this post was submitted on 02 Mar 2025
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Mozilla is already revising its new Firefox terms to clarify how it handles user data (www.theverge.com)
submitted 2 days ago by Xatolos@reddthat.com to c/technology@lemmy.world
172 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

AI Summary:

Overview:

  • Mozilla is updating its new Terms of Use for Firefox due to criticism over unclear language about user data.
  • Original terms seemed to give Mozilla broad ownership of user data, causing concern.
  • Updated terms emphasize limited scope of data interaction, stating Mozilla only needs rights necessary to operate Firefox.
  • Mozilla acknowledges confusion and aims to clarify their intent to make Firefox work without owning user content.
  • Company explains they don't make blanket claims of "never selling data" due to evolving legal definitions and obligations.
  • Mozilla collects and shares some data with partners to keep Firefox commercially viable, but ensures data is anonymized or shared in aggregate.
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[–] psyspoop@lemm.ee 93 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Mozilla says that “there are a number of places where we collect and share some data with our partners” so that Firefox can be “commercially viable,” but it adds that it spells those out in its privacy notice and works to strip data of potentially identifying information or share it in aggregate.

Sounds like they've already been selling (or trading) data and this whole debacle is a way to retroactively cover their asses.

[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Yeah. And their privacy notice is basically a mix-match of ten or so sections that have no place in a web browser privacy policy, that allows them to do the things people reproach them for doing.

It's like saying "we're not doing that, because we're limited by that document that allows us to do just that". And now they're tripling down on it.

[–] Ledericas@lemm.ee 12 points 1 day ago

google is probably thier number one customer for the data.

[–] justlemmyin@lemmy.world 92 points 2 days ago (7 children)

Ruh roh. Too late though.

Friendship ended with Firefox,❎ Librewolf is my new best friend. ✅

[–] unconfirmedsourcesDOTgov@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 day ago

I need a gif where Scooby Doo removes the Librewolf logo and there's a Firefox logo underneath.

You must recognize that there is no Librewolf without Firefox, right? In fact, Librewolf even says in their privacy policy that you should also refer to the Firefox Privacy Policy because they can't be certain that their browser won't ever try to send data to Mozilla.

I'm not saying this to deter you from using Librewolf. If it works for you then that's awesome. It just made me chuckle when you said that you ended your friendship with Firefox and ran into the warm embrace of... Firefox with different default settings.

In any case, all I'm trying to communicate is that Firefox and all of its many forks are fundamentally reliant on Mozilla and its ability to continue updating Firefox. That means Mozilla needs a sustainable business model, and that we can't all simply abandon our relationship with Mozilla for a tool that is dependent on the work that Mozilla does.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 43 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Friendship ended with Firefox,❎ Librewolf is my new best friend. ✅

A big problem with such forks (same with packages made by Linux distributors) is that there is a delay between official FF release and the release of the corresponding update of the fork. 99% of the time this doesn't matter much but when there is a severe security issue, the patch needs to be available ASAP.

Past enshittifications of Firefox could be disabled by users. Users who know what to disable don't need such forks then.

I'm not yet clear what Mozilla even intends. Is it just an adjustment of language of things that are already in FF and can be disabled easily? If so, I just keep the following shit disabled and benefit from earlier update releases.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

A big problem with such forks (same with packages made by Linux distributors) is that there is a delay between official FF release and the release of the corresponding update of the fork.

That's called a patched downstream, not a fork.

LibreOffice was a fork of OpenOffice. OpenBSD was a fork of NetBSD.

[–] cley_faye@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I have not dug too deep into it for now (especially if I end up changing browser), but even with everything in the preferences disabled, examining the content of about:config gives a lot of telemetry.whatever.enabled left to true, sometimes with names that do not seem to match any option given to the user. That's not a good look either.

[–] Kausta@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago

And you cannot change those in the default mobile Firefox since about:config is disabled (by their claim that it may break stuff in the ui)

[–] FooBarrington@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago (7 children)

The issue is that Mozilla is actively hiding these settings. There's one (I forgot which one) that you can't find by searching for the title in the FF settings, you have to scroll to it yourself.

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[–] Max_P@lemmy.max-p.me 48 points 1 day ago (18 children)

They have no business collecting any data in the first place. If I wanted my data collected I'd be using Chrome like everyone else. I'm not choosing to use their buggy ass inferior and slower browser for any of Mozilla's services, I'm choosing it because I want to support non-Chromium browsers and regain my privacy.

There's no point whatsoever to using Firefox if it's just a worse Chrome.

[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 day ago

Even if Firefox is selling your data, its still 10x better than chrome since they allow uBlock Origin. Fuck chrome and fuck ads

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[–] KayLeadfoot@fedia.io 14 points 1 day ago

Me looking at Mozilla like: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GHShUPtagAANgks.jpg

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