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Comment by GeekyBear | Hacker News Reader

This policy?

> 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.

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

I'm not seeing a real issue here, just FUD.

Google is killing the most effective ad blocker for Chrome. That ad blocker still works on Firefox.

Why wouldn't users switch?

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The issue is that Mozilla Corp has a license over what private videos people upload to their Nextcloud for example, which doesn't make sense because it's not Mozilla themselves processing your input but the locally installed copy of Firefox. Mozilla doesn't need my permission to use my own content I'm about to send online just to provide basic functionality present for decades.

The explicit disclaiming of ownership is definitely good (the previous version didn't have that), but it's not enough. Mozilla should just nuke that section completely like they did with the AUP part if they're doing this ToU in good faith.

Given the reality of Google's own TOS, privacy policies and history of privacy violations, I'm not seeing a reason to pass up switching to a browser where the most effective ad blocking will continue to work (even on YouTube).

Well, I'm addressing the "real issue" part of your comment. Whether people switch over it is their choice (I've already switched to another browser as my primary years ago, and it's not Gecko, Blink, or WebKit). But just because other bad, worse stuff exist doesn't mean Mozilla gets a pass on trying to sneak in a license over people's own content as well as going back on their promise of not selling users' data. Or the history of terrible decisions they made.

> going back on their promise of not selling users' data

Given that Google's CEO previously testified before Congress that the company wouldn't use information gleaned from your use of Google services to build out your advertising profile, I don't see "broken privacy promises" as a differentiation between Google and Mozilla.

Especially since Mozilla's post, linked above, says that their legal team now interprets selling ads as technicslly selling personal data in some jurisdictions.

They do have ads on new tabs, even if you can turn that off.

Again, I'm not seeing any reason not to switch to a browser where effective ad blocking will still work.

Do you have anything to cite?

In 2008, Matt Cuts posted Google does not want rights to things you do using Chrome, which suggests they are not trying to claim or vet what you use Chrome for.

Even if there are privacy violations, that seems much less scary than what Firefox has suddenly decided to do. They're seemingly not only watching, but claiming rights! And or will kick you out suddenly if they decide your activity on the web doesn't meet their standards.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43217309 https://www.mattcutts.com/blog/google-chrome-license-agreeme...

> They're seemingly not only watching, but claiming rights!

Did you miss their clarification in the grandparent post?

> 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.

> And or will kick you out suddenly if they decide your activity on the web doesn't meet their standards.

Google literally tried to have parents locked up for using an Android device to seek medical assistance for their child during lockdown.

Google was spying on the photos they took to send to their doctor, and Google's AI, based on a single false positive, decided they were guilty of kiddie porn.

Even after the police cleared them, Google refused to restore access to their account.

> Mark appealed his case to Google again, providing the police report, but to no avail.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/21/technology/google-surveil...

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