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.

[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.

[FredJupiter]

"upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information"

Such sloppy wording is extremely risky. The expression obviously includes also my binary data including what I upload on behalf of my employer, i.e. his and other's confidential data. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.

[i430VX]

As a longtime (admittedly not nearly as long of a time as some people here, however) Firefox user, I am very disappointed to see this change and lack of sufficient clarification and segmentation on the changes.

This said, I am frequently willing to play devil's advocate. As much of a shame as it is, maybe there is a valid argument for having AI/whatever services available in the browser to attract/retain a specific segment of users. Some of these services, being well, services, could feasibly need a terms of use attached to them for whatever reasons. And I do understand that Mozilla has not had a particularly good financial situation in quite some time, so the need to make money is there. I get that. But don't enshrine it into the policies that supporting Mozilla financially or in other ways with our data is a requirement to use the browser.

When there's a significant and very passionate installed user base of technical people who are using the product for privacy-oriented reasons, ambiguity and overzealousness with the privacy permissions / rights / licenses Mozilla grants themselves is not going to do this user base any favours. Even if it is NOT the intention at all for Mozilla to be construing that EVERYTHING happening by users in the Firefox browser has a license granted to Mozilla for their use, can be data-mined for profit, whatever... the current wording appears (IANAL) to be readily interpretable as such. If this intention really, truly, is not the case, then it is essential to properly reword the terms thoroughly to say exactly what is meant and exactly where, when, & how it applies, if this happens by default or is an opt-in thing. The premise (as can be interpreted presently) that a universal and unforgiving license deal is needed to use what is essentially a fancy tool and NOT (at its core, anyway) a service is just nuts.

As an example think of, say, a digital camera. This is usually completely (or virtually completely) a product... a tool. It may have auxiliary services, maybe cloud sync or automatic photo editing, whatever, I don't know. Feasibly these aspects could need terms of use to avoid liability on the company's part. Or whatever their goal is. But I think it is very likely you will not find a camera itself with terms of use, or one that grants the manufacturer rights to do as they please with any and all photos taken with the camera. Again... maybe this isn't Mozilla's intention, but plain and simple, it's how it's been laid out, and this is likely not going to be acceptable to a very large number of people.

I feel as if anything that would fall under the realm of being able to be used/sold by Mozilla should be opt in only and very clearly present the conditions of it on opt in. Heck, even make it easy to opt in. Add it on the first run screen that exists in the browser for new installations and/or major upgrades. It is just a certainty however that to a lot of people having such features or services exist on the platform at all will already make them uncomfortable.

I miss the days of "classic" Firefox for sure, but I still think it's a good browser. In fact I think its considerably better now than it was a few years ago. I try my best to promote the Firefox and other FOSS that I like - it would be a shame to see Firefox succumb to disconnection from the user base such as numerous other projects over time. Especially in this case when there's (IMO) no serious non-chromium options out there. I think a lot of people would argue that the death already happened some time ago, but I am hopeful that there is still a chance to recover.

[zackc]

You guys just deleted the promise you made about never selling our data:

"Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That’s a promise"

[milet]

They had their fingers crossed behind back when they said.

But seriously: there is this new corporate trend of twisting meaning of words. Eg. "lifelong license" means now "12 months", "you purchase" means "you are granted temporary license" and so on. So this is Mozilla's "never": never, until we decide we can sell you like slaves.

[AshleyT]

Thank you for raising the concern and let me clarify. Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you (in the way that most people think about “selling data“), and we don’t buy data about you. Since we strive for transparency, and the LEGAL definition of “sale of data“ is extremely broad in some places, we’ve had to step back from making the definitive statements you know and love. We still put a lot of work into making sure that the data that we share with our partners (which we need to do to make Firefox commercially viable) is stripped of any identifying information, or shared only in the aggregate, or is put through our privacy preserving technologies (like OHTTP).

[rdavidatwell]

---

@AshleyT wrote:

Thank you for raising the concern and let me clarify. Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you (in the way that most people think about “selling data“), and we don’t buy data about you.

Then why does the policy say that you can? "We promise not to" in a blog post is not legally actionable. "We're carving out these rights, but we're never going to use them, honest" is not convincing.

Since we strive for transparency, and the LEGAL definition of “sale of data“ is extremely broad in some places, we’ve had to step back from making the definitive statements you know and love.

Why is Mozilla using the browser to do anything that could run afoul of "sale of data" laws anywhere?!? Honestly this makes me more concerned, not less.

We still put a lot of work into making sure that the data that we share with our partners (which we need to do to make Firefox commercially viable)...

Once more, this should be applied at opt-in for the features affected, not imposed globally on download.

Anyway, how commercially viable is Firefox going to be if all of the users who were here because of the legally-protected privacy you offered jump ship for browsers that continue to offer the protections you once promised? "Commercial viability" is never going to happen if you abandon your last remaining distinctive.

Once again, you're not going to be able to clarify your way out of this. You're going to have to change course if you want to stop the bleeding.

[ericmc2]

Who says that Mozilla NEEDS to do these things to make Firefox commercially viable. People have previously offered to PAY/DONATE to support Firefox countless of times and nobody at Mozilla cared.

To this day, it's only possible to donate to the Mozilla Foundation and not towards developing Firefox. In fact, many people only donate to the foundation because they falsely believe that it's going towards developing Firefox.

I would also like to support Firefox through other ways, like offering bounties for fixing longstanding bugs (some bugs are over 20 years old) or maintaining beloved features like the compact mode that got deprecated or PWAs.

Firefox had so much love and goodwill from people who promoted it for free, helped friends and family members installing and using it, who put little Firefox buttons on their websites to promote it.

Over the years, Mozilla threw all that away with a complete lack of care by telling these exact "power users" that they're not the target demographic, that it doesn't matter what they think about changes and that Firefox isn't a democracy. The planned changes might be the last straw to completely destroy the relationship with these users.

And at no point did Mozilla think about working with the millions of loyal users and Firefox fans when it comes to making Firefox independent from Google and ready for the future. They'd rather feed these loyal users to the lions that they promised to protect them from for over twenty years. It honestly blows my mind.

[Cvh-123]

OK, I know how I read this.  

Firefox sends my data to Mozilla who then, perhaps with some anonymisation or aggregation (which might or might not work), sell [edit: or share] it on to their ‘partners’ for Mozilla’s commercial benefit. So, you now cannot legally say you’re not selling our data from FireFox because you are selling our data.

All that about honesty and transparency now feels even more false, because you won’t say ‘yes, we do sell your data’ to the question.

[kalib_tweli]

Why not just have a paid subscription option? Why do we have just straight to selling our data?

[RipFirefox2]

Firefox, I still rmember when you where the promising new kid on the block. Sad to see you go over to the dark side. RIP.

You will be uninstalled from my and my families devices.

[nfg]

I have been using Firefox since the early days, and before that the Mozilla Suite. It saddens me, but it is now clear that it is time to move on. I cannot accept this Terms of Use. You have decided to become an advertising and activist organization. Thank God for Capitalism and Free Software, I can choose to use another browser that will not collect my data or force their politics on me.

I hope the browser lives on in another form, but Mozilla Foundation and Corporation are defunct if this is the way you choose to go.

[pva]

Privacy is not a concept with shades of gray. Just as it is impossible to be "a little pregnant," it is impossible to be "a little private." Firefox’s decision to stop protecting users from ads puts it on the same level as browsers that gradually restrict users' rights over time. This is unacceptable. If this decision is not reversed soon, I will stop all donations and start looking for an alternative browser. I hope a fork will emerge because the technology itself was developed by those who are not the ones making such decisions now.

[k102]

Well, it makes my, as a web dev, life easier.

I think after this "move", quite a lot of people, me included, are going to switch to something else, which will most likely be based on chromium, therefore I won't need to check my work in ff as well, so... Thank you?

[pva]

I hope someone forks Firefox and rebuilds the community on principles that were there at the moment of growth. Otherwise, I hope https://ladybird.org/posts/announcement/ will come with the solution. They probably need to take advantage of the situation and start a funding campaign 🙂

[pva]

https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e

If Firefox is no better than Chrome, why should users choose Firefox? Please revert this commit! Vague policies don't make situation look better.

[artfulrobot]

I've been a Firefox user since the first release, have deployed it in companies as a policy. I'm really sad to see this happening now. The blatant removal of We won't sell your data and things previously called "promises ... ever" alongside the complete lack of response from Mozilla to people exposing this just makes me think the worst: that Mozilla is now a puppet of big tech and its policies are no longer its own.

I realise the elephant in the room might be the naivety of people like me who have merrily ignored the fact that the browser exists because Google pays for it (I understand Mozilla got just under $1bn from Google last year).

Perhaps Mozilla are just saying: wake up and smell the coffee: we're compromised and have been for years and now we're just trying to keep our funding/jobs by selling out our community to big tech.

Anyway, really disappointed by (a) this move and (b) the silence from Mozilla.

[loriwew]

I started using Firefox with version 0.7 -- when it was still called Firebird -- over 20 years ago, and since then I've used it consistently and without fail on all my computers, across all operating systems, and as a sysadmin and general computer guy, always recommended it to all friends. But this is it. I'm done. I'm out. You truly have lost sight of why you have made it this far, who your users are and what they want, and at this point I'm out of sympathy, and out of patience with the endless boneheaded and tonedeaf moves. You deserve your inevitable slide into total irrelevance.

[scopecreep]

This is corporate suicide. You've literally just killed Mozilla and theres nothing you can do to save it now.

You've broken our trust. Even if this is retracted the damage you have done to your reputation is irreversible. 

Better update those resumes.

[Polle]

Point me in the direction of Firefox Users that want AI-Chatbots in their Browser. People that want "a browser that meets all the needs of a modern internet user" have switched to Chromium Browsers a decade ago when Firefox lagged behind some years. The only ones that returned are users that valued their privacy and other promises of FOSS more than any of that "modern internet user" bs.

I have multiple browsers for different tasks and needs; the only reason Firefox is the "main" browser is, that I always trusted it to have a somewhat better policy regarding my data and privacy and the low-threshold ability to block third parties. I honestly won't need Firefox anymore after those changes. And I certainly don't need any sort of AI bull as part of my browser.

[Polle]

Even created an account just because I am mad enough to express my disappointment

[Syntaxerror]

Same here.

And if people want an AI chatbot in their browser, then that's EXACTLY what AddOns are good for!

[pva]

And even if browser wants to integrate that, they don't need to lie us that such privacy changes are required for that. Chat bot are no different from Google.

Broken trust and deception—that's what's happening.

[mysse]

these zog forces keeps trying remove every ounce of privacy from our lives and inject as much ads and bugs into our system as possible. whats next? injecting ads into our literal brain waves with a fox bursting into flames and that flame then turns into ads of bill gates saying to eat BUGS?!

[Ponda]

The only clear part of this situation is that Mozilla has to rewrite ToS and Privacy Policy to be unambiguos, direct and detailed while explaining precisely why the changes are needed and how the data is processed. Any avoidance or further passiveness in this matter will undoubtly result in significant and irrevocable loss of trust and support from the community, which is essential for Firefox to continue operations.

I hope Mozilla can see this is "make it or break it" moment for the future of Firefox and the foundation.

[zur13]

Wow, what a phenomenal decision! According to the new license, they’ve apparently granted themselves the right to even sell off your login credentials. So if I type my username and password anywhere, Mozilla can legally pass that information on to the highest bidder! How remarkably convenient - nothing says “privacy” like the right to peddle personal data!

[whyyoudoodis]

Log in is encrypted so they can see them.... I hope.

[artfulrobot]

@whyyoudoodisIf you can type it into a browser the browser has the unencrypted value. If the browser can show you on screen the unencrypted content, then the browser has the unencrypted content. Simple as that.

[Anonymous5]

An interesting fact is that if you don't log into Google, Chrome collects significantly less personal information than the updated Firefox ToS allows for data collection. If you care about privacy, use an Ungoogled Chrome variant like Thorium. The only reason we ever loved a browser that couldn't even implement web standard APIs from over two years ago and lagged behind Blink in performance—even after creating a whole new language like Rust—was its respect for privacy. Regardless of whether the ToS revision is withdrawn, the fact that a responsible person made such a statement is proof that the Firefox project has already failed.

[s-m-e]

Not wanting to trigger any filters with adequately strong language, that's an impressively "stupid" thing to do. There is little I can add to the discussion other than that I'll now have to burn some time on finding a suitable replacement.

Firefox user since 0.8, 21 yeas and a few weeks it has been.

[pva]

We need privacy. Privacy is enough DEI.

[otto]

Couldn't this have waited until Servo was more mature? Please revise and consider changing leadership that is acting against user interest.
Also: how can users opt-out? Oh they can't 🥴

[nsa]

Any complaint I have about this has undoubtedly already been said multiple times, but I am just sad Mozilla has decided to shoot themselves in the foot like this. I have recommended Firefox to many of my friends, and have used it on every computer I own, however that stops today unless these changes are reverted. It is simply moronic to assume users who chose Firefox for its privacy benefits will simply accept these changes and move on. For anyone in my situation looking to jump ship, forks like Waterfox & LibreWolf could be an alternative if they do not contain these privacy-disrespecting features, or an independent browser like Palemoon or Ladybird could be more suitable.

[Phuxxi]

The path that the people in Mozilla are progressing on, is full of this Diversity, Equality and Inclusivitiy scripting and it's LOOKING like Bolshevick communist surveillance spyware....


Duck Duck Go did the same thing... they transitioned into criminal corporate spyware.

This email spelled out the path your on. AND it's bad.

hello@mozillafoundation.org

Dive into Mozilla’s mission to empower internet users: "you will be surrounded by a global community of people working to make the internet a better, safer, and fairer place for everyone."

Better, Safer and Fairer = are code words for Worse, Controlling and We Yank Your Strings - and you will comply.

[welyr]

If you would allow me to descend from mere distrust into wild dystopian paranoia….

The Terms of Use say this:

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.

And the FireFox Privacy Notice includes the following:

To comply with applicable laws, and identify and prevent harmful, unauthorized or illegal activity

We may also be required to process your personal data to comply with applicable laws and protection purposes, such as:

• Responding to lawful requests and complying with legal processes, such as responding to subpoenas, investigations, or requests from government authorities. Mozilla requires a valid Legal Process to compel the disclosure of Specific User data to a government.

[...]

Identifying, investigating and addressing potential fraudulent activities, or other harmful activities such as illegal activities, cyberattacks or intellectual property infringement (including filing or defending legal claims).

Then under “Lawful Bases” it says:

To comply with applicable laws, and identify and prevent harmful, unauthorized or illegal activity.

All data types

Compliance with law in responding to data subject rights requests, responding to law enforcement requests, managing and protecting our (and our users) rights, property and/or safety. Legitimate interest, where compliance is not appropriate, in supporting legal or regulatory processes or requests, preventing fraud and managing and protecting our (and our users’) rights, property and/or safety.

Learn more about how we respond to lawful requests.

"Lawful Requests" appears to include all kinds of requests such as “Wiretap Orders” and “subpoenas”.  And Subpoenas don't just happen in criminal cases, they can happen in civil cases as well.

Since Mozilla is getting a “license” to anything we put into our browser, does this mean Mozilla can be compelled to disclose it upon receipt of a legal request or wiretap order?

In fairness, perhaps whether this is part of the privacy policy or not Mozilla would still need to comply with court orders, warrants, etc no matter what. But isn’t our “agreeing” to a “Terms of Use” policy which gives Mozilla ownership of our data and Mozilla implementing features which involve any type of data collection an open invitation to get dragged into an attempt by the FBI to issue a wiretapping order vs some reporter or a lawsuit by a some evil mega-corporation vs some little nonprofit watchdog dot org?

Isn’t the way to avoid this for FireFox not become a “service” which has rights to data people enter into their browsers in the first place and instead remain a piece of standalone open source software which doesn’t send ANYTHING to Mozilla during the course of normal use?