Firefox deletes promise to never sell personal data, asks users not to panic
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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 -
Am I the only one here who's pretty much okay with this? I do wish they'd clarify exactly what they mean by "Mozilla doesn't sell data about you (in the way that most people think about 'selling data')," but having my anonymized data sold so that Mozilla can continue to operate (combined with Firefox being the best browser I've used in terms of both performance and flexibility - ability to install add-ons from sources outside of the Mozilla store, for example) - seems like a worthy tradeoff to me.
They also have an option to opt-out of data collection, which I do wish was opt-in instead, but with the way every other mainstream browser operates I'm just happy the option is there at all. Let me know if there's something I'm missing here though.
They could make it more specific. Instead they just removed it.
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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 An archived version from January 30 says: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.
What's the next Android browser I'm installing fam?
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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?
McKinsey, you forgot that, whatever the fuck it is
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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.
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What's the next Android browser I'm installing fam?
beg borrow or steal android devices until you get one worth your time.
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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?
Man, this is very disappointed news. Thanks though, good to know.
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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
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They could make it more specific. Instead they just removed it.
I'm not trying to unilaterally defend the decision, it's just not going to make me personally switch browsers. From what I'm hearing a lot of the viable alternatives are forks of Firefox anyway.
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McKinsey, you forgot that, whatever the fuck it is
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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
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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.
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shit no i shouldn't pretended. i do NOT want to learn more. but yes, thanks for the link.
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What's the next Android browser I'm installing fam?
I just have friends send me memes to my clamshell flip phone through SMS
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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.
Trust me bro
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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?
Stanford too
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Try LibreWolf then
Is there any android port?
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Librewolf is mostly a autoconfig file for Firefox (which is a Firefox feature).
https://codeberg.org/librewolf/settings/raw/branch/master/librewolf.cfg
I doubt implementation of terms will be optional.
iOS: Safari with Wipr 2 is my current way to go. Every other browser is WebKit under the hood.
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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.
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Am I the only one here who's pretty much okay with this? I do wish they'd clarify exactly what they mean by "Mozilla doesn't sell data about you (in the way that most people think about 'selling data')," but having my anonymized data sold so that Mozilla can continue to operate (combined with Firefox being the best browser I've used in terms of both performance and flexibility - ability to install add-ons from sources outside of the Mozilla store, for example) - seems like a worthy tradeoff to me.
They also have an option to opt-out of data collection, which I do wish was opt-in instead, but with the way every other mainstream browser operates I'm just happy the option is there at all. Let me know if there's something I'm missing here though.
To generalise, just as Reddit is the neolib centrist hivemind and Facebook is the conservative boomer hivemind, Lemmy is some overlap of privacy/techy/ultrapolitical groups - so whenever you get this kind of news that is ultimately pretty mild and uncontroversial to most you get lots of Lemmings buttons pushed and what seems like an oversized reaction in the comments.
Is Firefox perfect? No. Is it still the best available mainstream browser option? Yes.
And if the small groups that presently use it walk away and its tiny market share (~5%) declines to a point where Firefox becomes insolvent - well then browsers will be just a two-horse race between Google (Chromium) and Apple (WebKit).
Every web spec and page will be beholden to the desires of those companies - I'm sure the same Lemmings will be complaining about that too, and by then it will be too late to realize what they've lost.
