UPDATE: Mozilla (Firefox + Thunderbird) updates its update to its Terms of Use (ToU) - now "clearer"

Mozilla Blog ^ | 3/4/25 | marty

[martin_fierro]

Previous thread HERE

BACKGROUND:

• Mozilla, maker of Firefox browser and Thunderbird e-mail client, had long claimed that it "never has, never will sell" users' personal information
• In late February, Mozilla changed its policies to delete that assertion and made other confusing changes to its ToUs that tended to indicate going forward, Mozilla would "sell" its users' personal data that was entered in the Firefox browser.
• These murky changes ignited an uproar among Mozilla's user base

NOW (condensed version):

1. Mozilla asserts that it had to delete the assertion that it "never has, never will sell users' personal information" because of broad definitions of the word "sell" under laws like California's Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) ("sell" means “selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s personal information by [a] business to another business or a third party” in exchange for “monetary” or “other valuable consideration.”)
2. Under CCPA's and similar laws' broad definitions of "selling personal information," Mozilla had to make changes to its public terms, because under those definitions Mozilla is and has been "selling" users' personal data to third parties
3. Mozilla "sells" users' personal data to third parties in order to generate more context-relevant ads to certain users and for Mozilla's "commercial viability" (profit)
4. Mozilla now says that all users' personal data that it "sells" to (shares with) third parties is aggregated together into different groups and anonymized such that the third parties don't know anything about a specific Mozilla user
5. Mozilla's ToUs now provide: "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."

Having read/negotiated more ToUs of this kind than I care to recall, I think Mozilla's latest clarifications are a step in the right direction -- though addition of a few "solelys" in Point #5 above would be a vast improvement.

So if these clarifications give you a little more comfort in using the otherwise Woke Mozilla's software, so be it.

If not, there are other browser alternatives out there, like Brave.

[martin_fierro]

Lunduke's takes on Woke software are always worth a watch.

[martin_fierro]

[joshua c]

sell my data

i regularly shop for bikinis and lingerie

they do a great job selecting ads for me

[Cats1]

“with the content you input in Firefox.”

Passwords? Tax information?

[PAR35]

Their selling point was privacy. They’ve now made a deal with the Devil (Google).

[nopardons]

BTTT

[roving]

For some reason for me anyway, Firefox is slow

[FreedomPoster]

I kicked Firefox to the curb a decade ago when Mozilla kicked CEO Brendan Eich to the curb for making a donation to a group in favor of making marriage only a think between one man and one woman. A radical idea, I know.

[FreedomPoster]

/think/thing/

[Billthedrill]

Same here. It wasn’t quite as painful a change as I was anticipating, either. Brave rocks.

[FreedomPoster]

Yes, Brave is my primary browser on my desktop as well, since then.

[ShadowAce]

[MikelTackNailer]

sell my data

i regularly shop for bikinis and lingerie

they do a great job selecting ads for me

Joshua C regularly buying lingerie. You didn't happen to be in charge of nuclear waste for the Biden regime, did you? There's other web sites for 'oversharing' such things.

[martin_fierro]

Passwords?

I can see Mozilla grouping together all users whose passwords it discovers very weak -- like "12345" or "abcde" -- anonymizing that group, and selling that group to, say, a password manager software company for targeted ads in the Firefox browser, all without identifying any particular user.

Tax information?

Same idea as above: Mozilla identifies users with > $10K in IRS debt, anonymizing that group, and selling that group to a tax reduction negotiation company, all without identifying any particular user. The tax reduction negotiation company's targeted ads then appear in the Firefox browser

[Cats1]

I know they’re probably not taking passwords or tax info, but the wording’s scary. -I mean, unless they’re keylogging you, how would they know what you’re inputting into the browser.

[dayglored]

More on Mozilla privacy, ToS ... PING!

You can find all the Windows Ping list threads with FR search: just search on keyword "windowspinglist".

Thanks to martin_fierro for the ping!

[Bikkuri]

Man, has it already been a decade?!

[Silentgypsy]

Thanks again. I switched to Brave last night.

[dennisw]

Resource hogs-— Chrome is worst - then Brave - Edge is the least....
Though you can add the —tiny suspender — extension to Brave and Chrome to cut down on the resource hogging. Edge manages this by itself.

[martin_fierro]

They’ve now made a deal with the Devil (Google).

Ackchyaully, Mozilla's deal with the Devil Google is under legal scrutiny and suspended, such that Mozilla lost 80% of its revenue that it would otherwise have had from that deal -- which is why they're now looking for alternate revenue streams, such as these modified privacy practices.

These policies aren't as absolute as they once were, but they do still provide a measure of anonymity and are fairly common anymore in online provider contracts.