Mozilla is trying to backtrack on Firefox's controversial data privacy update
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Like - what basic functionality? Does not sound like "browsing" is that functionality and I am not interested in any other functionality. I do not want you (Mozilla organization) to use any of that information.
Moreover, what if I do not have the right to sublicense the content I enter to FF? Am I legally not allowed to use Firefox?
But I agree with you that this should not require specific legal language. However, I point out that most other browsers have already added that same language, or something similar, to their own ToS. As have programs such as Microsoft Office. If you cannot use Firefox then you cannot use any of them either.
You don't have to give Mozilla permission to store and reproduce what you type into a textarea on a non-Mozilla web site.
I think it is dumb that they want _explicit_ permission to do this, when we grant _implicit_ permission to all kinds of programs day in and day out to do the same thing. `less` doesn’t ask for permission when I tell it to display a file to me, it just does it. `curl` doesn’t ask for permission when I tell it to upload the file to a server. Etc, etc.
But check out the ToS for other web browsers, for desktop publishing programs, office suites, email clients, etc, etc. Many of them have similar language. Not all of them, but many.
If you legally need some license to type into a program on your computer (I don't think so, but let's say you do solely for the sake of imaginary argument) you can just give the license to yourself, no need to involve any third parties at any point here.
If Mozilla says they need a license so you can fill a form in Firefox, then they must've literally forgotten what Free Software even means. I hope this is not true, but merely a misunderstanding of some sort.
Note that the MPL grants you the user many permissions, but does not grant Mozilla any. If Mozilla feels that they need to be explicitly granted more permissions then they have to add that somewhere else. They cannot easily change the text of the MPL.
If anyone claims they need to "store and process" this data, it is explicitly and solely so they can spy on you.
There is absolutely zero requirement of any kind for anyone other than the website to even know you're entering text. There is no reason or excuse for Mozilla to claim otherwise. If Mozilla claims they require a license for text you type into a website, they're lying so they can sell the data you're entering on third party websites.
This is extremely cut and dry. What Mozilla is implying is not how browsers work. This is not how websites work. Mozilla is trying to spy on users and there is no other technically valid explanation.
But I agree that it’s stupid that Mozilla now feels you need to give it explicit permission to do this rather than implicit permission. But since only you own the copyright to the comments you write, maybe I can see the point.
Why does Mozilla need to be granted a license to my IP to submit form fields, but curl doesn't? These are just tools, used by me personally. I'm not hiring Mozilla. Mozilla is not a party to my use of their tool.
Sorry, this is BS. Nobody was going to win shit from Mozilla for typing a URL into their browser that runs locally on their machine. Where they might have gotten in trouble is with their telemetry (e.g. Pocket), but that’s sort of screaming to the problem that they’re pivoting to spyware.
Mozilla has "larger organizational exposure" precisely because they're tracking users and packaging up that data for sale.
Yes. Well, that, and Firefox talks to backend services (updates, safe browsing, etc) to do its job for the user, whereas cURL doesn't.
> Do you actually find it hard to believe that the legal terms attached to cURL are entirely sufficient an that Mozilla is using different terms because Mozilla is planning to take meaningfully different actions with respect to user data?
I've known a lot of Mozilla folks for a long time, so, yes.
Except when you actually read the ToU the controversial, unnecessary license doesn't even talk about Mozilla's services at all.
"It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox."
There's a lot more in there than phishing protection.
Why was the previous state of affairs not sufficient? Hasn’t Firefox been letting me type data into a form for nearly 20 years now, _without_ this language?
If so, Tsst. Bad Mozzila! No!
Seriously though, that would be a huge mistake for a supposedly free software company. Especially when people are realizing the "meh" of the value added with most applications of LLMs.
HashiCorp rug pull level mistake.
If they mean that they should say that.
But also it doesn't seem like they would need permission to store data locally, on your own computer. If it's a matter of using Mozilla Sync, then the TOS would apply to Sync and having a Mozilla account, not for using the browser.
It says “By using Chrome or ChromeOS, you agree to the Google Terms of Service located at https://policies.google.com/terms […]”. The Google Terms of Service at https://policies.google.com/terms?hl=en-US#scope is what you are looking for.
I don’t have the others in front of me.
Plus:
> Some of our services are designed to let you upload, submit, store, send, receive, or share your content. You have no obligation to provide any content to our services and you’re free to choose the content that you want to provide.
> But I agree with you that this should not require specific legal language. However, I point out that most other browsers have already added that same language, or something similar, to their own ToS.
Not so you can submit forms to websites (again, this is absurd) but so they can spy on you and do whatever they want with the data they collect, same as what Firefox is trying to gain the legal cover to do (whether they use that cover or not).
This is a silly argument.
That's not business as usual, that's a contradiction! Open Source software doesn't impose terms of use. Criterion 6 of the OSI's Open Source Definition document: No discrimination against fields of endeavor. [0]
The FSF's Four Freedoms, analogous to the OSI's Open Source Definition, has a similar requirement: The freedom to run the program as you wish, for any purpose (freedom 0). [1][2]
It's true that Mozilla's terms of use nonsense was limited to the Firefox executable binary, and did not apply to the source-code, but still, there's a reason the community sees this as a betrayal. We shouldn't have to work around this kind of thing in the first place.
It's not 'confusion', Mozilla. The backlash from your community is because you're betraying your professed values, not because your community is stupid.
[0] https://opensource.org/osd
[1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html#four-freedoms
I understand your IP attorney thinks you need this license to operate, but the users will definitely freak out unless you express extremely clearly what the restrictions are, and probably write a blog post explaining what it’s there for. In the current climate it will be read with the worst possible interpretation.
I could understand that if it was just the Terms of Use thingy.
But if you look at the whole picture, I cannot really come to the conclusion.
Why did they remove the "we won't ever sell your data" promise?
Why the statements about Mozilla being/becoming an AI company?
The selling your data thing is disturbing but not necessarily related to this.
I can't speak for what the intent is or whether or not it's ill, but that this change came about shortly after Mozilla decided that they wanted Firefox to get in on the targeted ad game seems very suspicious to me.
The value is wayyyyyy too low to embrace folding. And perhaps these negative reactions are extreme but are a bit more telling.
Clearly nearly almost everyone wants Firefox out of the hands of Mozilla. They have low market share from being Google’s get out if jail free card. Now the 2.x% that remain are flocking away as well. This exit out is an attempt to “fork” Firefox in some manner. There is an opportunity to swoop in and pick up the helm.
Mozilla perhaps doesn’t see the story everyone else does:
- developed privacy stance over a decade
- updates their policy to state “actually well we’ve been selling data about you”
At this point you might as well have said, “Haha we’ve been lying this whole time about privacy.”
Regardless of truth and nuance of it all, the damage is done. The privacy promise was the only thing holding the rest of the complaints back.
Privacy in Edge and Chrome are a joke compared with privacy in Firefox. Safari is a joke altogether, and would die if Apple did not force it on users.
I like Firefox and I like Thunderbird, and I will continue to use both of them.
Memory is there to be used. Have at it.
If I've just restarted the machine, sometimes I can launch Chrome.
Chrome print preview never renders about 90% of the time when I am able to launch it. Firefox, no issues.
On a large complex page, when Chrome does manage to launch and print preview does load, it takes tens of seconds to render. Firefox, no issues.
I pretty much just use Chrome when I absolutely have to do a cross-browser test these days.
BTW, a Chrome-tangential annoyance is that the code process in VSCode which is basically an embedded browser sometimes runs wild sucking up gigabytes of RAM on another VM dedicated pretty much just to VSCode (and a couple of other minor tools on a lightweight desktop). The irritating thing there is that due to, apparently, a limitation of the blink embed they are using, you can't restrict the RAM available to VSCode to any number (even 100% of system ram) so you basically have to wait for the oomkiller to kill it, or run a parallel monitor to kill it once it sucks up too much ram.
Many different users have many different use cases.
What you're basically saying is: It works OK for me, so the fact that it doesn't work for you is insignificant.
That said, these days I only use Chromium occasionally, so this could have changed over the least few years.
If you are going to make such a wild claim, you should back this up with data, your “feelings” are not enough.
I wouldn't care one bit if the GUI was rendered in immediate-mode software rendering, if it worked. I interact with websites far more.
Instead of privacy, users have been force-fed unwanted "features" that so happen to need external services instead of others like a UI revamp that made Sidebery and Containerise unnecessary. The only recent good feature I recall is the offline translation, prior to that it's gotta be the sync server that you could host yourself, and the reading mode that helps reading the web in its increasingly bloated downfall.
I am uninstalling Firefox after 16 years of sustained everyday use in dual-browser split setup alongside Safari. I will also make sure everyone I know still using FF gets the note.
I am going back to Chromium-based browsers that are openly "sell-your-data" from day 1 and I am willing to accept the Google monopoly if it means that dung beetles like Firefox are not able to prey on loyal supporters by bait-and-switching the ToS whenever they feel like. Hopefully their telemetry shows them a good picture of how their decisions affect their market share.
Hell, my 2011 issue about wrong handling of ::first-letter pseudoclass on bugzilla hasn't got a single meaningful update since, but I was willing to sacrifice the standards compliance for the promise of "privacy". There is no more privacy.
Since Mozilla _may_ sell your data, your going to abandon it for Goggle? Who will _definitely_ sell your data?
This is irrational.
There is LibreWolf, Brave, Palemoon, just to name a few browsers that have not made the terms of use statements that the Mozilla foundation has just made, and that the goggle corps has made all along.
Supporting the "Google monopoly" is not good for user rights. People who don't understand these issues run it because they don't know any better. People who do know better shouldn't use it, at all.
"Mozilla flamed by Firefox fans after reneging on promises to not sell their data" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43229668 182 comments
"Trust in Firefox and Mozilla Is Gone – Let's Talk Alternatives" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43229378 189 comments
"What, if anything, should I do about using Mozilla's Firefox" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43229267 129 comments
But I agree that people are upset, and that they think that Mozilla is taking something away from them. The reality is that we have always implicitly been giving Mozilla permission to do these things, because they are necessary for the operation of the browser. In order to comment on HN you must type some text into a form and then tell the browser to submit it. The browser saves a copy of that text for you so that it isn’t lost if the power goes out or the browser crashes or the website is offline. Here in the United States that text automatically has a copyright, you own that copyright, and you and you alone have the exclusive right to publish that text. You have to give Mozilla, or Firefox, permission to act on your behalf.
Mozilla’s lawyers have apparently decided that this requires you to _explicitly_ grant them permission to do these things for you. I think that’s stupid, but I think it’s pretty obvious that Mozilla isn’t stealing anything here. We always give the software we use implicit permission to act on our behalf.
I also think it is also very stupid that Mozilla’s leadership couldn’t predict this outcome in advance. It points to incompetence on their part. At the very least they should have kicked this back to be rewritten to be more explicit about what “operating Firefox” means, including specific examples. In fact they should have just enumerated all of the ways that Firefox stores data about you and what part of operating the browser that data is used for. History, bookmarks, form data, everything.
This is super bog-standard nothing-special stuff.