Firefox deletes promise to never sell personal data, asks users not to panic
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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 An archived version from January 30 says: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.
my other comment is here about the acting CEO of Mozilla, Laura Chambers and asking about potential connections to Musk and Thiel.
https://lemmy.world/comment/15382904
I just got an alert that I need to update my FF browser before March 14th. that's another date that keeps coming up.
March 14th is the
- date of the next government shutdown due to budget negotiations
- 53 days after trump took office (same amount of days it took Hitler to destroy German democracy before WW2
- date that a major root certificate ends on(what once was) one of the most privacy focused browsers that will break existing add-ons and potentially break/expose you online
- date of a total lunar eclipse (it perfectly frames the US in the middle, serious go look it up)
don't forget that the ides of march is march 15th, as well as March is named after Mars the God of War.
I'm no mystic, but symbolism is important to megalomaniacs.
anyone else know of other important technological or political events happening on March 14th?
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my other comment is here about the acting CEO of Mozilla, Laura Chambers and asking about potential connections to Musk and Thiel.
https://lemmy.world/comment/15382904
I just got an alert that I need to update my FF browser before March 14th. that's another date that keeps coming up.
March 14th is the
- date of the next government shutdown due to budget negotiations
- 53 days after trump took office (same amount of days it took Hitler to destroy German democracy before WW2
- date that a major root certificate ends on(what once was) one of the most privacy focused browsers that will break existing add-ons and potentially break/expose you online
- date of a total lunar eclipse (it perfectly frames the US in the middle, serious go look it up)
don't forget that the ides of march is march 15th, as well as March is named after Mars the God of War.
I'm no mystic, but symbolism is important to megalomaniacs.
anyone else know of other important technological or political events happening on March 14th?
It's pi day, so I'll probably be eating a nice pie that day.
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They're cash strapped and cash strapped companies are the worst when it comes to being trustworthy. That's all the calculus that needs to be done.
How about asking for money? I'd gladly pay if they stripped out a bunch of the nonsense they do and focus on making a better browser. Or keep that crap and let me donate directly to Firefox development.
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Glad they clarified. To me the "selling data being defined broadly" argument made sense in the context of Google paying them to be included as a search provider. Because there is an argument that Google paying Firefox, and then the user entering a search and that being sent to Google's servers could be legally seen as Mozilla selling data to Google.
They should clarify that then. Explain any and all situations that could be considered "selling user data" and explain what data that consists of. Then explain how to avoid it.
That shouldn't be hard.
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Mind you, this is just step one and other steps WILL follow. Mozilla looked at other enshittified products from large companies that make a lot of money and thought "we could have that too!"
It's a pattern I keep seeing, over and over. This is the end of Firefox as we knew it. I'm sure a good fork, run by a non profit foundation will sprout soon enough, but the name for a privacy browser won't be Firefox no more
Maybe. I'll certainly check out alternatives, but I'm not panicking just yet. It's not hard to switch browsers, so I'll just test out options while seeing how things shake out.
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How about asking for money? I'd gladly pay if they stripped out a bunch of the nonsense they do and focus on making a better browser. Or keep that crap and let me donate directly to Firefox development.
I'd gladly pay if they stripped out a bunch of the nonsense
I donate to FOSS often, but I dont have a ton of money. Most will donate nothing, and that is fine part of this is altruistic, but I think its easy to forget that donations only go so far. A web browser is also a very big project and will need a lot more funds too.
It does not help that Mozilla is in a odd situation on what they can do to raise funds and not move away from their core mission.
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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.
Yeah, these guys were early participants in the browser wars. They aren't your friends.
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Ok so I don't have to change browsers?
There are no alternative browsers out there. Our situation has came down to choose one of the least evil out there.
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my other comment is here about the acting CEO of Mozilla, Laura Chambers and asking about potential connections to Musk and Thiel.
https://lemmy.world/comment/15382904
I just got an alert that I need to update my FF browser before March 14th. that's another date that keeps coming up.
March 14th is the
- date of the next government shutdown due to budget negotiations
- 53 days after trump took office (same amount of days it took Hitler to destroy German democracy before WW2
- date that a major root certificate ends on(what once was) one of the most privacy focused browsers that will break existing add-ons and potentially break/expose you online
- date of a total lunar eclipse (it perfectly frames the US in the middle, serious go look it up)
don't forget that the ides of march is march 15th, as well as March is named after Mars the God of War.
I'm no mystic, but symbolism is important to megalomaniacs.
anyone else know of other important technological or political events happening on March 14th?
In 1900 on March 14th the Gold Standard Act was ratified in America, forcing the dollar to be redeemable by the Treasury on demand for a fixed value in gold. It was abandoned in 1933 during the Great Depression (which really was not all that great from what I've read).
In 1943 Kraków Ghetto ceased to have prisoners. Less great than that depression.
1964 Jack Ruby was convicted of assassinating JFK.
1879 Einstein's birthday.
1883 Karl Marx's death.
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Is librewolf a good alternative? Most plugins seem compatible
It's just Firefox but you trust some nerds they've weeded all of Mozilla out. It comes with ublock origin installed and a simple searchbar homepage. It's great because Firefox is great and the nerds who added value by stripping bullshit did a good job, but if Putin replaced them with some blyat and pushed an update I'm not sure I'd notice on time.
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It's pi day, so I'll probably be eating a nice pie that day.
Mmmm, pie. It's better than cake.
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Anyone still using Firefox after this probably hasn't been keeping up with Mozilla's many controversies. If this is your first time here, I can see why you'd decide to overlook it. I did for a long time, but this is the final straw for me. Luckily, instead of building anything useful over the past decades, Mozilla leadership has been instead focused on enriching themselves. That means deleting my Mozilla account right now was easy.
I've now moved to LibreWolf, because I don't want to support Chromium's dominance, but if that project dies out I'll jump ship. It'll be a real shame if the world gets stuck with Chromium as the only viable browser, but it won't be my fault. It will be Mozilla leadership's fault.
Jump ship to what? It seems like going to Tor browser full time might be the answer?
I'm just not sure what the steps are from Librewolf to More private.
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Yeah, these guys were early participants in the browser wars. They aren't your friends.
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Yeah, these guys were early participants in the browser wars. They aren't your friends.
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There are no alternative browsers out there. Our situation has came down to choose one of the least evil out there.
I don't know about you but I fulfill all my e-commerce needs with Offpunk.
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You’re a good friend
It's actually not watercolor, I'm just old and I don't wear sunscreen
take care of your ink, kids -
They should clarify that then. Explain any and all situations that could be considered "selling user data" and explain what data that consists of. Then explain how to avoid it.
That shouldn't be hard.
Across every country they operate in, and if anyone in those countries disagrees they might sue?
Not saying Im supporting FF here but it's not as easy as you might think if their stated reason is honest
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I don't know about you but I fulfill all my e-commerce needs with Offpunk.
God, I love what people manage to create
I also love that any time someone asks if (tool) exists in non-evil form and someone says "no, not really" that you can almost guarantee someone will show up with a CLI solution that nobody wants to use because it's a CLI solution
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Yeah, these guys were early participants in the browser wars. They aren't your friends.
Duckduckgo's browser uses webview as it's main engine, which means that on a phone it will simply use blink (chromium) on Android and Windows device or webkit on Apple devices.
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They're cash strapped and cash strapped companies are the worst when it comes to being trustworthy. That's all the calculus that needs to be done.
They're not that cash strapped though. Their blog post says that they need the revenue to 'grow', and they go on to talk about the new people they've added to the board. So it isn't really about getting enough money to survive. It's about getting money to support a top-heavy company structure.
