Stop requiring donors to provide extra information

[davidsk]

I volunteer on SUMO and regularly see complaints from those who WANT to donate but do not because of the unnecessary information that is required. People can buy and donate everywhere else and their name, their credit card information is sufficient, except for some political donations. Simplify this. Review the perceived need for the extra information, and then stop requiring it. A person's street address is never needed. Thank you.

[Jon]

Related discussion thread:

You just require too much personal information on donation 

[Pluie77]

Hello,

I would like to make a donation but I do not want to give my postal address

Sincerely

[Tywyowo]

I understand if this is a reastriction imposed by stripe or because you need an address for tax reasons but at least provide an alternative way to donate that isn't check.

[mpcmcgrath]

I agree with the sentiments expressed above. I am happy to make a donation but not happy with revealing personal details which, in case of a hack, could be used for malevolent purposes. I too donate to, among others, Wikipedia and have never been asked for this level of personal detail. While this situation continues I will not (sadly) be able too make a donation.

Mike McGrath

[Nukeboyt]

I tried to donate.  Perfectly willing to give you my email address, but I'm not going to give you my home address.   Your loss!   Notify me when you change this policy and I will gladly send you some $$

[JW2]

Agree with this sentiment.  I tried to donate and stopped due to extra information required.  Consider what Wikipedia requires and redo request.  You would get more donations!

[akerr]

I want donate to Thunderbird. But I do not want send my postal address as asked in the donation page. I think my e-mail is enough. How could I do it?

[TuxMariner]

I tried to donate, but didn't because Mozilla requires unnecessary personal information

I have been a user of Thunderbird for many years and want to support its continued development.  I have donated in the past and would like to continue to do so.  However, Mozilla now requires my full name, email address and real physical address as a minimum to be able to donate.

This is both unnecessary and undesirable.  Completely unnecessary because the donation is through PayPal, who has already verified my payment and who happily accepts my donations to other projects (such as Wikipedia) without any personal details being entered.  Undesirable because it's reasonable to assume that the information is requested so it can be monetised somehow without my consent.  If that's not the case, then it's just another website with all of my personal data waiting for someone to hack and leak.

Many other people have backed out of donations to Thunderbird for the same reason.  For just a couple of examples, see all of the people saying exactly this in just a couple of easily found posts:

* https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/you-just-require-too-much-personal-information-on-donatio...

* https://www.reddit.com/r/Thunderbird/comments/120i2av/donation_question/

Plenty of people want to support Thunderbird's ongoing development but refuse to hand over unnecessary personal data to do so.  This is not the respect for privacy that people have come to expect from Mozilla and they really need to reconsider this policy if they want to achieve ongoing financial viability for Thunderbird.

As an aside, I would also sign up to yearly donations if they supported this, but for some reason they only have one-off and monthly (which just increases the loss to transaction fees).

[linky]

I have attempted four times to donate as I value supporting "independent" software providers.

I cancelled each time when unnecessary additional data was requested and could not be refused and still be able to complete the donation.

I will continue my decades-old use of, and support for, Thunderbird and will continue attempting to donate but it won't happen as long as more than a username and password is required.

Linky

[mozillian]

Big thumbs up on this

[Rock1]

required donation info

Suggest you not require so much info in order for someone to make a donation. I was all ready to donate when I ran into the page where you wanted my address, etc. Didn't see any reason to have that info included in yet another database.

[Jon]

(Note: similar ideas have been merged into this thread)

[GinoF]

I'd have written the same. Address and town are simply not necessary. Why do you ask for them?

[degenjake]

I also stopped trying to make a $25 donation.  I tried using a fake address, but your widget outsmarted me.  Either stop requiring addresses, or quit verifying them.  You'll get more donations.  This is the 3rd year I've gone through this.  I actually want to pay you.  Cmon!

[Abdullah2]

I understand your frustration with the unnecessary information required for donations. Simplifying the process could indeed encourage more people to contribute.