Mozilla's Updated ToS: We Own All Info You Put Into Firefox
- Reference: 0176568939
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/02/28/1147239/mozillas-updated-tos-we-own-all-info-you-put-into-firefox
- Source link:
> Mozilla just updated its Terms of Use and Privacy Policy for Firefox with a very disturbing "You Give Mozilla Certain Rights and Permissions" clause:
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> 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.
H/T to reader [2]agristin as well, who also wrote about this.
[1] https://slashdot.org/~SharkByte
[2] https://slashdot.org/~agristin
Deadend (Score:2)
This change in terms will kill firefox!
Re: (Score:2)
I'm been a loyal FF lineage user since the Netscape days. They might lose me over this, unless it's redressed.
Some time ago, I took a look at the [1]Pale Moon project [palemoon.org], which is a fork of FF. Maybe I'll take a second look.
[1] https://www.palemoon.org/
This means (Score:4, Insightful)
They have a way to look at all the data you send through the browser or they wouldn't have amended their ToS with this threat.
I wonder what the Tor project will do (Score:2)
Because that sounds very much like a planned interface to spy on all users.
Tale as old as time (Score:1)
Aw shit, here we go again...
Re: (Score:2)
I had nothing to do with this mess.
Re: (Score:2)
Firefox was forked [1]long ago [palemoon.org].
[1] https://www.palemoon.org/
UK Online Safety Act (Score:3, Informative)
It seems ridiculous and invasive on the face of it but I'm guessing Mozilla's lawyers are looking at the UK Online Safety Act, similar bills introduced into US state legislatures with a non-zero chance of enactment, and talk in the US Congress of repealing Section 230 and telling their executives that the operation of the browser - which by nature does see and pass all the information the user exchanges to/from the rest of the world - could be construed as being an accessory to violation of those laws and upcoming laws. A more extreme version of photosharing sites needing some sort of license to your work to be able to display it.
Re: (Score:2)
That's what I was thinking too.
It doesn't help that ToS documents are written in 'legalese' which means they always use awkward and annoying language. Hopefully someone will learn from the uproar and use plain language instead. Like:
> When you enter or upload information in Firefox, the browser only uses it to help you browse the web, like finding and showing websites based on what you do in Firefox. This does not grant us any ownership or broader rights over your information.
well then.. (Score:2)
excuse me, i seem to have encountered an urgent task to uninstall Firefox. brb.
Re: (Score:2)
What's your suggested alternative? Falkon is the best that comes to mind for me.
Firefox: Chrome and Edge say "welcome"! (Score:2)
And the enshittification of user computing continues unabated...
Storm in a teacup (Score:3, Informative)
Before everyone goes ballistic, I think this is just sloppy/terrible wording rather than something nefarious. For a reasoned analysis, see [1]this [taggart-tech.com].
[1] https://taggart-tech.com/mozilla-cycle-pt1/
The end of an era? (Score:3, Insightful)
Feels like an AI grab. I wonder if Thunderbird is in trouble too. I used to recommend Firefox to people for better privacy but now I'm not so sure. Mozilla has already given a response: [1]https://www.medianama.com/2025... [medianama.com] I'm not sure what this means but I'd prefer my browser did not use any AI. If Pages use an AI, that's one thing (DuckDuckGo has options in a chat), but the browser, that feels very M$ to me (as they push "Copilot" in everyone's face as much as possible. May need to update my list of trusted browsers (and email clients?)
[1] https://www.medianama.com/2025/02/223-mozilla-says-it-does-not-own-user-data-after-backlash-over-privacy-concerns/
clickbait (Score:4, Insightful)
The text quoted from the license doesn't mean what you say in the headline.
It's not "ownership", it's a limited license for a limited purpose.
Re: (Score:2)
The limited purpose being monetization.
Re: (Score:3)
> The text quoted from the license doesn't mean what you say in the headline.
> It's not "ownership", it's a limited license for a limited purpose.
Which, ironically, is what you get from any software company when you buy their product.
Alternatives (Score:2)
Tabs I have open from yesterday are Librewolf and Floorp - both Firefox downstreams that are open source and privacy-preserving.
Judging only by their issues page it seems like Floorp is further along.
Re: Alternatives (Score:1)
FireDragon from Garuda.
HINT: Do not upload creative content (Score:2)
Do not upload creative content through Firefox after this change. Not that I typically upload through a browser anyway, but some folks upload songs (Soundcloud and the like), upload fiction they've worked on, and digital paintings or pictures of other artwork. This most likely gives them license to train whatever AI they're planning on spinning up with your hard work. They did just mention a moment ago that they were planning on adding AI to their future focuses.
Seems everything surrounding the web is turni
Mozilla posted an update to this, just FYI (Score:2)
Copied from [1]https://blog.mozilla.org/en/pr... [mozilla.org] 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.
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/firefox-news/firefox-terms-of-use/
Re: (Score:2)
Then they might want to clarify that in the Tos of what they are using it for.
Re: (Score:2)
The license wording hints that they want to use it for AI.
good luck mozilla (Score:2)
Quite a while ago I configured my firefox up to a squid server. I polled the logs for mozilla addresses. Every now and them I will just fire up firefox and let it sit idle. If any of its many telemetry calls are not blocked I add it to my custom pfblockerng block list. I got tired of them deciding I needed to restart and crashing my tabs. Now it only updates when I update the machine. Along the way I blocked all the addresses it attempts to contact. Same with google. Sure its requires maintenance bu
This is ridiculous (Score:2)
Mozilla is supposed to be the champion of data privacy. Why in the world would they put this into their clause? This literally means that they can take data from your account as well as passwords and use them indiscriminately. I'm cancelling my mozilla account and switching browsers and you should too.
Turn off all datacollection (Score:2)
You can do this in Settings->Privacy and Security->Firefox Data Collection and Use.
You can also turn off a similar setting if you use a mozilla user account.
Make them pay
Scandalous (Score:3)
If this is true that's one thing but when it's not possible to disable it is a good reason to look for another browser.
A real pity because I always liked Firefox.
Re: Scandalous (Score:3)
I'm like "what the hell, Mozilla???"
But then, which non-Blink/Chromium/WebKit browser wiki I use?
Re: (Score:1)
I stopped using Firefox after Mozilla fired their founder because an intern's feelings were hurt. Switched to Brave (yeah, I know it's Chromium) and haven't looked back.
Re: (Score:2)
You might try Vivaldi or Opera.
Re: (Score:2)
Librewolf, Waterfox or Pale Moon
Re: (Score:2)
It would be nice if the software we use every day could be just useful product that works, rather than an ongoing war like the one in Ukraine.
Re: (Score:3)
The roadmap is clear: if Mozilla does not back down on this, and there's no efficient way to prevent the data collection, all Linux distributions should remove Firefox from their repositories and Windows should flag Firefox as malware,
Re: (Score:2)
Of many forms of unerring suicide, it makes you wonder why they chose this one to end their era.
Goodbye, Firefox. You had loyal fans until you were pulled out of every repository in the FOSS space.
WTF were you thinking?
Re: (Score:2)
> The roadmap is clear: if Mozilla does not back down on this, and there's no efficient way to prevent the data collection, all Linux distributions should remove Firefox from their repositories and Windows should flag Firefox as malware,
This has to be a mistake. As a long-time firefox user I trust Mozilla to correct their mistake quickly, with an explanation. Don't break my trust Mozilla.
It's been a bad week for trust. First NATO and now this. Plus its Friday so one can only imagine more Bad News being announced tonight before the weekend starts.