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Comment by asddubs | Hacker News Reader

of course it was done for money, I don't think there's any doubt about that. The question is: Is that bad? If this was an extension you could remove entirely, that didn't be default track you, I'd say no. Just like with google/yahoo tie-ins, mozilla has to earn money somehow. But I think the implementation of this tie-in was extremely clumsy

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> of course it was done for money, I don't think there's any doubt about that. The question is: Is that bad?

Yes it is. They have started to sell users just like everyone else.

In that case, the day they sold the search bar to Google they sold their users..

Except you can customize the search bar to use any search engine.

...well can't you customise firefox to remove the Pocket add-on?

The issue here is about the reason why it was included _as a default_ in the first place.

You can't customize it to use a different service, no.

Yes. They sold their search bar to a company that arguably doesn't respect their manifesto:

> (4) Individuals’ security and privacy on the Internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional.

Google, Pocket, etc. are arguably not compatible with this manifesto, because their business model is precisely to sell user data.

So Mozilla says it respects and defend your privacy but makes deals with companies that won't. I'll let you pick a name for that kind of behaviour.

People need money to live. It is unavoidably about the money. The real problem is not the money, but where it comes from. It is not coming from the users, who expect everything to be free. That is the real problem. Things won't get better until we truly are the customer, not the product.

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