Firefox maker Mozilla deleted a promise to never sell its users’ personal data and is trying to assure worried users that its approach to privacy hasn’t fundamentally changed. Until recently, a Firefox FAQ promised that the browser maker never has and never will sell its users’ personal data. An archived version from January 30 says:
Does Firefox sell your personal 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.
That promise is removed from the current version. There’s also a notable change in a data privacy FAQ that used to say, “Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you, and we don’t buy data about you.”
The data privacy FAQ now explains that Mozilla is no longer making blanket promises about not selling data because some legal jurisdictions define “sale” in a very broad way:
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).
Mozilla didn’t say which legal jurisdictions have these broad definitions.
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,
Fuck off Mozilla. Maybe don’t pay CEOs millions and don’t force things like Pocket and LLMs on users if you want to be commercially viable, I’d gladly pay for Firefox that doesn’t make me dodge new features and services. But it would be a donation towards development of a browser that is commons, since you have no product to sell, only GPL’d code that’s mine as much as yours.
You have NO fucking leverage, Firefox is better than Chrome, but there’s projects that will gladly repackage your code with no telemetry whatsoever for any platform while you’re brainstorming just the right amount of monetization to prevent the frog from jumping.
It’s kind of sad I don’t use Chrome and therefore never think of it, while I like and use Firefox and am therefore constantly at odds with Mozilla.
I mean you could argue that them defaulting to Google search is already them selling your data. Google definitely pay them for that.
Which jurisdictions? What kind of broad way? Give one example please. I dare you.
This is why I am an advocate for publicly-funded Internet, like how people fund NPR and BBC.
I don’t blame Firefox because at the end of the day, they are still a business and need to cover the operating cost. I blame the system that we’re in and the elites will tell you there is no other alternative.
and the elites will tell you there is no other alternative
That’s like blaming wolves for eating you when it’s winter, they are hungry and you are in the forest
We are still in a capitalistic. Money still prevails.
What operating costs? You could argue there are development costs, but development is driven by the community. The only operating costs are forced stalking behavior.
please pay me if you want to sell my data. At the end of the day I am a business and need to cover operating cost.
Is there an open source tool to generate fake user activity data for Firefox to consume?
current acting CEO of Mozilla is Laura Chambers. An Australian native and has quite…interesting work history.
It’s weird isn’t it? how these same names keep coming up again and again…
Ebay, Paypal, Airbnb.
she would have likely worked with Thiel and Musk during her time there. I wonder if there’s any lingering commitment there?
As an Australian.Do not trust us when it comes to privacy, security especially in tech or the digital space.
We are not a nation descendant of ‘convicts’ but of prison guards and other colonial boot lickers.
We are US lite or US 10years ago or maybe their tearing ground. Can’t figure it out.
Yeah don’t trust us, we’ve gutted all forms of STEM that aren’t directly related to digging shit out of the ground for Gina Rinehart and co
Serious intellectual brain drain in this country now, we really are the US 10 years ago, hopefully the US explodes enough to stop all our idiots blindly following their jingoism to our doom
Glad you shared this. I hate to be That Tin Foil Hat Person but it seems really convenient that a Musk and Thiel tied CEO happens to take over the one browser base that isn’t Chromium just before people start moving to it for privacy in escalating numbers.
McKinsey is honestly scarier. They may not be a household name like the others, but look them up. They are frightening.
Man, this is very disappointed news. Thanks though, good to know.
McKinsey, you forgot that, whatever the fuck it is
I’ve been “laid off” by a McKinsey sweep twice in my Silicon Valley career and both times the stated reason was basically for making working software instead of lying and scamming.
shit no i shouldn’t pretended. i do NOT want to learn more. but yes, thanks for the link.
Stanford too
Son of a bitch I just got back into Firefox.
Get in loser, we’re going to librewolf apparently. Fuck me I’ve reached the age of seeing all the things I like die. I don’t even remember a time I didn’t use Firefox. God damn it
Icecat’s good too. In fact in some ways, eg. cutting Sync out entirely where LibreWolf disables it by default but lets you enable it if desired, better than LibreWolf.
Try LibreWolf then
Is there any android port?
Not at the moment, but the Librewolf folks recommend Ironfox.
None of Librefox Waterfox or Ironfox are on Fdroid. So Fennec (aka: Firefox) is still the only FOSS option on Fdroid
Interesting. How’s water fox?
I remember a time when Google wrote “Don’t be evil” all over their stuff…
dude i worked in a buncha different college libraries around the time of google’s initial ascension. Google slayed. it was awesome, in 2000.
now? google is a drippy search engine.
There’s a phrase that is still very close to that in some company statement still, I sort of view it as pointless to talk about. We know they’re evil by their actions, and they were evil before they removed it in sure. If the statement is what matters, it’s still basically there, just not the motto. It’s just not worth worrying or talking about. They do so much worse shit. A friend of mine was recently let go after protesting about their response to the genocide in Gaza.
What’s the next Android browser I’m installing fam?
I just have friends send me memes to my clamshell flip phone through SMS
Get your ham license and send them by SSTV over the air. Truly decentralized. https://youtu.be/Yak__tnFHKs
beg borrow or steal android devices until you get one worth your time.
They said browser.
Gahhhh this is horrible
I spent some time switching to Librewolf this morning but at the end of the day, it having Firefox as the upstream means it’s all fragile and tenuous anyway
just uninstall firefox
Yep, I have Chrome and its a better browser anyways /s
They can’t just promise they “never will” and then get rid of it. People who used the service under the original agreement should still be able to claim that benefit since it was promising to never sell it.
Several questions:
- How are they getting our data?
- What is the nature of the data?
- Can we do anything in about:config?
How are they getting our data?
By setting up small pieces of code that trigger when you use a given feature, and send a network request to Mozilla’s servers with either a single flag set to just show a feature was used, in general, or more additional data with context (e.g. how long the text is that users are putting into their new AI sidebar feature)
What is the nature of the data?
This section of their Privacy Notice explains what categories of telemetry data they collect.
Can we do anything in about:config?
None needed. The normal settings menu has you covered. Go to
Settings>Privacy & Security>Firefox Data Collection and Use>Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla
Aaaand that’s why I switched to Brave. If you have shit performance and are selling my data, what’s the redeeming quality? 8gb of RAM should be enough to browse the internet. IDK why Firefox insists it isn’t…
If this is not a parody, I implore you to at least…read the Wikipedia page?
I’m about to get my tattoo removed wtf
You’re a good friend
Edit: also the style shows through, not everyone can get a watercolor vibe without the water
Just get “RIP” tattooed under it.
If it’s really you…
Wtf?
It is lmfao it was my first one 🥲
Would you like to see my tattoo of Tom from MySpace I got on my left testicle? Hey man, in 2005 it seemed like MySpace Tom would be in our lives forever. Why WOULDN’T you get his profile picture inked into your body with needles on the most painful part of your body? It made sense in 2005!
But noooooooooo! Facebook had to be a dick. And now whenever I pull my pants down in front of some hot 20 year old with daddy issues, she’s like “Is that your uncle or something?”
Meanwhile Tom sold my MySpace for hundreds of millions of dollars, and now does photography of bikini models on his yacht! While I have to explain who Tom is to Gen Z…
sigh
Honestly at this point, I wouldn’t be embarrassed having a tattoo of Tom from MySpace.
For a second I thought Tom did photography and bikini models on his yacht. We’ll he probably does, but I just read your comment wrong.
I mean, he’s worth hundreds of millions, on a yacht that he owns with hotties in bikinis hoping to get discovered as their own ticket to fame from the photos being taken of their oiled up sexy bodies.
The sex was implied.
That clarification is not making me calm
