Information about the New Terms of Use and Updated Privacy Notice for Firefox

[AshleyT]

For the first time, we’re introducing a Terms of Use for Firefox, alongside an updated Privacy Notice.

Earlier today, we published a blog post explaining why we’re making this change and what it means for you.

Now, we want to hear from you.

We’re committed to engaging with our community and keeping you informed about how we build Firefox—and why we make the decisions we do. Firefox wouldn’t be where it is today without the support of our users, and we want to continue working together to build a better internet for all.

To kick off the discussion, here are a few key points from the blog post:

• Transparency matters. We’re introducing a Terms of Use to provide clarity on what users agree to before starting to browse.
• Privacy remains a priority. Our updated Privacy Notice gives a more detailed, easy-to-read explanation of our data practices.
• You stay in control. Firefox is designed to respect user choice, with responsible defaults and simple tools to manage your data.

We’d love to hear your thoughts! Check out the full blog post and share your feedback here. If you have any questions, let us know—we’ll be actively monitoring the discussion and will reply where we can.

[jkaelin]

You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet. When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.

This sounds like a clear violation of:

• Principle 4 - Individuals’ security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional.

It also sounds like boilerplate AI harvesting language. If this is intended specifically for the AI chatbot, that needs to be clearly carved out, and not included in the general terms.

[0x4261756D]

Why would Mozilla need a license for the information a user enters into Firefox? There should be no exchange of information with any service of Mozilla necessary upon entering information or uploading media somewhere, unless of course that somewhere is a Mozilla website.

I am deeply disturbed by the possible implications of this ToU document and will be actively searching for an alternative to Firefox unless this is changed.

It is quite sad seeing Mozilla repeatedly alienating their core userbase and ruining the only sufficiently advanced alternative to the Chromium monopoly.

Best regards,

a not angry, just very disappointed Firefox-user

[Quackles]

Something I'm confused about. I see the terms links to the Acceptable Use Policy.

If Mozilla plans to enforce that for users of Firefox, how does it intend to determine if users are violating the policy while protecting privacy?

If not, why is it in there? The terms make it sound like it applies to the Firefox browser itself.

[welyr]

"Privacy remains a priority": Every company tells us  something to the effect that "We value your privacy".... while they collect and sell our data. 

"You stay in control" : Every company tells us something like this... while they bury "opt out" mechanisms for features we don't know we need to opt out of about three screens deep.

Ordinary people ARE NOT LAWYERS.  And we cannot read and actually understand massive blocks of legal jargon constantly presented to us during the course of operating a device.  Unfortunately, every company today has discovered that they can bury a fifty page long legal document in a link on any app or website and people will click "OK" to it our of a sense of learned helplessness.  That is part of the reason some of us prefer open source software.

One of the worst things all such services contain are provisions like this one: "Every once in a while, Mozilla may decide to update these Terms. We will post the updated Terms online. We will take your continued use of Firefox as acceptance of such changes. We will post an effective date at the top of this page to make it clear when we made our most recent update"

This is basically saying that every single time I use Firefox, it's apparently my job to go look up your terms of service and determine if they have changed since the last time I used it, and see if I am still OK with the new terms. 

Your "Acceptable use" for terms for FireFox raise all kinds of issues.  A person in some countries might find themselves doing something that would violate your "Acceptable use" for FireFox because they are living under an oppressive regime which makes things like exercise free speech illegal, just as one example.

Some FireFox users in the US might now be in a similar situation.  We are at the very least about to lose most or all of the few consumer protections we had.  But also some might now have a lot more to worry about than targeted advertising.  Think of scenarios like a whistleblower talking to a reporter, a protester organizing a rally, or someone trying to order abortion medication online. 

What do not want a vague warm fuzzy but legally meaningless statement that you "value our privacy".  What we want is a GUARANTEE that you won't share or sell our data.   Mozilla previously promised me that your product had "no shady privacy notices or advertiser backdoors".   But if I am reading the privacy policy correctly, data collected by FireFox might be used to serve up ads to us.  I was previously promised by Mozilla that there would be no sneaky back doors for advertisers.  So are you asking permission for this, or forgiveness?

Thank you

[welyr]

I would also add that there are companies which have processes for reviewing license agreements for software employees want to use.  Companies which have such processes and existing FireFox installations will now need to have their legal teams re-review this agreement and determine if they can continue to use the product.

[Davo]

Google deprecated Manifest 2 (yesterday, for a lot of people), crippling uBlock Origin and similar extensions, giving Firefox its first real chance in years to reclaim users interested in privacy and ad blocking. So as its first official act Mozilla decides to go business-school bureaucratic and give itself our data for training an AI (or whatever money-making purpose they feel like this week). Of all the boneheaded mistakes Mozilla has been guilty of in the past decade or so, all the slap-in-the-face insults visited upon users, this has to be right at the top. Unbelievable. Mozilla account cancelled. I'm done.

[fraggedy_andy]

---

You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet. When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.

How long do you hold those rights to our data? Is it the length of a search? 90 days? Indefinitely? This is written in a way that feels vague, threatening to personal privacy, and in a way that obfuscates all of the details I would want to know to comfortably use Firefox.

Firefox is proving again to be terrible at messaging. All this seems to have done is to spook your community. I've read the statement, I've read other comments on the statement, and each person seems to have a different interpretation. And this feels like it came out of nowhere. Was this discussed in some blog post before it was released? How many of your users do you think actually read those? 

It feels like Mozilla keeps making the same mistakes over and over, making changes without doing more public outreach to build user trust in the changes. How are we supposed to trust you or that you have our best interests?

[KelsonV]

Mozilla and/or Firefox has no good reason to ask for a license for user content except when interacting with Mozilla sites or services, and even then it should be clear that's what we're doing.

You want a license to display my reply to this forum post? Sure! That makes sense!

You want a license to something I wrote in an email while logged into webmail though Firefox? That looks like it would be covered by the current wording, and that's NOT ACCEPTABLE.

If, as your blog post claims, you intend to put users' privacy first, fix your terms of service so they actually *do*.

Using Firefox with a third-party site or service should *never* give Mozilla a license to that activity or content. And using a Mozilla service should only grant a license for uses the user would *expect* -- not potential hidden reuse sometime down the line.

[reconbot]

If you’re not going to use the stuff I put into the primary application on my computer that I use to communicate with everyone in my life, to create art, write stories, and share photos and video, then why are you taking a license to use it however you want? Just in case?

[indutny]

Licensing your information to a company should be an individual user's choice, period. Blanket and implicit (because most users won't read or hear about ToS) abandonment of user information rights towards any corporation is not just unacceptable, but immoral. In the unfortunate age of LLMs we already see our own data being abused against us and used to empower all encompassing Surveillance Economy. Firefox's primary public image is of a company fighting for Privacy and against Browser monopoly. By destroying user's trust in both, you are destroying the only viable alternative to Chromium based browsers. Is that really in the best interests of your users?

Additionally, Terms of Service imply the right to refuse the service to a user, and in fact there is a Termination section describing that: "Mozilla can suspend or end anyone’s access to Firefox at any time for any reason". As a backbone of free web, why would you choose to deny access to not just browser, but websites and other service that the user access with them and might not be able to access otherwise (e.g. if they have their password stored and managed by Firefox)?

[Maupertuis]

I hoped exiting of Mitchell Baker would drive some sense home to the C-suite, and maybe, just maybe they'd re-think about the position that they've been taking for the past decade. But I also know that I have higher chance of encountering a unicorn than Mozilla fixing, or at the very least, not going further down this path. 

Why do you need a ToS? I'm just using your browser. Clearly state that it's for your other online services(including Mozilla account), and not the browser. Don't do legal jargon.

There are lots of other things that are of much higher priority, this is not one of them.

[tom25519]

I have some questions after I read an another article about this:

1. Does it mean it will be collect information for ad?

2. Does it mean if a songwriter/composer use Firefox to upload it toa website, and it equal user grant the right that Firefox could use it?

[Isotopp]

I am using Firefox for two reasons, only: uBlock origin (MANIFEST V2) and privacy. They are mission critical.

I would like to see a build of Firefox with no AI – it adds zero value – that prioritizes privacy and does not upload data to Firefox ever, under any circumstances, except when I authorize that (for example, in a crash dialog). A browser that works that way and has no such features is more valuable than a browser that adds useless features and suddenly requires ToU and uploads data into foreign countries.

This is becoming more important every day the US of A slides deeper into fascism.

[Maddy1]

Unethical. You’ve given me the task this weekend of migrating my bookmarks and leaving your browser. 

A total disappointment to your users, community members who’ve crafted custom add-ons and themes, and to clients of service providers using Firefox. Parasite status unlocked.

[welyr]

With respect to the statement: You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet.

"acting on your behalf" sounds incredibly broad.  This could be construed to mean that we are giving FireFox permission to make purchases or do things with potential legal implications "on our behalf".

[Cvh-123]

Absolutely essential to immediately adjust that clause on giving Mozilla a licence for content uploaded through Firefox. A blog post clarification does not cut it because that no legal standing. The terms themselves need to be clear. 

[welyr]

From https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/acceptable-use/   (emphasis added)

You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to:

• Do anything illegal or otherwise violate applicable law,
• Threaten, harass, or violate the privacy rights of others; send unsolicited communications; or intercept, monitor, or modify communications not intended for you,
• Harm users such as by using viruses, spyware or malware, worms, trojan horses, time bombs or any other such malicious codes or instructions,
• Deceive, mislead, defraud, phish, or commit or attempt to commit identity theft,
• Engage in or promote illegal gambling,
• Degrade, intimidate, incite violence against, or encourage prejudicial action against someone or a group based on age, gender, race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sexual orientation, disability, geographic location or other protected category,
• Exploit or harm children,
• Sell, purchase, or advertise illegal or controlled products or services,
• Upload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality or violence,
• Collect or harvest personally identifiable information without permission. This includes, but is not limited to, account names and email addresses,
• Engage in any activity that interferes with or disrupts Mozilla’s services or products (or the servers and networks which are connected to Mozilla’s services),
• Violate the copyright, trademark, patent, or other intellectual property rights of others,
• Violate any person’s rights of privacy or publicity,

Just with respect to the items I have highlighted....

- Mozilla is going to determine whether things I write "deceive or mislead"?  I am not "pro deception" per se, but that sounds incredibly broad.

- Gambling is legal in some areas and not legal in others.

- "purchase, or advertise illegal or controlled products or services"  It is not illegal to purchase "controlled substances".  Many products and services like Tobacco, Alcohol, firearms, and medicines are "controlled" but still legal (just conditionally legal).  And some products and services are illegal in some places and not others (Marijuana, abortion services, etc).  It could be construed that this policy prohibits using Firefox for any of those things.

- So accessing porn with Firefox is now illegal?  Is watching "Game of Thrones" with FireFox now illegal?  What about looking up information about homosexuality, transgenderism, pregnancy, abortion, etc which some states have tried to deem to be sexually explicit?  It seems like any of that might now be banned using FireFox.

- This reads like I cannot use FireFox to look up someone's email address unless I first have their permission.

- It sounds like we are prohibited from violating people's "right to privacy" while the terms of use simultaneously reduce our own right to privacy.

[nfisher]

If you are paying -any- attention whatsoever you should buy now be aware that the user community very strongly disapproves of this, and with very good reason. Nobody wants to give you -any- rights to information we type into a browser window. The average Firefox user chose Firefox specifically to avoid exactly this scenario.

If you persist, expect your already tiny user base to take a massive hit.

Open source licensing already provides what the community considers acceptable terms of use. Basically, the user is free to use the software in any way that they see fit. Attempting to add to this effectively violates your own license.

[ARB]

I don't want need any of this new stuff from Firefox. I'd be happy with the same browser and terms and conditions of a year or so ago. Forever. I don't want you to do anything with my uploaded content, apart from what I explicitly make clear I want you to do with it (e.g. post this comment). I don't need any AI. I don't need any chat. I don't need any personalised adverts, or any adverts in general. If I want to buy something, let me search for it, ask for a recommendation, see what a friend recommends. Please Mozilla, don't alienate the users who have always been your greatest defenders. Please don't lose all the things that have set you apart from the other browsers. You can't compete with them without becoming exactly like them, and you're already well behind in that race. There is no privacy with personalised adverts, period. There is no privacy with users implicitly consenting to do anything you like with their content. Privacy is/was the only thing setting you apart from other browsers. You really risk nothing setting you apart, and you may fade into oblivion.

[rdavidatwell]

Terms of Use and Privacy Policy documents are for web services, not for browsers.

In a world where you don't own your computer, your operating system, your software, your content, or even your data, Firefox has always been the exception: "You can do whatever you want with Firefox! Once you download it, it becomes your browser." But now Mozilla is clawing back that shining, glorious isle of software peacefulness.

I've been a very vocal champion of Mozilla and of Firefox for years. I have defended things like the acquisition of Pocket (I actually use it extensively!), the addition of the AI chatbot sidebar, and the refocusing of energies on advertising and data collection as things that Firefox needed to do in order to stay relevant, grow their market share, and keep people employed.

And now, in this moment of glimmering opportunity, as Google is taking away a feature and telling Chrome users, "No, this is our browser, and you can't have any privacy either," Firefox had the opportunity to present itself as the refuge from everything that Chromium takes away from users. You could've said, "our terms of use: use the browser for good! Our privacy policy: your data remains private because we don't collect it at all." It could've been a remarkable distinctive for your user share. It could've positioned Mozilla as a paladin for the open web.

But instead, you're instituting a terms of use and a privacy policy that are vague and full of platitudes but represent a shift from your mission. This is a massive unforced error on Mozilla's part. If it was a EULA, that would be one thing. But this is not a EULA for an application. It's a TOS for a data collection service.

In your post, you said:

Transparency matters. We’re introducing a Terms of Use to provide clarity on what users agree to before starting to browse.

For twenty years, the agreement has been very simple: you don't take any data from us unless we explicitly agree to it. But your new TOU has a "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license" clause, the very same clause that's been used for decades to excuse horrible abuses of privacy by the worst that Big Tech has to offer.

While a TOU makes sense when someone makes use of the features you mention, the blanket application to all browsing data makes it feel like you're preparing us for a rug pull, after which you're going to start using our data for AI training or ad targeting (something which the Privacy Policy specifically allows).

You shouldn't need a Terms of Use if all of the data remains on our device and we haven't opted-in to sending you any. You certainly don't need one to download and render a website. You only need one if Firefox isn't going to be a browser anymore, but a web service.

It's like Randall Munroe said in xkcd #463, many years ago: "Imagine you're at a parent-teacher conference, and the teacher reassures you that he always wears a condom while teaching. Strictly speaking, it's better than the alternative, yet someone is clearly doing their job horribly wrong." We chose Firefox because we wanted a browser, not a platform.

You also said:

Privacy remains a priority. Our updated Privacy Notice gives a more detailed, easy-to-read explanation of our data practices.

But this privacy policy is only necessary for certain parts of the browser, where data is actually sent to Mozilla's servers, and applying it in a blanket manner (as noted before) seems like the precursor to a rug pull.

You stay in control. Firefox is designed to respect user choice, with responsible defaults and simple tools to manage your data.

For now. How long until you update the terms of use to prohibit the deactivation of ad targeting on the New Tab page? Or allow you to sell browsing data to third parties? Or train large language models on the things I type into the fields I browse to?

Please cancel these broad policies and apply them only to the features that need them, agreed to only when we use them. The only way for us to truly "stay in control" is if the policies don't apply to us unless we choose to use the features that require giving you that protection.

The thing is, I don't know how you fix this breach of trust in a way that anyone can count on. Once you've presented yourself as willing to do this sort of thing, I just don't see a way to get that back. From being a bastion of the open web, poised to provide a product that people want and desperately need, you've now become a thin shadow of the thing that you claim to stand against.

I was a member of mozilla.social, and was very sad when that closed down. While a lot of people said this was a bad sign of the new direction Mozilla was moving in, I didn't take it as a red flag. Little did I know how much of a red flag it was; you could've chosen to promote that version of the next iteration of the web, but instead you went with AI.

I know that forks of Firefox await, versions of the browser that keep its old spirit alive. But I don't want to have to leave this browser or this community. Please reconsider.