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.

[SirWolf]

"Deceive, mislead", tell that to the politicians, they have been doing that for who knows how long! And then we, regular people, spread their lies even further, just because of thinking, oh, they must be right! Even Facebook couldn't decide who's telling the truth and who doesn't. This rule makes zero sense.

[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.

[tdorian]

Terms of Use =/= FOSS

Twenty years with Mozilla and it ends today. Even if this decision is quickly reversed you've just pulled a uTorrent and killed FireFox's legitimacy for good.

[Anonymous]

Hey, Ashley, how's your inbox this morning? On fire? Please communicate our near-unanimous disgust to the c-suite MBAs who just killed the company.

[DMConstantino]

I've been advocating for Mozilla and for Firefox since the Navigator times, this will make me advocate against Firefox and Mozilla.

1.  it's not a contract that bounds user into following the Law, it's the Law. Any contract that says that we should follow the Law is absurd.
2. placing any limitation upon the usage of Firefox, makes it by definition not be Free Software (violates Freedom 0 of the definition of Free Software, and the 6th criteria of the Open Source Definition.
3. If simply using the software is accepting the terms, it's simply not true that it's transparent of that user remains in control.
4. Bounding the usage of Firefox to the current Acceptable Usage Policy, means that we can't use to access porn, do information security research (and many other tasks in that field), access and publishing information including but not only news, and educational content that might include depections and representation of violence, or that in someone opinion might be sexual; we can't send a message to someone we want to get in contact on chat but hasn't asked us for to do it, including our friends and family.

The entire thing looks like it was written by someone completly clueless about the things that online content moderation, what is the Law, and what matter to the people who have been supporting Mozilla over the years.

You're spitting on our face!

[DMConstantino]

I'll still like to add that granting Mozilla rights to process any data simply by using the browser, is the path to a clear and serious violation of GDPR. This means you also don't care about transparency, or our privacy. You're not putting it first, you're disregarding it.

Also to simply use your browser we don't and there's not reason for authorizing the Mozilla Foundation, or the Company to act on our behalf. You're taking away our agency to make decisions and be responsible for ourselves. The browser that is running on my computer, is not the company or the foundation, even if it was created by one or both, and if it's in any way built to respect me then it's doing what I told it to do, and it doesn't involve you.

[DMConstantino]

Giving you a licence to use whatever is an extremely abusive therm, and it's obviously totally unnecessary, there's no Law anywhere that requires users to license anything they do for a software to work on their own computer, unless you want to take anything we do without our explicit and informed consent, and knowing what and when.

[NTICompass]

What the heck do you mean by this:

> Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example.

NO ONE wants YOU (Mozilla) to use information typed info Firefox (the "private" web browser).  You need to better explain what in the world you're doing with this new ToS, your blog post and this thread don't do a great job explaining what you're doing.  You need to be WAY MORE transparent here.

It's clear that Mozilla employees aren't reading the negative replies to the posts here, but this one seems important.  @AshleyT and Mozilla, please READ the replies here and fix this.

[xfvh]

Your new acceptable use policy is bizarrely restrictive, completely unnecessary, and outright absurd.

[pva]

Yup, and taking into account that this was main selling point of this browser it's unclear why they made this move? This change must be reverted, and those who made the decision to implement it should be fired. These people have absolutely no understanding of the values of the Mozilla Foundation. How did they even end up in leadership?

[AshleyT]

Thanks everyone for your active participation here. We knew this would have a lot of interest and so we’ve waited to dive into the conversation because we see some themes emerging that I’ll respond to broadly here. The main concerns I’m noting are around the license agreements we declare, our use of data for AI, and our Acceptable Use Policy. Below are a few clarifications to each of these areas.

• Regarding our position around licensing, we need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use the words you type into Firefox to perform your searches, for example. It does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice. We’ve added this note to our blog to clarify, so thank you for your feedback.

• With respect to AI, our goal with Firefox is to build a browser that meets all the needs of a modern internet user while protecting your privacy and your rights online. In some cases we have some new features such as AI chatbot integrations, which require users to opt in to use them. In other cases, in order to make Firefox more functional, we deploy some local AI models to enable things like suggesting alt-text for accessibility purposes. These latter features are on by default but operate locally and we clarify exactly how the data is used in the Privacy Notice. They can also be turned off if you choose. 

• Our Acceptable Use policy has been in effect for some time now. These broad principles govern what we think is appropriate behavior on the specific user platforms we manage, like Mozconnect and our support platforms, not your browsing behavior. They are reflective of our Mozilla Manifesto principles and our mission to build a better Internet.

I’ll also drop a few replies where appropriate, but thank you again for your continued engagement. Criticism through moments of change is hard to stomach, but we’re committed to doing the right thing by you, our users.

[rdavidatwell]

@AshleyT, if any of that is true, how has Firefox survived for the last twenty years without it? If nothing is going to change, why is anything changing?

Regarding our position around licensing, we need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use the words you type into Firefox to perform your searches, for example.

This galls me to no end and makes me seriously question the assumption of good faith I was extending before. You don't need a license to perform searches. If you did, a user would have to agree to a license before Google allowed them to click "Search," but they don't.

In some cases we have some new features such as AI chatbot integrations, which require users to opt in to use them.

Then the Terms of Use should be agreed to at opt-in, not as a blanket agreement to use the browser.

In other cases, in order to make Firefox more functional, we deploy some local AI models to enable things like suggesting alt-text for accessibility purposes. These latter features are on by default but operate locally and we clarify exactly how the data is used in the Privacy Notice. They can also be turned off if you choose. 

If they're truly entirely local, then you don't need a privacy policy to run them. As noted above, I was entirely willing to give you the benefit of the doubt before, but this explanation is squandering quite a lot of my goodwill because it sounds so horribly sneaky.

Our Acceptable Use policy has been in effect for some time now. These broad principles govern what we think is appropriate behavior on the specific user platforms we manage, like Mozconnect and our support platforms, not your browsing behavior. They are reflective of our Mozilla Manifesto principles and our mission to build a better Internet.

I'm sure that very few people are concerned about an AUP or TOS applied to an online service like Mozconnect. We're concerned with you applying such a thing to our web browser. Surely you understand that.

I’ll also drop a few replies where appropriate, but thank you again for your continued engagement. Criticism through moments of change is hard to stomach, but we’re committed to doing the right thing by you, our users.

Every single megacorp that intended to do something awful with stolen data has said the same thing. Before this week, though, I would've presumed that you were telling the truth about a commitment to do right by us. Before this afternoon, I would've presumed that you were misguided about this TOS, but still ultimately intended to do right by us. But after this comment that I'm replying to, I'll never be able to trust such a thing again. I'm going to have to watch Mozilla like a hawk from here on out, which is a shame.

You used to be one of the heroes.

[zyvod]

preach. this is obvious corporate scumbaggery, and they're throwing a new employee who's been with mozilla less than a year to the wolves to make her the target of the all the abuse mozilla rightly deserves for this transparently awful move.

I'm switching to LibreWolf tonight, and I'm warning everyone I know about this as well. Mozilla deserves the grizzly end they're going to get over this. utterly appalling, especially how they just keep lying to our faces when the legal text they've put up is extremely clear. they want to steal everything we do with the browser, the TOS lets them do that, and they are straight up lying about their intentions.

@ash, your evil corporate overlords have made you the sacrificial pawn here. quit this job and find another one before being involved in this mess damages your life. I'm sure you personally had nothing to do with these decisions, and have no ability to fix this disaster. get out while you still can, girl.

[saphkey]

Someone told me that the default Google search engine is somehow proxied through Mozilla (or at least was at some point).
Mozilla then anonymizes that, before being sent to Google. Makes sense for search suggestions for example.

Mozilla gets paid by google to have Google as default seach engine, so in a pedantic way they were already selling your data. (although you can of course choose to just use a different search engine).

Regardless of that being selling data or not. Truth is it means that you did for part of your searching go through Mozilla. If you
1. used the default Google search engine
2. have search suggestions enabled

[rdavidatwell]

Incidentally, @AshleyT , I know you're just doing your job. We're mad at the company, not at you in particular. But please stop giving us the company line. This is bad, bad, bad; and pretending like these are minor disagreements that can just be explained and clarified away is missing the entire point we're making. We know what Mozilla means (or at least, what they want us to understand) by the policy. We have no issues with the platitudes. We have all the concern in the world about the policy itself.

[JamesHill]

Mozilla has no right to in any way use or store the things the new policy mentions, nor do they need to. you are lying out of your ass.

edit: to be clear, I am referring to the company and not the employee specifically.

[SirWolf]

The new CEO should be just fired, she's been doing nothing but destroying Firefox from the start.

[Natureshadow]

> Regarding our position around licensing, we need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use the words you type into Firefox to perform your searches, for example.

Quite clearly NOT.

Firefox is a program running locally on my computer. I type things into search engines using it. If at any point here my search query even comes close to a Mozilla server, that is a serious bug in itself.

[alienghic]

Please allow people donating to the mozilla foundation to elect representatives to the board of directors so we can vote to decide if it's possible to fund raise to keep firefox instead of turning to advertising.

[pva]

I agree. Probably foundation needs a fork. Because I do not donate for this **bleep**.

[welyr]

Ashley,

Thank you for writing.   I want to be clear what I’m saying here really isn’t about you, it’s about the text of the Terms of Use.  Such policies are written by lawyers, and my own experience dealing has taught me to be skeptical of anything a lawyer says or writes if they are not actually working -for me-.  I apologize for the fact that I will be addressing the language of the Terms of Use and other policies from that perspective.

You wrote:

Regarding our position around licensing, we need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible.

I notice you are using the word “license” and not saying “Terms of Use”. Firefox already had a license, and I agreed to it at the time I previously installed it. That is separate from the Terms of Use, and as @rdavidatwell wrote earlier “Terms of Use and Privacy Policy documents are for web services, not for browsers”. The fundamental reason I am upset is because it looks like Firefox is transitioning from being a piece of software to a “service” which has “Terms of Use”.  That means now those terms can change at any time even if I’m not installing a new copy or version of that software.

Then there is the “Privacy Policy”. I pulled up the old version in archive.org, and there are definitely big changes which appear to authorize data to be collected and used for advertising purposes. As @jkaelin  points out above, it looks like a very important promise that “we don’t sell your personal data” is also being removed from the code. That seems like a big deal.

Regarding your second bullet:

With respect to AI, our goal with Firefox is to build a browser that meets all the needs of a modern internet user while protecting your privacy and your rights online.

My need in the current “high threat environment” is a browser with no AI and zero telemetry so that I can have the maximum amount of privacy and security I can achieve. You acknowledge that there are AI features that are on by default. And while you state that this can be disabled, in fact I was unaware of the “alt-text” AI specifically until you pointed it out. I can therefore conclude based on Mozilla’s direction and what you are saying is that other AI features which are “on by default” will be added in the future, and that I might not even know about them or that I would need to turn them off. (that’s not even getting into whether turning the feature off really achieves what I need: not just to hide features but to ensure they are not there at all).

In your third bullet you wrote:

Our Acceptable Use policy has been in effect for some time now. These broad principles govern what we think is appropriate behavior on the specific user platforms we manage, like Mozconnect and our support platforms, not your browsing behavior.

But the language of the FireFox “Terms of Use” state:

Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.

This is specifically stating that FireFox, not MozConnect, must comply with the Acceptable Use Policy.  If the intent was what you stated, then that language in the Terms of Use is simply wrong.

Unfortunately all that matters in the end is the language of the terms of service, not anything you might say or promise here. 

Additionally this new policy was rolled out to be effective immediately rather than say 30 days from now.  People didn’t really have time to evaluate or ask questions about it before it went into effect. That by itself is a problem.  We must now assume Mozilla could change the Terms of Use with zero notice and people will only see it long after changes go into effect. 

I hope Mozilla will consider changing their direction.

[fraggedy_andy]

Now we're getting mixed messages from Mozilla. The ToU says that we "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." But don't say how long you have those rights for. However your privacy says you don't have rights to our data.

WHICH ONE IS IT? You haven't clarified anything. If anything, it's worse!

[KelsonV]

"we need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible."

No, you don't. You never have before, and you don't need it now. Anything that doesn't go through your servers, you don't need a license for. And anything that doesn't *need* to go through your servers shouldn't be going through them in the first place.

[pva]

AsheleyT, please, leave mozilla foundation. Don't destroy project that was build by so many talented people!

The clarifications you gave are not improving situation. This should stay in firefox, otherwise it's not Firefox any more:

"Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox produ...

If you don't understand this, how could you lead this project?

[DMConstantino]

Thank you for taking the time to engage, but unfortunately, I can't consider that the reply is in any way convincing, or really addressing the issues with valid arguments.

• regarding licensing: you're showing a fundamental misunderstanding between a product, and service; a web browser and a search engine; and how copyright actually works.
  • Firefox is a web browser, a product, when I use Firefox, I'm using a browser.
    Mozilla manufactured the browser, and in some cases it distributed it to the users, and that's it. When Firefox users are using the web browser, Mozilla isn't doing anything on their behalf. It's the user that is directly doing. Just like when I get a hammer, the hammer manufacturer is not hammering the nails on behalf of the those that swing the hammer towards the nails, Mozilla isn't doing anything when we use Firefox, it's the user, those who have Firefox installed on their computer, who are doing something, Mozilla isn't doing something, and certainly not something on their behalf.
  • Firefox is a web browser, it's not a search engine, when we use Firefox to search, or request something on the web, we're using Firefox, Mozilla is not involved, because Mozilla doesn't even have a search engine, so you're argument for the need for Mozilla to have a license for doing searches, is totally invalid, and anyone who has a basic grasp on how the web works, knows this. It's insulting that you use such an obviously fake argument, on a highly technical crowd.
  • Any web search engine query isn't even a type of creative work protected by copyright, I do know that this is a bold statement, but I'm pretty sure no judge would ever classify it as such, even if they could in theory be a class of protected works, the almost entirety of them are not because most of them don't have enough originality to be. Furthermore, it's also certain that any copy that is technically required, and exclusively kept temporarily, for the single reason of satisfying the technical needs of facilitating the communication of a work, don't require any licensing. This is how the Internet and any data, and telecommunication network is legally allowed to exist.
  • Another point, no other Open Source browser has ever had such condition for usage, and even Firefox existed many, many years, without the need for such requirement, proving that it's clear to all that not necessary, and it's therefore abusive.
• In respect with AI, if you're building AI, based on confidential, private data from users, which might even include very sensitive data, without their explicit and informed consent, you're breaking all the principles that Mozilla has ever said it stands for.
• The acceptable use policy has all the problems people have pointed out, you're not addressing any of our concerns in your reply. They make Firefox not being Free Software and Open Source Software, and some of them are illegal, and they are certainly not smart, or aligned with Mozilla stated values, and in some cases not being illegal, they are certainly abusive (like the one about sexual and violent content).
  • The acceptable use policy is being presented as a policy that applies to the Firefox Web Browser, not only the Mozilla online/web services. Your statement contradicts what is actually written on the documents.
    This is what is actually written on the "Firefox terms of use" (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/legal/terms/firefox/#you-are-responsible-for-the-consequences-of...) there about that:
    This means that it's about the browser, and at least not only about the "web based information services" as you (Mozilla) call them on the "about:rights#webservices" page that ships with Firefox.
  • Furthermore, even if those terms would not apply to the browser, but only to the "web based information services", they would still be awful because they mean that:
    • it can't be used to send unsolicited messages, which means I can't message initiate a contact my family or friends, if I'm a journalist I can't initiate a contact to get a new source, if I'm researcher I can't use it to do communicate to request research information from people I've never contacted and got authorization before (and can't use this service to request such authorization), and many other reasonable uses.
    • I can't store and synchronize bookmarks and tabs for any purpose that in any way can be considered of sexual or violent nature, including for researching, if they are considered art, are for education, are part of journalistic work, etc...
    • They are useless, as it's not a contract that creates the obligation to follow the law,
    • They are certainly not aligned with Mozilla stated values (my previous premises and arguments, as well as others on this thread prove it).

[pva]

BTW, do I understand correctly that pornhub blocked by these so called "new rights"?

[DMConstantino]

I wouldn't call it blocked,because I wouldn't describe this legal instrument as a block, but it's certainly against the rules, but maybe so are so pictures from some museums, some movies on Netflix/Disney/Amazon Prime/other streaming services, even newscasts on Youtube with images from war, or from crimes.

The degree of lack of though that go into this policy is appalling.

[DMConstantino]

And it's not even about pictures, any depiction, or representation of those types of content are affected, and all types of things are affected, not only art, information/journalism and research, so is education (sexual education, anti-bullying, etc...), all sorts of campains to prevent risks and abuses, etc...

[BenCos18]

with all due respect that is a lot of junk 

you do not need such a vague update for that anyway...

[X27]

How is this a good thing?

So when I write story's images and videos I upload via the browser it is supposed to be between my computer and the website and no middle man, this seems no better privacy for us user's

I really don't want to change browser's but if Mozilla is going this route then the future of Firefox and your company is beyond recovery at this point

be better Mozilla

[SirWolf]

I'm beyond angry, and it's staggering that you underestimated our reaction to this so badly. You've gone too far. Shame on you.

[SirWolf]

A bit of reminder from old times:

"Net neutrality, also known as network neutrality, is the principle that all internet traffic should be treated equally by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). This means that ISPs should not discriminate or charge differently based on the user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication. The concept is designed to ensure a free and open internet, where users can access all legal content and services without interference or preference from ISPs."

Now compare that to what Firefox is doing right now.

[tom25519]

Yes, Mozilla shouldn't involve useless thing like politics, just focus on technology like Firefox and VPN, etc and privacy and freedom of Internet. 

[mattl_]

Mozilla doesn’t need to build any AI things. 

All Mozilla needs to do is: make a web browser that is standards compliant and does not adopt any of the nonsense that for-profit companies are doing to try and destroy the web. 

Mozilla doesn’t need to run a VPN service, data broker service or anything else. 

I just want my money to donate to the development of the browser. 

No AI stuff. No cryptocurrency donations. No proprietary plugins. No DRM. 

Firefox shouldn’t even have a EULA. Mozilla should be collecting ZERO information from the browser that they cannot collect from httpd logs. 

Anything beyond Firefox browsing the web and Thunderbird sending/receiving email/usenet messages should nothing for Mozilla to worry about. 

[merewin]

Mozilla should just go ahead and dissolve at this point. Betraying every single thing the Mozilla has stood for, for the past decade or more, over some ridiculous, planet destroying, thieving AI fad. Every single person who works for Mozilla is a failure, and should be ashamed of themselves.

[Thomasns]

I have been a loyal Firefox user since 1. There's been some disappointing decisions before but this one is over the line. I'm out and taking my VPN sub elsewhere. 

[simpaticoder]

Regarding your new terms of service and in particular this paragraph:

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.

I've been a strong proponent of Firefox for many years, since it came out around 2005, and have consistently suggested it to users as an alternative to Chrome (and Safari, where possible). I cannot continue to do so in good conscience given these terms. Nor can I continue using Firefox myself under these terms.

You are asserting ownership of all information I input through Firefox. Do you undrstand what this means in an age where we all interact with *everything* through the browser? Can you imagine if Microsoft or Apple asserted the same rights for their operating systems? As it stands, with this clause you give yourselves carte blanche to everything I say, do, or make and use your browser to send it to various sites. You give yourselves unrestricted access to my passwords, accounts, and interactions with those accounts with banks, medical providers, customers, friends, and more.

As of today, I am switching to Chromium (or a reasonable fork). Whether or not you reconsider this clause, the damage has been done to at least one user's trust, and I will not be coming back. I'm not sure what your intention was, but I also don't care: you should know better than to alienate your users, who are, as a class, more privacy- and rights-focused than average and yet you managed to poke us ALL right in the eye with this misstep.

To echo Dune's "may your knife chip and shatter", let me say: May your funding dry up and wither along with your already paultry market-share. I see now that your critics were right, that Mozilla existed merely as a fig leaf for Google's browser monopoly. Given the current political climate, it seems likely to me that Google will not need that fig leaf much longer, which leaves you, your legal teams, your leadership, and your engineers, looking for a job. Which perhaps explains this move, which gives Google a fig-leaf of another sort - they can now say, "Hey, look, WE aren't the bad guys, they are." Or, if you succeed in normalizing this outrageous power grab, they can grab the same power, too.

Shame on you, Mozilla. This bridge is burned and I don't think it can be rebuilt.

[Grugspro]

The new terms are vague and unacceptable, state clearly how and where the data is transferred to. I use Firefox to get away from data scrapers, and your removal of the promise to not sell my data in the Firefox FAQ is seen disapprovingly.