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Comment by db48x | Hacker News Reader

> If everyone does this, Mozilla won't be able to monetize your data and they will fight back for their survival.

So the whole thing is kinda weird, because the new terms of use _do not_ give Mozilla any ability to monetize your data. All they do is state that if you give the browser some data the browser can use that data to follow your instructions.

For example, I am using Firefox right now as I type this message in. Firefox will save what I type in my profile so that if my power goes out (or Firefox crashes, which is rare these days but wasn’t always) then it can recover this text when it restarts. It’s always done this but apparently Mozilla’s lawyers now think that this requires an explicit mention in the terms of use. I disagree, frankly, and I think the lawyers who forced this issue are milking it.

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Your statements do not align with the reality of Firefox’s own words. They are trading/selling your data and they updated their ToS to reflect that.

“ In order to make Firefox commercially viable, there are a number of places where we collect and share some data with our partners, including our optional ads on New Tab and providing sponsored suggestions in the search bar”

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/update-on-terms...

This has been discussed at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43213612

But that has nothing to do with the new language that was added to the ToS, which states:

> 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 new license to the data that you enter into the browser is only for local operation of the browser itself, not for ads or sponsored suggestions. In addition to that license, they also use the words that you type into the urlbar or search box to customize the ads and search suggestions that you see. It is important to keep these two things separate, because only one of them is new. The other has been there for years.

Nothing in the ToU says this is local only or not for ads.

Of course it does. It explicitly says that the license is for “operating Firefox” and “for the purpose of doing as you request”. Not for improving it, or serving you ads, or for understanding your usage. Just for Firefox to follow your instructions. You type in a url, and it navigates to the url for you and saves it in your history. You type in some form data, and it submits it for you and saves it for later.

> It explicitly says that the license is for “operating Firefox” and “for the purpose of doing as you request”. Not for improving it, or serving you ads, or for understanding your usage.

It does not. That is explicitly stated as a subset of their rights. Before that sentence you might notice:

“This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice.”

So check the privacy notice and you find…

“How we use data

We use data to keep Firefox running smoothly, improve features and help sustain our business”

So they can use the data in anyway that helps sustain the business.

> We use data to keep Firefox running smoothly, improve features and help sustain our business

I would say that those 3 vaguely worded things pretty much cover them to use consumer data in any way they want.

Exactly.

Yes, their rights have 2 parts in their paragraph:

1. The data processed described in the Privacy Notice,

2. A nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox.

The 2nd is not the data they talk about in the 1st (a.k.a the Privacy Notice). The data they describe in the Privacy Notice in the 1st are not the data they have "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license" in the 2nd. Don't mix 2 or these together.

Completely disagree with that interpretation of that language. Given the beginning sentence of “You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox.”

Operate Firefox is an extremely broad statement. It then goes to outline that means everything in their privacy notice (which then also includes even more broad language) and then exclusive, worldwide license.

No good will or benefit of the doubt should be given to a terms of service like this. The changes here are an expansion of Firefox’s rights - therefor, a contracting of your own.

You do you. We are not the legal entities who are the ones that will decide the final understanding of those legal words.

If anyone thinks Firefox processes the data with "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license" outside of "the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox" like in scenario 1 (the Privacy Notice), I would like to learn about which codes in Firefox that do that. It would be really useful as well if there would be legal disputes in court to Mozilla that could clarify these things.

No one wants a terms of service like that, of course, because we all agree implicitly that the softwares do what we input in it. However, not all lawyers or legals are "we", many of them always want things interpreted explicitly to make those activities "clearer" for their jobs when legal confrontations happen. Like Epic founder said:

> The license says that when you type stuff, the program can use the stuff you typed to do the thing you asked it to do. This is what programs ordinarily do, but nowadays lawyers tend to advise companies to say it explicitly.

https://x.com/looking5452/status/1895458253854711854

Typing on your own computer, and having the draft stored into local storage requires absolutely no policy at all. If anyone else's computer is involved with that, then it's a problem.

Also it makes no sense for a program that runs on your own computer to have "Terms of Use".

I agree with you, but it seems that a lot of lawyers do not. Most of the other browsers have the same language in their ToS, as do many programs like Microsoft Office.

Exactly, Mozilla just tries to mislead people that their "web services" are indivisible parts of Firefox, but they're not, for me it's a software running on my computer.

I don’t think that they are trying to mislead at all. At no point do they call Firefox a service. Instead they call Pocket a service, and their VPN a service, and so on.

Yes, we all know that. But the ones that "don't want" to know that are the lawyers and the legal entities. Whatever we scream down here, Mozilla Corporation is the one who will face those legal confrontations, and whatever we agree implicitly here with the softwares won't hold candles to those lawyers and courts without explicit legal wordings.

When did you request that firefox back up the content to your profile? Bear in mind that a nontechnical user has no idea it does this, and a technical user only realizes it does this after reading the code or experiencing a crash. You "requested" this behavior implicitly by using firefox. So any behavior firefox has, now, or in the future with data you input is implicitly something you requested.

If firefox starts backing up your profile to a mozilla server, encrypted, you requested it. If there is an additional encryption key that lets mozilla decrypt it and sell it to OpenAI, you requested it.

Also, I am requesting that firefox send this post to HN by pressing the reply button. By the terms of firefox's ToU, this gives Mozilla a license to this content. That license is not limited to the duration of the http call if other firefox behavior that I have "requested" uses that content later. Perhaps they will scrape my comments from HN and use their content in targeted ads that firefox will display to me later. All allowed by the ToU.

>When did you request that firefox back up the content to your profile?

When you enable firefox sync or whatever? Is there any evidence they're backing up stuff behind users' backs?

>Bear in mind that a nontechnical user has no idea it does this, and a technical user only realizes it does this after reading the code or experiencing a crash. You "requested" this behavior implicitly by using firefox. So any behavior firefox has, now, or in the future with data you input is implicitly something you requested.

The crash reporter has a checkbox that says "Tell Mozilla about the crash so they can fix it". I'm not sure how it can get more clear than that.

https://assets-prod.sumo.prod.webservices.mozgcp.net/media/u...

You may be literally correct, but the purchase of an ad company makes that literal assumption likely wrong.

The ambiguous nature of the changes favor some shady self dealing. Sorry.

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