Submitted 3 days ago by IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com to [deleted]
I don’t understand how they are supposed to “sell your data” if you just never use a Mozilla account and uncheck all the telemetry. Its not like they can secretly steal your data, since its Open Source.
It seems to me like just more FUD that Google is spreading to undermine our trust in free software.
Something else that needs to be understood about Mozilla: Money!
The Foundation was formed in 2003. Mitchell Baker, the first CEO, stepped aside in 2008 but stayed on as Chairperson of the foundation.
Think about that for a second. Mozilla’s market share has been struggling, and their financials have been weak; but their lead person pulled in over $26 million dollars over a handful of years.
This entire activity has been a long game to extract ‘maximum shareholder value’ into Baker’s pockets.
I’m a software developer, and understand the technicalities and options available to me. I am capable of forking Firefox and make myself a custom build with anything I don’t like stripped out. (Capable of, not wanting to.)
They removed “We don’t sell your data and we never will” from their FAQ and they added “We may sell your data” to the ToS.
I am unhappy about this change. It is a clear sign that the people in charge of Firefox want to sell user data, and that the irrecoverable enshittification path has been chosen. It means that at some point in the next few years, I can’t trust Firefox’ with my privacy. And they sure as fuck don’t have anything else going for them: The browser eats memory and freezes my camera during video conferencing, and is plain not supported in some of the software I use at work.
The rationale is probably something entirely reasonable, like “While we do not intend to sell user data, the phrasing was too vague and not helpful. What is selling, and what is user data, really?” An organization with strong privacy values would be so far from anything “bad” that the phrasing as it was would not be a problem for them.
It’s irrelevant that right now privacy settings and xyz and telmentry is clear and opt in etc. Because the point is that they are gearing up to change that. The settings will be less clear, user data will be separated into shit like “operability assistance”, “personal information”, “experience improvement metrics” with some of it enabled by default because, etc.
The rationalization they have given is that legally, they may have been seeking data all along, as some jurisdictions define it extremely loosely.
For example, if you use their translation feature, they are sending the page your looking at (data) to a third party, which provides a benefit to Mozilla.
blog.mozilla.org/en/…/update-on-terms-of-use/
| 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. As an example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) defines “sale” as the “selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s personal information by [a] business to another business or a third party” in exchange for “monetary” or “other valuable consideration.”
If this translation feature is a problem, they should argue with those countries that it’s not a sale.
If they can’t do that, then maybe sacrifice the translation feature to safeguard user rights.
It seems like they are looking for any excuse to allow selling data eventually.
The current intention may not be malicious, but it leaves the way open for changes that are to slip in. If they were worried about services like translation being concidered ‘sales’, which is a reasonable concern, they should have split them out of the core browser into an extension and put the ‘might sell your data’ licence on that.
The privacy centric way for Mozilla to have address this would have been to:
Here’s the crux of the problem.
Mozilla went from “explicitly not malicious” to “probably not malicious yet.”
What’s next?
I love how California basically defines a sale as “exchanging things for money” and Firefox is like, “its such a craaazy world we can’t even agree on the definition of exchanging things for money out here! Some call it a ‘sale’ apparently, so if we’re gonna exchange your data for money I guess we have to call it a ‘sale’… Stupid California, changing things to mean what they’ve always meant”
Something to note, however, is that the new terms apply to the browser as a whole. If it was due to some of the opt-in services the browser includes (sync, account, translation, etc.), they could have specified the terms apply to those services instead.
Agree this isn’t necessarily malicious yet, but it definitely is not beneficial to users.
The rationalization they have given…
Anything you say after this point is irrelevant. (Nothing personal, though.)
As soon as a company has to rationalise their legal back-pedalling, it is explicit evidence that they are intending to do wrong.
This will not end well.
“and never will” this should imply something that cant be changed. Such empty words should no longer be even considered no matter who says them, unless its paired with enforceable punishment for breaking the word
They removed “We don’t sell your data and we never will” from their FAQ and they added “We may sell your data” to the ToS.
“Never” has a very clear and definite meaning. By undoing “never,” I feel like the Mozilla foundation is inviting a class-action lawsuit.
The problem is that a reduction in trust correlates to a reduction in users. A reduction in Firefox increases Chromium’s dominance on the web, which is a near monopoly already. A monopoly on web renderers in turn is bad for open web standards.
People worried about Mozilla surely won’t migrate to chrome, will they?
Of course they would. Not everyone reasonable of course, but people are terribly stupid by default, even if they somehow stumbled into Firefox for some reason before.
There are people that say stuff like “better the devil you know” or “if I compromise privacy either way, might as well use the more supported browser” or whatever rationalizations people come up with.
Why not? Or at least if people are choosing a browser they might not see the benefits of Firefox and just see that chromium is more spread and thus more compatible and “user friendly” (whatever that means). If Firefox isn’t better than chrome, why not switch over to the bigger one…(?)
how are they supposed to “sell your data”
First step is collecting it. Putting provisions to grab everything from the software you installed on your device and use to do everything is a good start. Second step is selling it. Data broker loves data, surprisingly. And even small, inconsequential stuff can go a long way when you can correlate with dozens, or hundreds, of data points.
if you just never use a Mozilla account
Given how it’s implemented, the data pushed inside your account may be in a safer place than what you use the browser to do daily at this point.
and uncheck all the telemetry
Funny thing. Even with everything unchecked/disabled/toggled off/whatever, there’s a handful of ping back and other small reports that are configured to go out. You can turn these off using the complete config page; the one that warns people that its dangerous and have no clear way to know what most of its options do.
Its not like they can secretly steal your data, since its Open Source
If by “secretly” you mean without us knowing, it would be hard indeed, as long as people did look into the source AND the built images were faithful to the source, too. They are not doing it secretly, at least for now, anyway. That’s the point of their “privacy notice” that includes basically everything, which they then use as a safeguard saying "we can’t do shit (unless specified in the privacy notice).
It seems to me like just more FUD that Google is spreading to undermine our trust in free software
The policy changes comes from Mozilla. Were written, published, and updated by Mozilla, on their blog (and legal pages). What the fuck are you talking about with Google?
Heck, if you knew 2cts about this, Google actually low-key needs Firefox to exists as a counterpoint to Chrome’s hegemony, unless they want another trial for being too good at their job.
I would like to point out that they are free to modify the source code before building the binary they distribute. Being open source does not mean protection from secretly stealing data.
With chrome it is obvious because the closed part is called chrome and the open is chromium. But it is certainly possible to not make “stealing” magic on top public.
This is mitigated by “reproducible builds”
Does Firefox do reproducible builds? This bug report makes me think it doesn’t (at least for Linux): bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=885777
But maybe they do for Windows/Apple/Android?
You’re right that being opensource doesn’t mean the binaries don’t include extra stuff.
However, are you seriously suggesting no one would notice Firefox transmitting telemetry? Seems unlikely.
As someone else said, reproducible builds is a great mitigating factor for this secret changes. Firefox does have telemetry, but is very transparent and lets you turn it all off (as far as I can tell anyway). Don’t want ads? Easy. Don’t want Mozilla services? Simple.
We notice. They’re not hiding. The (numerous) endpoints are all presents in the about:config page. The actual content, though, is not that obvious to get. If we assume the binaries are compromised (I don’t believe they are for now, for the record), an outsider would only see a TLS session. At best we could get the vague amount of data exfiltrated, not really the content. But that’s hypothetical. For now.
So what you’re saying is that I should compile Firefox from source?
Mozilla is changing the license used for the Firefox executable/binary. The TOS will be the governing license over Firefox, the branded browser executable. It will no longer be open source, as defined by the Open Source Initiative, as users are no longer free to use the software however they want. Firefox will now be source available.
The source code for the browser, is (at least as of this comment) FOSS under the MPL2 license. People are free to recompile the browser under a different name (e.g. Librewolf, Waterfox, etc.).
This is not FUD. I read through the new TOS, Acceptable Use Policy, and Privacy Policy. Since the browser executable was governed under the MPL2, there was little concern from the open source community. I made my judgement from those documents alone.
Ughh, don’t make me switch my browser again…
There was a post made my Mozilla years ago (I’m too lazy to find it). It was in the shadow of Chrome getting more scummy. Anyway, paraphrasing horribly, the idea was that the humble web browser was starting to become an increasingly personal decision. It represents you in ways that many people may not fully appreciate, comprehend, or understand. Your browser history tells people what you like, what you are afraid of. Increasingly, it tells corporations and governments who you talk to, where you’re going, and what you’re up to.
It’s why it’s important for a browser to be built for people, not for corporations.
It’s so sad to see how far Mozilla has gone from that stance.
So I get how challenging and annoying changing a browser is because in many ways, it’s you. It’s who you are. But, like in life, sometimes we must choose to leave the friends who bring us down. It hurts, it sucks. But it’s the way of life.
I’ve spent a good part of this morning switching things over to Waterfox. It’s not perfect. There are gaps and for some reason, I can port over Chrome and Edge profiles but NOT firefox profiles. But sometimes a fresh start is good too.
LibreWolf my dude. Everything still works as if in FireFox.
How can Firefox not be open source if its sources are under the MPL2 ?
It has always been the case that Firefox is a trademark and you can’t distribute it under that name. However if the code is open source the project is too.
As of today, the latest Firefox Version 135.0.1 Binaries are released under MPL 2, which is open source.
Whenever the terms are implemented, the Terms of Use will replace the MPL for the binaries. Open source has a strict definition and goes beyond source code.
The Terms of Use, as current proposed, would violate #5 (“No discrimination against Persons or Groups”) as the TOU allows for Mozilla to terminate your use of Firefox for any reason.
As a result, their binary moves from Open Source via the MPL to Source Available, via a proprietary license.
It’s been a few steps in a concerning direction by them recently. As of right now, it’s still OK to use IMO but I’m sincerely hoping this is the extent of it, or even that they row back some of the recent changes.
However, I still want it to exist because its the only viable alternative at the moment to Google’s dominance. Yes there are plenty of forks (two of which I use) but they still rely on Firefox as the core product. I don’t think any are hard forks (or am I wrong?). I’m very uncomfortable at the thought of using a browser thats based on Chromium and/or unable to run the full version of UBO or have Containerised tabs.
the people freaking out are reading social media takes written by other people freaked out over other social media posts written by yet more others who are freaked out after not reading and fully comprehending the full policy documents…
I read the git history changes and while I generally think it’s somewhat of a nothing burger for savvy users, it is a scummy move that alienates their core user base at a moment in time where they were best positioned to expand their user base.
Mozilla just can’t stop taking Ls. This new and unnecessary development is another one.
Putting a local LLM into a product that doesn’t need it, just like other businesses do, is just one step too far for me. I hate this AI trend with a passion.
Good thing that Firefox is open source so that we can just switch forks.
Putting a local LLM into a product that doesn’t need it, just like other businesses do, is just one step too far for me. I hate this AI trend with a passion. Seconded, the pushing AI trend is just off putting and is something that literally no-one asked for. It reminds me of that brief trend of 3D TVs.
Actually translations are great and they were needed.
you don’t need AI for automated translations though.
How does having an AI-chat feature in a browser diminish it’s quality? No one’s forced to use any feature.
Where does I say that it diminish it’s quality?
Also the you don’t have to use it, is a weak argument not even for or against it.
I think the rest have explained it better, but I use a Mozilla account and I kinda trusted them, not so much anymore. I dont know if I’m a minority, I found this feature very useful.
I will probably keep using firefox until it goes too bad for my taste and switch to a fork and self-host a sync server
Well, I never used the sync feature, if I ever need to save urls, I’ll just store it in Standard Notes or something. I also uncheck all the telemetry. I guess I’m unaffected by their ToS change.
Hm I see, I have sync to keep my history and bookmarks synced across devices (also helps easily share urls among devices)😅
AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
We’re all keyboard warriors with opinions.
I’ll get downvoted to hell for this, but I honestly feel like right now it is a nothingburger.
Will I continue to keep an eye on the things they do? Yes. Does their CEOs work history bother me? Yes. Will I keep using it and just keep tabs on settings and extensions? Yes.
lordnikon@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I agree if it gets bad they will just resurrect Icewessle once again.
mesamunefire@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Librewolf is basically that. It’s pretty good ngl. I don’t have to spend a half hour reconfiguring Firefox like I do in new setups.
sxan@midwest.social 2 days ago
Maybe. Not everyone is just going to ignore this, though.
I waffle between Firefox and other browsers, depending on how tolerant I’m feeling. Not using Firefox is more work. Sometimes I’ll spend a week or two with Firefox up, but normally, I’m in Luakit.But when I hit that web site that just doesn’t work with WebKit, I hop over to FF for it. Now, with this, I’ll probably start jumping to Nyxt which - while also WebKit - seems for some reason to work with more sites. Nyxt is faster, too; luakit is really slow and has a persistent scrolling bug that drives me nuts. But Nyxt hard-hangs multiple times during each hour of its, requiring a kill -9 and restart, so … Luakit.
Like I said. It’s harder to not use Firefox. But this change in policy is enough to make me change my habits and use something else when I have issues with Luakit. Or surf. Or vimb. Or whatever I’m fancying this month. Problem is, they’re mostly WebKit, and while in grateful for it, it struggles with many web sites - and especially the JS heavy ones.
tomenzgg@midwest.social 1 day ago
I forget why I stopped using Luakit for Qutebrowser…
Maybe I should give it a go, again; or Nyxt. I’m probably more along as a programmer for its setup to be more intuitive.
AlecSadler@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
Hmm, I’ll check these out, thanks!