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 An archived version from January 30 says: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.

  • zer0bitz@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    1
    ·
    8 minutes ago

    So sad. I have used Firefox since 2006. Today I removed it for good from all of my devices. So long old friend. I cant wait for Ladybird to release.

    • MrMcGasion@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      3 hours ago

      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.

  • Zink@programming.dev
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    10
    ·
    3 hours ago

    I wonder how much this affects things if you’ve already gone through Firefox’s settings to max out privacy and turn off all telemetry.

    I resisted switching to Librewolf because Firefox works great (including M365 in Linux at work) and seemed to have the options you’d want for privacy and security.

    This doesn’t feel like an emergency, especially in a chrome/edge dominated world. But it’s back on the list of things to investigate transitioning away from.

    • rocky1138@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      40 minutes ago

      Yep. It stinks. We’ll see if it was just a fart and it’ll go away or if they crapped and we’ll have to jump ship.

      • Zink@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        20 minutes ago

        Maybe we should all throw some kind of support behind https://ladybird.org/ with an eye to the future.

        That project isn’t problematic for some reason I haven’t heard about, is it?

        (Problematic other than web browsers being gigantic pieces of software, and ladybrid itself not even being in alpha yet)

  • gamer@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    4 hours ago

    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.

    • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      3 hours ago

      It makes me sad because I’m a donator and supporter to Mozilla - and have been for years. I truly believe the web should be open, free, and not for profit and there are great people at Mozilla which is why I hate seeing the leadership do things like this. I wish there was an active group that shared the same ideals, were ethical, and not full of transphobes and cryptobros that could take up the mantle and fund another fork like Librewolf.

      Preferably would love that any group be a collective not a corporation.

  • ChonkaLoo@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    26
    ·
    5 hours ago

    I don’t like this but it’s gonna take more for me to switch. I am very happy with Firefox for my use-case and workflow it works really well. However I think they are shooting themselves in the foot by starting to take away some of the most crucial advantages with Firefox compared to Chrome. I mean if both are awful for privacy then why use Firefox?

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      10
      ·
      4 hours ago

      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

    • And009@lemmynsfw.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      4 hours ago

      And what they say about being commercially viable is true, they can’t die on this hill. It means death of complete privacy either way.

      • blind3rdeye@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        4 hours ago

        Mozilla are a non profit organisation. Their recent blog post says that they will invest in advertising to increase short-term revenue that they need to “grow”. The blog goes on to talk about the increase in board members, and new leaders being added. The CEO and these new leaders are highly paid…

        To me this looks bad. It looks to me that Mozilla’s new leaders have pushed out the old; and are now moving towards advertising and selling user data not because they need it to stabilise and survive, but because they need it to pay the people making the decision to burn trust and reputation. It has become a top-heavy organisation, and greed has seeped in.

        A few people will be self-enriched by this, and then the orgasation will be weaker as a result.

    • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      3 hours ago

      If you’re going to a Chromium browser, at least go to Vivaldi since it’s a) based on Chromium not Chrome and b) not based in the US.

      The only bad thing it has going for it is that it uses the Chrome web store for extensions.

      • zeca@lemmy.eco.br
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        2 hours ago

        VIvaldi is cool, but its not open source. If you worry about the trustworthiness of you browser, picking an open source one would be best IMO. Among the chromium-based, there are chromium itself, brave, …

  • TimewornTraveler@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    3
    ·
    4 hours ago

    so is this them trying to protect its users while adding nuance for the sake of legal protections, or is this them pretending to do that in order to profit off its users?

  • squire3@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    5
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    4 hours ago

    If Firefox is losing its footing as a privacy focused browser then where do we go? If your on Mac maybe Safari?

  • mhague@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    5 hours ago

    I don’t get how something is allowed to be labeled “free” when the terms of usage make you barter your data.

    • Flipper@feddit.org
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      4 hours ago

      There are different kinds of free. Free beer, free speech and free weekend are three different kinds of free that software can have, but not necessarily at the same time.

  • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    19
    ·
    7 hours ago

    Mozilla posted an update:

    Update at 10:20 pm ET: Mozilla has since announced a change to the license language to address user complaints. It now says, “You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This includes processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also includes a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content.”

    • vane@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      6 hours ago

      Why they need users ? If they operate Firefox by themselves why they not start paying for power usage for hosting Firefox on my machine.

  • betanumerus@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    ·
    5 hours ago

    At least Ecosia plants trees, and the way those trees produce oxygen and absorb CO2 is a benefit to me.

      • 🅃🅾🅆🅴🄻🅸🄴@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        4 hours ago

        Tor/Mullvad are the only acceptable options if you genuinely want the best for your privacy. Mullvad browser is a bit less of a hassle than Tor but not by much. If adamant about staying away from Gecko (Firefox) and Chromium browsers then WebKit forked browsers are sort of the last options.

        At this point I’m beginning to look at going online as something that is inherently dangerous (for lack of a better word) and that needs to be done with care. There is no meaningful way to stay private anymore, and by connecting and interacting you are always painting a target on your back with long-lasting consequences that we can’t imagine yet. It’s not looking great right now, my dudes.

        • And009@lemmynsfw.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          4 hours ago

          How does Mullvad work on legacy websites? Never heard a Dev say they tested for anything other than chrome, safari, edge & firefox

    • coolmojo@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      6 hours ago

      This whole thing does not matter if you are living in the US anyway become of the Third-party doctrine that holds that people who voluntarily give information to third parties have "no reasonable expectation of privacy in that information.

  • wall_panel_96@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    12
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    8 hours ago

    I use brave and librewolf, anybody know if those are still safe from this dort of thing? (Probably not I guess, so what browsers are left?)

    • Ibaudia@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      7 hours ago

      Librewolf is privacy-hardened so it’s probably the best option. Brave is Chromium-based. Realistically though, all web browsers come with compromises, and internet anonymity is virtually impossible without unrealistic amounts of effort.

    • vinay_clubsall@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      8 hours ago

      Someone earlier said that brave was based on chrome and when google blocked ublock origin on Chrome, it would stop working on brave too.

      • cultsuperstar@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        7 hours ago

        People don’t like Brave because they believe it’s a crypto scam, and the CEO is a douchebag. But Brave has said they’ll continue to support extensions regardless of Google’s change.

      • wall_panel_96@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        8 hours ago

        I have yet to see YouTube ads on brave, but are you saying that will soon cease to be the case? Bugger.

      • gamer@lemm.ee
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        ·
        3 hours ago

        I don’t get your point, are you saying that using LibreWolf will still send your personal data to Mozilla? A privacy hardened config should be enough to disable all data collection, unless there’s some kind of hidden telemetry in Firefox. That’d be hard to hide considering the open source nature of Firefox.

        Also, looking at the source repo, it seems like LibreWolf is not just a config file, it’s also a bunch of patches to the source code, plus they do build from source and publish their own binaries. So if Mozilla does try to sneak telemetry in, the LibreWolf maintainers are well positioned to patch it out.

        • ded@lemy.lol
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          2 hours ago

          I’m in a doomer mindset. We will wait and see. I was around at the start of librewolf, came from what is now arkenfox. I had to discover numerous (new) prefs these projects didn’t cover, which were later added to them. They are great efforts, don’t get me wrong. Even if the problem were just prefs, catching up to firefox development takes people’s free time. Librewolf doesn’t even handle (much) code.