Posted on 03/02/2025 8:05:21 PM PST by martin_fierro
As noted a few months ago, Mozilla -- maker of the Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client -- is facing an 80% revenue drop due to investigations into its “revenue-sharing” deals with Google.
That revenue drop is apparently prompting Mozilla's all-out search for alternate revenue streams. Mozilla's changes last week to the Firefox browser's privacy notice and usage terms indicate that users' privacy may be sold out.
Specifically, Mozilla's new use terms provide:
“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 changed language, in conjunction with deletion of the following from Mozilla's Firefox FAQ page...
Does Firefox sell your personal data?
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.
... leads to the inescapable conclusion that Firefox users' personal data is now very much up for sale.
Mozilla tried later last week to quell the resulting firestorm, including providing the following "clarification":
"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."
This inelegant and heavy-handed legalese strikes me as an attempt to appear to be backtracking, without actually doing that.
Plenty of others are commenting on Mozilla's New Way Forward, and it's not being well received. See for yourself, and consider adopting another browser.
By the way, it has an external app (no need for using a browser) for Apple (iPhone and iPad), Windows, Linux, and Android.
And what if Proton sells to Microsoft or Google or Apple or Verizon, etc. etc?
It’s a Switzerland company with protected privacy laws.
It was created by a scientist from Cern (the Large Hadron Collider (atom smasher)) who specifically created Protonmail for security.
Oh, didn’t answer your hypothetical..
IF it was purchased by anyone else, I would build my own email server.
It’s owned by China.🙄
I had heard that a couple of years ago, but my cursory lookup yesterday indicated that it's now owned by some European operation. (?)
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