, it has already been dealt with when the user subscribed to the service.
once again, what are you talking about? There is no subscription with Sync…
If you dont understand why people are pissed that a company demands any kind of overreaching control that has never existed so far, you must be working for Mozilla but it’s not very convincing.
Mozilla didn’t demand any overreaching control, you’re just incapable of understanding nuance and want to get outraged over everything.
You see this situation completely differently than I do. Mozilla is historically bad at handling things correctly. When this first showed up in the news it was abundantly clear that Mozilla was just rewording the ToS because legal definitions had changed in the areas they operate in. Users interpreted this as the ToS changing when in actuality nothing at all was changing. This is par for the course. Mozilla does something, privacy people jump to conclusions and completely misunderstand something, especially if it involves legal, and then claim that FF is going down the drain.
Nothing has changed, Mozilla is required by law to change ToS when legal definitions change, even if literally nothing about the ToS changes. I really wish people would stop jumping to the conclusion that everything Mozilla does is bad. If you want to stop using FF then stop, but leave the people that actually pay attention to what’s happening alone.
This isn’t a one-off thing, it’s part of a trend, and that’s the part that I’m worried about. If everything was peachy except for one small TOS change I’d shrug and say it was an oversight. Mozilla is dipping their toes into advertising though, which IMO has a corrosive effect that will keep nudging them towards privacy invasion. Here’s a few examples:
They removed this section from the FAQ:
Why would they go out of their way to remove that unless they’re selling it or are planning to? (before and after)
And then the Firefox Privacy Notice states:
They’re selling your data and it’s opt-out, not opt-in. That’s not cool IMO. They also bought an advertising company, and they’re not doing that because they’re moving away from advertising as a business model.
Yes, they’re saying a few nice things about “privacy-preserving”, but good anonymization is hard, they’ve got a clear trend towards advertising and making money off of selling your data, and there’s no good reason for the trend to stop at “just the tip”. So to wrap that all back around to the submitted article, here’s what they changed to it first:
That’s super vague, does “selling my data to advertisers” count as “helping me experience online content”? I obviously don’t think so, but does Mozilla agree? Here’s the updated one after the backlash:
“Purpose of doing as you request with the content you input” is a lot better language that is less vague. It’s not perfect (silently adding in opt-out features probably counts as “doing what I request”), but is still way better.
Which is all to say that I think this change was indeed cause for concern, the backlash helped improve the language, and that Mozilla no longer sparks joy.
No, because it’s the first time they added a useless ToS to Firefox. The ToS is not changing, and that’s the main worry, it is being created.
Yes, something bad has changed. The whole organization was a mess but it never changed or involved Firefox. It has now and they pretend that we are too stupid or confused to understand what is happening.
That’s what I’m doing because it never was that bad. I already trusted Mozilla as much as I trusted Google, but it was fine since it never involved Firefox. I wish them good luck with their ads and AI experiments.
they’ve had a privacy policy for years and yet that wasn’t a problem? Only the ToS is a problem?
lol no it doesn’t. stop making shit up.
they literally did explain, in the first paragraph, why they need one. People like you just refuse to believe it.
They literally restrict the usage of Firefox by applying their policies. It’s written.
Why are they doing stuff on my behalf instead of relying on the programming language that already does everything. That’s another lie of course. Mozilla does nothing but they pretend they do in order to get more data and credentials.
Mozilla should have no fucking role when someone uses Firefox.
And stop with the Sync crap, it has already been dealt with when the user subscribed to the service.
If you dont understand why people are pissed that a company demands any kind of overreaching control that has never existed so far, you must be working for Mozilla but it’s not very convincing.
They apply a license. that’s how open source projects work. You said:
which is just fundamentally incorrect. go look at the GPL and look at how many restrictions there are. The same applies to every open source license. If you apply a license you by definition are restricting someone to follow that license. If you do not add a license to your project then your project is not open source and cannot be used due to how copyright laws work across the planet.
what are you talking about…
that’s not how browsers work. go use Lynx if you want that.
once again, what are you talking about? There is no subscription with Sync…
Mozilla didn’t demand any overreaching control, you’re just incapable of understanding nuance and want to get outraged over everything.