How about the directors and Management who let this happen, resign. We need another phoenix to rise from the ashes of Firefox.
As leaders, they need to be held accountable for their poor decisions. Which means they need to fuck off, and let new people come in and rebuild trust.
> For instance, Mozilla said it may have removed blanket claims that it never sells user data because the legal definition of “sale of data” is now “broad and evolving,” Mozilla’s blog post stated.
> The company pointed to the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) as an example of why the language was changed, noting that the CCPA defines “sale” as the “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.”
mind you, I sincerely doubt this ever even came across the desks of leadership—if it's legalese compliance bullshit, why would it?
to oversimplify into a couple points:
* people make mistakes, especially in communication—it happens! I misspeak (or often don't fully consider how people with different POVs will interpret what I say differently) all the time, personally
* nearly mozilla's entire remaining userbase has stuck around because of mozilla's independence and focus on privacy. everyone with a brain knows full well that selling all user data entered into the browser is the single biggest possible violation of that. therefore, how would mozilla continue to exist as a company in any capacity if that were actually the case? they would have zero users
finally, I'll leave you with hanlon's razor: "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity"
In one, my argument is an overreaction. In the other it is reasonable, given they have been misleading consumers. A strategy which clearly would be oversighted by senior management.
but I honestly think that's a totally unreasonable conclusion to draw based on this kerfuffle alone
the important question is, how many people left?
in my case i've been using firefox for more than 20 years, through the crashes, the memory leaks, the incompatible sites... and i disengaged, (uninstalled and deleted my account). i am not particularly gung-ho on privacy, all and all a pretty run-of-the-mill middle of the road guy. i wouldn't be surprised if they lost a high 1-digit or low 2-digit percentage of their user base with that debacle...
with the drop in image i fear they lost a lot of potential new users too... that might be the hardest hit. this might accelerate their slow descent into irrelevancy...
obviously something needs to change here procedurally, but micromanagement across the entire board is not the answer
and therefore firing management for this is not really solving anything other than satiating the bloodlust of the mob