Firefox deletes promise to never sell personal data, asks users not to panic
arstechnica.com
Mozilla says it deleted promise because “sale of data” is defined broadly.

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 An archived version from January 30 says: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.

  • QuazarOmega@lemy.lolEnglish
    6·
    12 hours ago

    I so wanted to overlook all the weird shit Mozilla has been doing up to now, even regained a little faith when they finally started introducing new cool features the users actually wanted in Firefox after what has felt like years, but this move is so fundamentally fucked up I can’t believe it.
    Guess I’ll stay on the lookout for a browser switch

  • floofloof@lemmy.caEnglish
    281·
    1 day ago

    There are more privacy-respecting forks of Firefox. Might be time to move to one of those. Librewolf springs to mind.

    But they are dependent on the continued existence of Firefox, so it’s still concerning when Mozilla alienates their users.

    • alykanas@slrpnk.netEnglish
      161·
      1 day ago

      It is concerning - because Firefox barely has enough users to sustain it.

      If no one takes on the development of Gecko, we’re in the soup. It’s the only alternative to blink and WebKit. Tor relies on it .

      • splendoruranium@infosec.pubEnglish
        42·
        1 day ago

        It is concerning - because Firefox barely has enough users to sustain it.

        Er… if you think Mozilla is sustained by its users then I have some bad news for you. Or am I misunderstanding you?

        • alykanas@slrpnk.netEnglish
          101·
          23 hours ago

          Mozilla is funded by google to promote the search . But how much longer are they gonna pay if no one uses it ?

          • SmokeyDope@lemmy.worldEnglish
            8·
            18 hours ago

            If you read in between the lines, Mozilla is also funded by google as technical competition to chrome so that governments dont break them up with anti-monopoly busting case.

      • SmokeyDope@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        18 hours ago

        I had to do a little digging but it seems that Mull has a spiritual successor in the form of ironfox for android. So far its legitimately good, just add the repository to your fdroid Link to repo:

        fdroidrepos://fdroid.ironfoxoss.org/fdroid/repo?fingerprint=C5E291B5A571F9C8CD9A9799C2C94E02EC9703948893F2CA756D67B94204F904

  • LWD@lemm.eeEnglish
    311·
    1 day ago

    Here’s the actual privacy policy of an actual Mozilla product. Instead of being dry like privacy policies typically are, this one is practically dripping with malicious compliance.

    Your Privacy Rights. In accordance with applicable law, you may have the right to…

    Request to Opt-Out of Certain Processing Activities including, as applicable, if we process your personal information for “targeted advertising” (as “targeted advertising” is defined by applicable privacy laws), if we “sell” your personal information (as “sell” is defined by applicable privacy laws), or if we engage in “profiling” in furtherance of certain “decisions that produce legal or similarly significant effects” concerning you (as such terms are defined by applicable privacy laws)

    It’s no longer a question of if Mozilla targets you, sells your data, or profiles you. It’s a question of when, and how abusively.

    …We “sell” and “share” your personal information to provide you with “cross-context behavioral advertising” about Fakespot’s products and services.

    Again, no scare quotes are needed here. They sell your data. I don’t know what “cross-context behavioral advertising” is exactly, but I’m not excited to find out.

  • kixik@lemmy.mlEnglish
    7·
    21 hours ago

    Corps are for profit, and Mozilla is a Corp… Really sad times indeed.

  • Matt@lemmy.mlEnglish
    13·
    11 hours ago

    I’m a happy Brave user. I love the fact that you don’t have to sign up for an account just to sync stuff.