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Comment by nerdile | Hacker News Reader

I don't have to grant Word a license to what I type in it. This is a highly unusual clause that other software doesn't have.

When software has to "phone home" to deliver the functionality you requested, then two things happen: One, a number of privacy regulations kick in, and they need to get you to agree to send your data to them. Two, they now get to move your data out of your control. I mean, you trust them today, so here's hoping they don't ever get hacked or hire someone untrustworthy?

It's sad when even to use the basic features of a web browser, you need to agree to send them your data. It's not fundamentally necessary to send your data to Mozilla or their partners in order to load and render a website. It's a dark pattern to obtain consent to collect your data "when it's necessary", and then rewrite your app to make it necessary.

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> I don't have to grant Word a license to what I type in it.

Yes you do.

From Microsoft's Services Agreement [1]:

> To the extent necessary to provide the Services to you and others, to protect you and the Services, and to improve Microsoft products and services, you grant to Microsoft a worldwide and royalty-free intellectual property license to use Your Content, for example, to make copies of, retain, transmit, reformat, display, and distribute via communication tools Your Content on the Services.

That's broader than what Mozilla is asking for.

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en/servicesagreement

Which for the record they absolutely need, for example if you write something in word, click the share button, copy the link and publish it in this forum. Microsoft is now publishing whatever you wrote in the document, and their lawyers want to make sure they are allowed to do that.

Word versions that predate the share button probably wouldn't need the license grant. But since MS likes to limit the number of different licenses it was probably still in there to cover SharePoint and OneDrive

The software license terms for Word and all the other desktop apps does not include such a clause, no. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/useterms

The Microsoft Services Agreement applies to your use of their online services, like OneDrive and SharePoint, as you say, and there's an explicit consent in the app and a giant off switch there. They employ dark patterns to push you strongly to use their online services, but it's still optional.

It should be readily obvious that choosing to use online sharing or storage features or submit reviews require the data you enter to be sent, shared, or stored thusly...

In that case I stand corrected. Apparently you could use Word without accepting an agreement potentially granting Microsoft a license to what you write.

No offense, I'm aware of how complex laws can be, but... Shouldn't that be obvious? Or do you think you also grant a license to any pen manufacturer to help you write whatever it is that you are writing?

Word isnt a desktop app anymore. Its a service that is also made available via a desktop app. You cant just ignore 365 like that

> Which for the record they absolutely need

"Hey, here are my car keys - can you move my car to a different parking space?"

"I cannot - I do not have a royalty-free non-exclusive worldwide perpetual license to access and operate your vehicle."

I realize lawyers have been wildly successful in making a parody of our societies and legal systems, but permission is implied in clicking the "share" button, it does not require obtuse and overreaching legal language to grant.

So to take your example:

So based on this request: "Hey, here are my car keys - can you move my car to a different parking space?" The parking attendant's gonna drive it like they do in Ferris Bueller's Day Off[1]. Oh - you didn't want that? Well you should have been more specific.

If you are comfortable leaving things ambiguous, that's fine. That's how you get situations where Twitter and Meta are using all of their user content as input for LLMs. Obviously you can stop using those products if you want, but when you get angry about (or mock) companies that are making it illegal for them to do the same thing you are part of the problem.

I don't "like" legal jargon, but I understand that the legal system is one way we can limit the power of corporations, and throwing up your hands and claiming we don't need it feels immature to me. We live in hell but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try to improve hell. We certainly shouldn't lie & distort what rights Mozilla has under this agreement as the title of this submission does.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0_rKOlzVuY

> Oh - you didn't want that? Well you should have been more specific.

But that license agreement does the opposite - it gives Microsoft more general permissions. You tell them to host & share your content by clicking "share", but then they also give themselves all sorts of other permissions.

I don't know that I agree I guess? I think when they say they have the right to "make copies of, retain, transmit, reformat, display, and distribute via communication tools Your Content on the Services" - that basically describes sharing your content? They copy your content, they transmit it to their service, they retain the copy, they reformat it for another context, they display & distribute it - all on "the Services."

Like what in there is "more" than you need to share an item? I certainly see how they could add more text restricting the nature of the license to be in line with user intent - but that feels like it goes against that it's "implied." Which is it? Is it obvious what rights Microsoft needs to share content or should they go into more excruciating legal detail?

(I do agree with you that the post title distorts the Mozilla license, for the record)

> I think when they say they have the right to "make copies of, retain.." - that basically describes sharing your content?

It does. But that is not the rights they granted themselves - they start that list with "for example". The actual rights they grant themselves are:

> To the extent necessary to provide the Services to you and others, to protect you and the Services, and to improve Microsoft products and services

That is all MS products and services. In other words, they grant themselves exactly the right to train AI on your content, that you had used as an example of the consequences of vagueness.

To move beyond this specific license - when an entity wants to do with your input only what you implicitly tell it to do (send a search query to Google, host & share a document, etc.), they already have all the permissions via implication. It is when they want to do more, that they need a license.

Oh! I am the asshole here. I was relying on the quote in the thread but you are right that the full license is far too broad!

> when an entity wants to do with your input only what you implicitly tell it to do (send a search query to Google, host & share a document, etc.), they already have all the permissions via implication.

I guess I don't think this is true. If they have a nice broad license that covers what you ask of them that broad license might also allow "improving their services" (you would have to read it). The alternative is what Mozilla does here - putting limits on their use. Legal frameworks aren't...physics? They only matter if you go to court - but once you get to court the thing that matters is the text of the legal agreement. I guess...if you wanted to sue Google over what they did with your search query, the lawsuit would hinge on what their ToS said and it either says they can do what they did or it doesn't?

> Oh! I am the asshole here. I was relying on the quote in the thread but you are right that the full license is far too broad!

Don't feel bad - it was the purpose of those examples to deceive.

My Word 95 never asked for this though? Clearly it’s not necessary to provide me a word processor.

My CS4, as far as I recall, has never asked for it either.

It seems a fairly recent thing that companies want to harvest your personal information.

I went looking for old Microsoft Word EULAs but didn't find any on google. I did find this fun tidbit, though:

> Performance or Benchmark Testing. You may not disclose the results of any benchmark test of either of the Windows 95 Software Components to any third party without Microsoft’s prior written approval.

Wasn't that an Oracle sin? I guess Microsoft didn't want to miss out on the dickery.

A license grant like this is common in the context of review systems or forums or the like. For example if I go to addons.mozilla.org and post a review for an addon, Mozilla arguably needs a license grant like this to allow them to publish the review. And preferably they would want to word it in a way that then allows them to use the same review in print or a super bowl spot.

The weird thing is that a) I don't think this license grant covers any of that, since publishing a review doesn't improve my experience, it improves other's experiences, and b) Mozilla Websites like addons.mozilla.org have a completely different TOS [1], with a completely different license grant.

I have no idea what this license grant is supposed to accomplish, or what it would even allow that requires a license grant in the first place

1: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/terms/mozilla/

Thinking about this a bit more: the most likely use for this specific license grant I can come up with is a 3rd party partnership similar to pre-acquisition Pocket.

Imagine if on first startup Firefox offers you to show website recommendations. Maybe a prechecked checkbox. If you don't say no, they send anything you type in the address bar to some third party, that third party throws that in a recommendation system and spits out websites you may want to visit, which Firefox then shows in the new-tab page. This license grant would cover that. They would be using a license on content I input (all my keystrokes in the address bar) to help me experience online content (recommendations for new content) as I indicate (they asked). In principle recommending me websites based on all images I upload with Firefox would also be covered, though that's a bit far fetched.

Of course in the EU you'd probably have pretty strict consent requirements because of the GDPR, same with other jurisdictions with strong privacy protections. But in places with weak privacy protections the grant in question should cover all bases to pull something like this

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