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.

Update

Thank you all for taking the time to share your questions and reactions. We’ve been listening and made some updates to address areas of concern. I’ve started a new discussion topic covering what’s changed in the Terms of Use based on your feedback, and clearing up a few points of confusion.

[JohnSmith3]

The lack of TOS and transparency of data privacy is the reason I have used Firefox for my entire adult life. With this change, I am forced to leave it behind and spend my time moving to a new browser from what was once the last remaining mainstream browser that respected their users. Goodbye Firefox, it was nice knowing you but this is unacceptable in every way.

[Genuineparts]

"We expected this to create interest." I feel this is really not going the way you think this would go. I just switched to Librewolf and Betterbird and threw 20 bucks to Betterbird on top. I really hope you rapidly change course and if you don't I'll happily watch you be sued into oblivion and sink.

[Cretec]

When your TOU is on par with Adobe, that is quite an accomplishment and not a good one. My company's legal team reviewed this, and in their opinion, it is pretty bad, a full of loopholes. They literally laughed out loud over how bad it was written. That along with the privacy changes, and it is actually worse in a lot of ways as Google's Chrome.

What is worse is the explanation in the blog post is not helpful or making anything better or more clear. 

I have used Firefox since it was in beta. Now I am finding it hard to see why I should continue.

[Chris-Winters]

@AshleyTI just want to point out your original post got 6 "Kudos" and 244 replies... if you weren't aware this is called "getting ratioed". It means the content of the post was quite unpopular and whoever instructed you to say this should rethink their strategy here, and then begin training their replacement because this is a colossal failure. But I'm certain Mozilla will just call us all bigots, spend another $10 Million on another conference for 7 blue haired they/thems and a disabled xe/xir with a buzzword salad for a name and keep chugging along ignoring the massive fire burning the whole building down around them.

You're not dealing with gullible and impressionable first graders. A lot of us were building the foundations of the internet before you were even born. If you think this move will lead to success for Mozilla you've all become delusional. Snap out of it. 3% browser market share and falling. If that were a stock price the shareholders would be jumping ship before you inevitably filed Chapter 11 and declared bankruptcy, and then they'd be discussing options for lawsuits with their attorneys.

Let me rephrase that in case my meaning isn't completely understood;

MOZILLA. IS. NO. LONGER. POPULAR. ENOUGH. TO. GET. AWAY. WITH. THIS! Mozilla simply doesn't have enough good will left over to recover from this.

EDIT: As a reminder. Firefox is completely open source, which means a hard fork is just a few clicks away. We don't need Mozilla for Firefox to continue... but Mozilla certainly needs Firefox.

[AshleyT]

Thank you all for taking the time to share your questions and reactions. We’ve been listening and made some updates to address areas of concern. I’ve started a new discussion topic covering what’s changed in the Terms of Use based on your feedback, and clearing up a few points of confusion.

[flake_]

"Confusion" - oh God, my sides.

[yumcimil]

Mozilla keep trying to educate us on the selling of data thing. Please stop. It's not complicated. You want to sell our aggregated data. We absolutely do not want you to do this. We additionally do not care about a nonprofit that pays its CEO $6m a year complaining about money.

[yolo1]

This is due to IA.
Please put this in a plugin first before deploying these features. If your plugin becomes popular, integrate it into your core software. Stop using your core userbase to capitalize on it.

[HaleyHalcyon]

If Mozilla doesn’t plan to collect and sell my data, they would say loudly and proudly that they don’t.

In fact, the fact that Mozilla used to declare that they won’t, was one of my deciding factors on switching to Firefox.

Now that the text is gone from the FAQ and the representatives make no attempt to reaffirm that principle, I will take my business elsewhere.

[1doodah1]

This is a shocking violation of privacy. I've been using Firefox for years on all my devices but I will be uninstalling now.

[isaacryu]

> The reason we’ve stepped away from making blanket claims that “We never sell your data” is because, in some places, the LEGAL definition of “sale of data” is broad and evolving.

This is a total cop-out. Don't sell user data; it's as simple as that. Even the definition the blog post provides as "overreaching" is more than fair.

> In order to make Firefox commercially viable, there are a number of places where we collect and share some data with our partners, including our optional ads on New Tab and providing sponsored suggestions in the search bar.

All I can really say is tough **bleep**? You made a promise; why must Firefox be "commercially viable"? Mozilla has other projects and sources of revenue, add other optional paid services, don't break your promise and make it worse for everyone because you made a short-sighted decision.

> Whenever we share data with our partners, we put a lot of work into making sure that the data that we share is stripped of potentially identifying information, or shared only in the aggregate, or is put through our privacy preserving technologies (like OHTTP).

This is a bare minimum expectation. Truly the bar is in hell.

[sadtimes]

disapointed and sad.. being using firefox since day 1 (and before that mozilla browser) and never changed, not even once. on linux macos and android. 24/7 for 2 decades.

always advised my family, friends and co workers to use firefox, because for all its flaws compared to others at least it wasn botnet and "respected its users", i must have said that hundreds of times in the last 20 years.

sad sad times.. and all because money? after you wasted thousands if not millions in activism that changed *nothing*! i always wondered how you had the extra money for such wasting but whatever you had a good browser.

i cant believe this.. you were the good ones!

i wont be updating the browser and probably will change to librewolf.

an end of an era, mozilla. such a shame, what a waste of a good thing..

[sadtimes]

😞

[FormerUser]

Between Netscape Navigator and Firefox, I've been a user for 30 years.  I left for a while after the insane treatment of Brendan Eich, but I came back and have stuck around.  But this is the end, I guess.

I do have a parting request: Please continue as an open-source project so that we can all use IceCat and LibreWolf.  Thanks in advance!

[Tourfaint]

Some clarification on a blogpost doesn't legally mean anything, either the TOS changes or it doesn't.

The amount of weasel words and pretending "its too complicated to say what data we're selling" is a clear sign something shady is going on. If it was legit you would have no problems just enumerating what data, if any, you are selling and to who. I've been using firefox since 2006, non-stop. Way to break a combo before a round number anniversary. The moment i manage to migrate all my settings to a fork, i'm not looking back. It's sad, its tiresome, but you made us all do it.

[gamer191]

I have 2 major concerns with the acceptable use policy that I don’t think anyone’s brought up:

1. “You also may not sell, resell, or duplicate any Mozilla product or service without written permission from Mozilla.” this seems to contradict with Firefox’s open source license. Perhaps those licenses are taken as “written permission”, but this seems vague and confusing

2. ”Violate any person’s rights of privacy or publicity” this seems to ban most journalism. Do criminals have a right to not have their identities public? This seems to imply so

[LeonDerBaertige]

1. The code is open source, the wordmarks are not. Similar to the way RHEL works.

[gwozniak]

I'm not one to pile on, but honestly, I've had it. I've been using Firefox since its inception and used Netscape Navigator before that. It's been 30 years of Mozilla for me.

No longer. I'm done.

This Terms of Use/Terms of Service debacle shows me that I cannot continue to support this foundation. I will no longer recommend Firefox to my friends, family, or coworkers. I consider Mozilla to be a toxic brand. I will now actively dissuade them from using it. The trust you built is gone.

I deepy desire Firefox to succeed. Unfortunately, the Mozilla Foundation and the Mozilla are its worst enemy. I haven't seen a good decision from them in years. I'm just frustrated right now to the point of intense anger. And judging by the comments here, I am far from alone.

I will happily come back to using Firefox and advocating for it if these terms are fixed (even with the recent changes) and the leadership resigns. Keep the workers, though: they are competent.

[jpetso]

I've been using and promoting Firefox since IE was a browser monopoly. I have stuck with Mozilla through all of the bad choices including DRM, telemetry and widespread layoffs while Mitchell Baker kept taking more.  This is your worst move by far. I will now be looking for a browser I can actually trust, even if they don't have the resources to maintain an independent engine.

Here's the thing. You, Mozilla management, want to leverage what's left of Firefox marketshare into an income stream that can sustain the foundation, and company. This cannot work if you keep misunderstanding and disrespecting your existing users. You can't get to the mythical "modern internet user" if you lose your existing privacy-minded users first. There will be nothing left to leverage, no traffic to monetize and redirect into AI fantasies, no telemetry to analyze, no goodwill to tap into, and no purpose for existing.

Stop trying to trade your core userbase in return for a more profitable, less problematic "standard user". Lean into it instead. You know what your users want, not Chrome users, not AI enthusiasts, not "mainstream" new adopters, but YOUR users. Write your announcement blog posts *before* you develop a feature and get it focus-group checked by some of your own users. If everyone calls bull**bleep** on it, maybe you should leave it to some other company. If it's good, you can still pick up new users with it. This here is a trainwreck.

Here's a thought. Firefox still has its 3% or so marketshare. Users that want Firefox to succeed, in a non-en**bleep**tified form.

It's not too late to drop all the cruft that nobody wants, and raise donations for Firefox as an independent browser whose development is driven by user demand. Opt-in services and telemetry. Moonshot experiments only with a tiny percentage of donations. No sell-outs that cannibalize the core browser experience.

Thunderbird can now raise $9m per year as an *email client*. Firefox can do much better than that, especially if you give your supporters a reason to believe in the team.

You have one thing that's really important and needs preserving. Stop taking from Firefox to finance questionable other goals. Firefox is still the main goal. If you lose Firefox, Mozilla's mission has failed. If you take out the "privacy-focused" from Firefox, Mozilla's mission has failed. If everyone uses Chromium and Safari, Mozilla's mission has failed.

If Firefox continues surviving with $50m yearly donations instead of $500m search revenue, Mozilla's mission can live on and start growing again from there.

It may take a different team to do this, given how utterly detached senior management is from the people they claim to serve.

[pg_78]

This really is the tragedy of Mozilla. Firefox isn't going to become a mass-market browser - that ship has sailed.

There is (or would have been) a thriving future for Firefox, if only Mozilla could get through the five stages of grief and reach the acceptance that it can't be a mass-market browser, but it can be a successful product for a niche user group which is loyal and values-driven.

Instead, Mozilla is stuck at the denial stage, and so we get these schemes which are antithetical to Firefox's actual user base, but justified as "well, most people wouldn't regard this as selling data".

Mozilla - sorry, but "most people" don't think about you at all. Dance with the ones that brung you!

[alexanderlabrie]

Just switch to LibreWolf, it's better anyway, I did yesterday and it wasn't hard at all.

[seele0w0]

I would like to know: does the so-called “you request with the content you input in Firefox.” include all the clicks I made on https://wise.com/ with my email and password, or even on office 365?

[Duality]

are you allowed to lie? Because you say it's free but it's not you are selling my privacy so I am paying with that.

[senid]

Je souhaite que firefox continue d'être un navigateur respectueux de ma vie privée.  Les dernières CGU semblent indiquer le contraire.  Si elles sont maintenus je chercherai un autre navigateur.

[hron84]

According to your updated blogpost, you should revert this change (sorry, I am not able to link directly that diff on that specific file from GitHub) then: https://x.com/LundukeJournal/status/1895249805338886591

As per you mention you will not sell our data, it does not makes sense why you remove this statement from your website. Your blog is an "unofficial" communication channel in many terms (even if you treat as "official") as opposite to your "official" website, that is a first point when someone tries to learn about how Mozilla Foundation, especially Firefox treats their data. It would make a clear situation if you just put back this Q/A pair to your website. Otherwise, it suggests you intentionally put it out on blogpost and not on your website because you have some shady intention on that.

[manfredland]

As mentioned in the other topic:

After using and promoting Firefox for more than 20 years, this is the last straw to finally leave Firefox in the dust, following years of questionable decisions.
You don't need any license for being a webbrowser, especially if I'm not using any of your services and the "clarification" does not change anything, you still grant yourself a license to anything put through Firefox.

Switching all devices I control over to Librewolf and pondering the long term solution.

Goodbye Firefox, it was fun while it lasted.