Mozilla published Term of Use for Firefox

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New Firefox terms of use could push users to Google Chrome

Mozilla has long positioned itself as a champion of privacy and open-source software,.. You see, Mozilla has introduced Terms of Use for Firefox for the first time ever. Additionally, there is an updated Privacy Notice…

One of the most troubling aspects is that users must grant Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including a “nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license” to use information entered through the browser. Mozilla insists this is meant to help users navigate the web, but the vague wording leaves a dangerous amount of room for interpretation. Could this include personal data, saved passwords, or browsing history? ..

Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox

UPDATE: We’ve seen a little confusion about the language regarding licenses, so we want to clear that up. We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example. It does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice…

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SueW, CAS, Nibbled To Death By Ducks, EricB

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I’m surprised (and gratified) someone still actually still reads EULAs and TOU’s.

Decades ago,and still less so today would be my surprise that one has agreed, by using the software, to grant them permission to come through your bedroom window at 4 AM and harvest an organ for sale on the black market. Today?

“O Tempora! O Mores! O, *&^!”

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Cybertooth, Alex5723

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Alex, I just read about this change on gHacks. A few months ago implemented the suggestions from GitHub to disable all telemetry and data collection by Firefox. Do you think these changes might be a work-around to the new privacy policy? Or, perhaps I should us an UnGoogled Chromium Browser? Thanks.

Peace, CAS

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SueW

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CAS wrote:

Do you think these changes might be a work-around to the new privacy policy?

No.

When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.

Without uploading data to Firefox (including user/password…) Firefox won’t function.
This is a sort of “Telemetry” you can’t stop.

I don’t know about UnGoogled Chromium Browser. You may check Brave or DuckDuckGo browsers privacy policies.

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I use Firefox and currently have ver. 135.0.1 which I downloaded and installed from my Linux Mint’s Update Manager.  I don’t have or need a “Firefox Password” although I see where I could make one if I wanted to.  I don’t need to and I don’t want to, and FF works fine without my using one.  I’m on Firefox right now and on the Askwoody website which is slow today but is working okay.

I type URLs into, or click on Bookmarks to get into the websites I want.  No passwords needed and no problems, it’s working fine.  I type passwords only into the websites where I have an account and I need them (like Askwoody).  No problems there either.

One thing I will agree with is that Privacy statement is a bit confusing.  Thus we have the “it could mean this and it could mean that” scenario.  Hopefully this will get straightened out soon, but I’m not going to worry too much about it at the moment.

Being 20 something in the 70's was so much better than being 70 something in the insane 20's

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WSbobby-p

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Firefox deletes promise to never sell personal data, asks users not to panic

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:..

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This news from November may have a lot to do with the change in Mozilla’s policy:

The Mozilla Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the Firefox browser maker Mozilla, has laid off 30% of its employees as the organization says it faces a “relentless onslaught of change.”

[…]

According to its annual tax filings, the Mozilla Foundation reported having 60 employees during the 2022 tax year. The number of employees at the time of the layoffs was closer to 120 people, according to a person with knowledge. When asked by TechCrunch, Mozilla’s spokesperson did not dispute the figure.

This is the second layoff at Mozilla this year, the first affecting dozens of employees who work on the side of the organization that builds the popular Firefox browser.

And then there’s this looming threat arising from the fallout of the U.S. Justice Department’s antitrust suit against Google:

But if the Justice Department gets its way years from now, once Google has exhausted its appeals, it won’t just be Google that pays the price. That’s evident from the statement issued by Mozilla, which warned that a blanket prohibition on search agreements – like the one Mozilla has with Google to make Google Search the default in Firefox – “will negatively impact independent browsers like Firefox and have knock-on effects for an open and accessible internet.”

Mozilla is reported to derive most of its revenue from Google.

Moore said the potential impact on Mozilla, one of only three remaining browser engine developers, needs to be considered, and voiced support for allowing it to retain the ability to establish a non-exclusive search engine deal with Google.

 

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rick41, Charlie, windbg, George1, SueW, Alex5723

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