An Update on our Terms of Use

[AshleyT]

On Wednesday we shared that we’re introducing a new Terms of Use (TOU) and Privacy Notice for Firefox. Since then, we’ve been listening to some of our community’s concerns with parts of the TOU, specifically about licensing. Our intent was just to be as clear as possible about how we make Firefox work, but in doing so we also created some confusion and concern. With that in mind, we’re updating the language to more clearly reflect the limited scope of how Mozilla interacts with user data.

Here’s what the new language will say:

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. 

In addition, we’ve removed the reference to the Acceptable Use Policy because it seems to be causing more confusion than clarity.

Privacy FAQ

We also updated our Privacy FAQ to better address legal minutia around terms like “sells.” While we’re not reverting the FAQ, we want to provide more detail about why we made the change in the first place. Check out the full blog post to read more.

[CAust]

I fear you may be right. ..

I tend to give people the 'benefit of the doubt', so value your articulate succinct capturing of this simple direct view.  

I did have your view originally, but looking in more depth, eg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8bTquKjzos   I thought, hmmm, legal writing of California does seem to require such a change.

To me the test will be, either there is good clear clarification from Firefox to confirm my changed view, or not.  If not, I think you are correct in basic instinct and seeing it for what it is. In which case, credit to you.

Bit concerned having given some donations to Firefox, the CEO gets $6million per year. An agent perhaps for the no privacy interests?  New world order as an inside movement at the big money end seems pretty hard to dismiss these days.  All big corporate thinking, going to save humanity by being in charge and telling everyone how we should live? (But not them, they are exempt because they are special .. more enlightened.. !!)

Have learned to not judge too quickly. Yet, once again I fear you may be right.  

And hey, we are not all genuises (chuckle)!

[RIPBOZILLA]

Well this was a wild ride!

First, just to clarify, I didn't mean the 'genius' remark as a slight towards you, I was just using it as an expression, so my apologies if it came across as an insult.

I must not have noticed the thumbnail but when I clicked to the video and saw the length I was like "I'm not watching all that" but then I realized it's Rossman and I was like "Dammit, now I have to." I don't know much about him, but I've seen two of his previous videos (one about Netflix and one about YouTube), both lengthy videos that were not only interesting and entertaining, but I agreed with literally every point the man made.

Just watched this one and I'll admit you are right; he makes some cogent points for sure. I also would not peg him as someone "shilling" for Mozilla or making the video for some other ulterior motive. 

That said, it's interesting to me how he focuses on huge influxes of cash and their tendency to 'atrophy' an org (or exec). He's right that money does have that effect on orgs/execs but another effect I've noticed is people who get huge sums of money start to regularly want MORE. But his point that they can basically do anything right now and still get paid, which is why they don't care so much about their rep or "winning," is a legitimate reason that could explain this as just bad communication. In Mozilla's defense, they have always been bad at communicating with their users. Funny how this is in their defense, but it sort of is, in this case lol

You've at least given me some pause on this so thanks. I already switched to Librewolf but hadn't switched over my bookmarks yet, and it would be really nice if I didn't have to.

I guess if they clarify it again in a way that makes actual sense (instead of condescendingly telling a bunch of long-term privacy-focused power users that they're "confused" by their stupid impenetrable fog of legalese), I'll have to consider chalking this up to bad comms even though it looks soooooo much worse. The fact that this was "discovered" by them changing the language in a commit makes them look so sneaky and manipulative. Why on Earth would they do it this way if they didn't have to?

Finally, I love the man's videos. He works hard and you can tell he researches everything. But he is wrong about the coriolis effect. Toilet water in Australia doesn't spin the other way; that is a myth. So now I don't know what to believe lol

Thanks for the link!

[CAust]

Thanks Ripbozilla.  Did not take the genius comment in a bad way at all.  I thought you were being quite clear and I enjoyed that. So a little play back.  

I personally think a lot more people have the odd moment of genius but just do not recognize it at the time and move on. 

Thanks for the considered post. Read with interest.

[JSSM]

Screw You!

Moderates and Skepticism FTW!

[RIPBOZILLA]

That's quite the rallying call 😂

[dev9]

Been a dedicated Firefox user for over 5 years, installed it on all my devices and hell, even recommended it to everyone. But now that you're selling user data that trust is broken.

Never thought I'd have to leave..but I can't stand a browser that goes against the very values that made me chose it in the first place. I'm moving on to privacy respecting alternatives, goodbye Firefox.

[SabreWulf1986]

Scum.

You want to restore user's faith in you, configure your browser the same as LibreWolf. Zero partners. Zero data collection. Zero selling or sharing in any form what so ever. Not sure what is more infuriating, the fact you pulled this or the fact there is no alternative for users except Google based solutions which users are flocking back to until Ladybird comes along.

Better yet, stop taking money from Google, scrap your entire Firefox project and have everyone go and help the people develop the Ladybird browser instead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8bTquKjzos

[JSSM]

Good luck trying to figure out if it will serve for the Firefox inmigrants.

[tom25519]

The most obscure is "It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. ", I think it need to declarein the terms of use.

[NightHacker]

I honestly felt that your original wording was crystal clear and understood it from the get go.  But, sadly, there are "content providers" who are looking for conspiracies and problems to promote their channels.  I spoke out against such nonsense and vowed to continue to use Firefox.

I'm glad I have a mind of my own and am not easily swayed by some of these people who are just out for more views, to, ironically, line their own pocket$.

[seva]

You say it as if "line their own pocket$" is a bad thing. I line my own pocket$. Chrome line their own pocket$. Firefox line their own pocket$. Facebook line their own pocket$. This allows Chrome, Facebook, and Firefox to continue to exist and promote their values.

Facebook explicitly says it sells user data. Chrome explicitly says it sells user data. Firefox says "we don't sell your data as many people understand it," but it's clear that Firefox is selling data in the context of California law.

You can continue to do whatever you want. I'll do whatever I want. I don't like being told that I control everything, while at the same time having to grant a "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox." Because in my opinion, granting "It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox." is synonymous with losing control.

[Haagee]

About every digital privacy advocate is loudly speaking out about a legal document that I thought I "understood from the get go". Should I:

A) Investigate further, maybe check out the 1001 privacy advocates speaking out about this on other platforms where they have no financial incentives to do so.

B) Assume that my initial impression was flawless, every single voice in the field of digital privacy has just joined one big conspiracy.

[CAust]

Haagee,

I suggest A investigate further. 

The second is unlikely but possible. 

Short story. I became sick, uncontrollably fatigued, loss of memory, poor concentration, in high school decades ago. I was not right, failing school, in agony many days just trying to keep walking the energy and fatigue so low.  From all specialist doctors, to closest friends, what I was reporting, the difficulties, happen to everyone, and there was nothing medically wrong.  I have spent 4 decades seeking recognition of the disease I had.  It was a post viral infection syndrome (ME/CFS) back then. 

When the covid virus appeared in China and began to spread, I tried to forwarn my government of a post viral fall out from this virus. I began doing so only 6 weeks after the first mention this new virus in public media.  I had a study up and going at Stanford/Harvard by end of March 2020. I predicted the rate of people not recovering at around 1%. That has happened. Many struggling, not recovering as I did in high school, and for decades after.  That post viral condition now known as "Long covid".  I was singularly alone, and fully correct, and 12 months ahead in my prediction of every advising medical body to governments around the world, and the WHO.

So, there can be occasions where the united majority in response is wrong, and you are seeing correctly.

So I would value it if you do investigate further. Others should too.  We need to step up on these issues and investigate, not just surface react. 

If it turns out Firefox is intending to sell user data in the way most are concerned, for money, to data brokers or government, then we need as the users to hold Firefox management to account. 

If it is as they say, just a shift in wording necessary for legal reasons, with no real change, then we need to not waste our time and value a browser that does, and for me, has enabled better online privacy. I do not get spam with my careful use, unlike so many.

I think the answer is possibly a mixture of both.

I note Signal is under pressure to move its secure base, with Sweden ( I think ) planning to bring in new legislation requiring that it must keep data of users and hand it over.  World control of private activities and data does equal world control, and not by those we elect. These are serious issues. As even Edward Snowden has confirmed. And his original NSA boss.

If you do research, and find others to assist and assess, let us know what you come up with.

[RIPBOZILLA]

If you're a Dunning Krueger type narcissist with their head lodged up their ass, you choose B, of course. "Evil youtubers line their pockets via conspiracy theories. Therefore, huge corporations lying to their users is impossible." 🤣

[RIPBOZILLA]

"Nothing ever happens"

[Anonymous]

A more upfront answer from Mozilla would’ve been along these lines:

We're becoming an ad-tech company

Before talking about terms of use or privacy policy for Firefox, let’s start with one of the most important messages we’d like the community to understand. We at Mozilla Corp - the organization’s arm that develops Firefox as the flagship product - want to increasingly become an ad-tech company. We’re doubling down on this.

Our view, which has been solidified over the last few years, is that the only internet that can possibly exist is one revolving around an ad ecosystem. We know that this may be at odds with principles set out in the Mozilla manifesto - principle 4 in particular, which refers to security and privacy. We put a great amount of mental effort to turn a blind eye on this aspect, while we keep in mind that we’ve got a considerable say on standards and defaults that shape the Web ecosystem.

Types of data we sell

In regards to selling personal data, we sell “aggregate personal data”, not raw personal data. We want to do this more and more.

Since some privacy laws may bite us by saying that this aggregate data is still considered personal data, we’ve removed all places in our web site where we used to say that we didn’t sell personal data. This may also set up a framework for data we may collect for AI in the future, but it's not the focus of the current version of the privacy policy.

Our new Firefox privacy policy says that we have a legitimate interest in receiving all types of personal data from users, identifiers, the websites you visited (i.e. browsing data), location, the whole lot. Note that we plan to capture this information even across devices. We – and also a telemetry company called Divvi Up - initially receive this personal data separated into pieces, through an intermediary so that IP addresses are hidden. We receive this data so we can pseudonymize, de-identify, aggregate or anonymize the personal data. The result of this processing is aggregate data that, fingers crossed, is so coarse-grained that no one can make inferences to identify individual users. Subsequently, we sell this aggregate data to ad companies.

Ad functionality

One may wonder how much privacy protection this processing provides – to be perfectly frank, so do we. Its privacy effectiveness depends on certain infrastructure conditions being met, parties not colluding, using the right values for usability/privacy ratios, assumptions about absence of back-channels to re-assemble identifying data, etc. It’s clear to us that if we get this processing wrong, then companies and multiple sorts of organizations may use these new ad features to track users and make inferences about individuals or populations.

There are other ways to do ads which are less risky from a privacy point of view, but we’re not interested in those because behavioral advertising - which captures a lot of information about what the user - and other types of invasive advertising are ways we consider to be more profitable.

Our current implementation is called Privacy-Preserving Attribution, which consists in giving advertisers visibility on which ads have been interacted with - clicked on, seen, etc. The underlying work is called Interoperable Private Attribution (IPA), a proposal we’ve been developing in conjunction with Meta. Note that, as we say in the documentation, IPA is intentionally designed to be compatible with measuring activities beyond the web, such as mobile devices and connected TVs.

Default settings and privacy

We understand the importance of default settings. Some Firefox default settings are not the most privacy-friendly options available in the program. If we did otherwise, we’d get little telemetry data, losing information on what Firefox features are used the most users, how often Firefox is used, etc.

More importantly, it’d be a disaster for our current plans if we configured data sharing for ads as an opt-in by default; too many users would simply not opt in. A clear example of our position is when we turned on by default the “Allow websites to perform privacy-preserving ad measurement” feature in 2024. We're aware that privacy professionals consider this a dark pattern.

To sum up

We’re aware that this may be quite risky for our users and it may have adverse repercussions on the internet ecosystem, but remember: ads are now paramount to us. Privacy is still genuinely important to us, but it comes second.

To which one would say: Mozilla, is this really the best path you could've chosen?

References:
Advertising goals:
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/improving-online-advertising/
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/digital-advertising-privacy/

Privacy policy. Refer to entry on To pseudonymize, de-identify, aggregate or anonymize data under lawful base. Note they call it sharing data with partners.
https://web.archive.org/web/20250304032915/https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/

Ad technologies such as Privacy-Preserving Attribution:
https://blog.mozilla.org/netpolicy/2024/08/22/ppa-update/
https://github.com/patcg-individual-drafts/ipa/blob/main/IPA-End-to-End.md

Note that "privacy preserving" advertisement is opt-out, not opt-in:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution

[seva]

I read on Mozilla's blog that without Google's payments, Mozilla wouldn't be able to support and develop the Gecko engine.

Why doesn't Mozilla cut costs? Why doesn't Mozilla cut useless departments?

All corporations try to cut costs in difficult times. All corporations get rid of useless or unprofitable departments in difficult times.

For example, their own AI project is quite expensive, many millions. Does it make sense to cut the AI ​​project in order to be able to support and develop Gecko with donations? I think so, the Gecko engine is more important than Mozilla.AI.

I haven't seen any cost cuts in Mozilla's news. I've seen an increase in the number of boards in Mozilla's news. That's not what a corporation on the verge of bankruptcy should do, I think.

[tint224]

Mozilla's recent Terms of Use update, granting itself a "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license" to user-uploaded information, is a betrayal of the open-source community's trust. This move contradicts Mozilla's longstanding commitment to user privacy and transparency, undermining the very principles that have distinguished Firefox from profit-driven competitors. Such actions erode confidence in Mozilla's dedication to its foundational values.

RIP Firefox and Mozilla 

[ArnoldGreybeard]

It is all a case of "too little, too late".

The damage has been done. Mozilla has finally lost my trust.

Firefox is being replaced by LibreWolf.

Thunderbird has been replaced by Claws Mail. I will keep on using SeaMonkey on my x64 devices until it is no longer supported.

I started with Netscape, then Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey. It was a good run while it lasted.