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Mozilla flamed by Firefox fans after promises to not sell their data go up in smoke (www.theregister.com)

submitted 1 month ago by Blaze@lemmy.zip to c/privacy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/26244492

The answer to "what is Firefox?" on Mozilla's FAQ page about its browser used to read:

The Firefox Browser is the only major browser backed by a not-for-profit that doesn’t sell your personal data to advertisers while helping you protect your personal information.

Now it just says:

The Firefox Browser, the only major browser backed by a not-for-profit, helps you protect your personal information.

In other words, Mozilla is no longer willing to commit to not selling your personal data to advertisers.

A related change was also highlighted by mozilla.org commenter jkaelin, who linked direct to the source code for that FAQ page. To answer the question, "is Firefox free?" Moz used to say:

Yep! The Firefox Browser is free. Super free, actually. No hidden costs or anything. You don’t pay anything to use it, and we don’t sell your personal data.

Now it simply reads:

Yep! The Firefox Browser is free. Super free, actually. No hidden costs or anything. You don’t pay anything to use it.

Again, a pledge to not sell people's data has disappeared. Varma insisted this is the result of the fluid definition of “sell” in the context of data sharing and privacy.

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[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 22 points 1 month ago

It's not hard to define "sell," Varma, and I'm sure you don't want to do it, because the definitions aren't flattering. Here's the Miriam Webster definition:

1: to deliver or give up in violation of duty, trust, or loyalty and especially for personal gain : betray —often used with out

sell out their country

2a(1): to give up (property) to another for something of value (such as money)

2a(2): to offer for sale

2b: to give up in return for something else especially foolishly or dishonorably

sold his birthright for a mess of pottage

2c: to exact a price for

sold their lives dearly

3a: to deliver into slavery for money

3b: to give into the power of another

sold his soul to the devil

3c: to deliver the personal services of for money

4: to dispose of or manage for profit instead of in accordance with conscience, justice, or duty

sold their votes

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

Louis Rossmann went over this in a video recently, and has a big wiki article about it here. Here's a relevant snippet from that wiki page:

The CCPA defines "selling data" as:

“Sell,” “selling,” “sale,” or “sold,” means selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s personal information by the business to another business or a third party for monetary or other valuable consideration.[16]

Search Engine Partnerships (Google, Bing, Yandex, etc.): Mozilla's largest revenue source comes from deals with search engines like Google, which pay Mozilla to be Firefox's default search provider.[17]

These deals involve sending search query data to search partners. Under the CCPA, if Mozilla transmitted search data in exchange for financial compensation, this could be classified as a "sale of data." This is a practice that Mozilla had already been openly taking part in.

Make of that what you will, but that sounds like reasonable justification to make the language more vague to CYA.

[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 4 points 1 month ago

I appreciate the extra information. Basing our responses on facts is always the best way forward.

But that just brings up another issue: why aren't they being more transparent about that? Why hide behind obtuse explanations? I'm not saying you're wrong at all, but there's clearly a disconnect between the leadership and the users, because they don't seem to care to ensure people can easily understand what it is they mean.

And that's all assuming they're still mostly on the users' side, which I'm no longer fully convinced is the case. It's great that that wiki exists, but they also bring up the insufficient clarity from Mozilla, and clarity shouldn't be coming from a third party anyway.

It's a mess, and if Mozilla can't give us straight answers, then it's not a company I can trust or recommended by virtue of the fact that they can't even clear that extremely low bar.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

why aren’t they being more transparent about that?

Idk, Hanlon's Razor?

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

They have a history of really crappy communications. That, plus how much they spend on "admin" (like 30% of the org spending) tells me they could just be largely incompetent. Add to that the chaos around an interim CEO, and I think you have the recipe of epic-scale goofs.

But the opposite perspective of them trying to sneak in a shift to Mozilla's direction is certainly reasonable as well. We don't have enough info to determine which it actually is.

So yeah, I'm not saying anyone should or shouldn't trust Mozilla. I'm not going to make any rash decisions and I'll give them a chance to clarify. But maybe you don't feel comfortable with that. As Rossmann said in his video, if you want to play it safe, switch to LibreWolf, it's a drop-in replacement (can still use Firefox Sync) and isn't bound by Firefox's TOS/EULA. Maybe go as far as to self-host the Sync server (totally feasible). In fact, I'm planning to do that anyway because I like to control my data.

[-] Telorand@reddthat.com 2 points 1 month ago

We don't have enough info to determine which it actually is.

And it's this that has me personally erring on the side of distrust. There's a global shift among many organizations who see value in falling in line behind various authoritarian regimes (often under the pretense of "ensuring continued operation"), and I don't have the luxury of skilled lawyers on retainer or goon squads who can fight for my rights.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 month ago

And that's totally fair. I'm lazy, so I'm going to give them a couple weeks to convince me they're not turning evil, after which I'll reconsider my options.

That said, I'll probably stick to Firefox tech though. If I switch, it'll probably be to Mullvad on desktop and IronFox on mobile, but I recently had to switch from Mull on mobile to Fennec because the dev killed the project. That kinda sucked, and I didn't notice until a month or two later, so I was unpatched for that period. I'd really like to avoid that, so I'm hesitant in switching to another. fork run by a hobbyist.

[-] DougHolland@lemmy.world 21 points 1 month ago

Very, very long-time Firefox user here, now open to suggestions for a replacement. Windows, desktop, and it absolutely must have adblocker capabilities.

[-] reseller_pledge609@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

LibreWolf for desktop and IronFox for Android.

[-] DougHolland@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

That does look intriguing, especially if being a Firefox fork means I can bring my familiar add-ons along. Thank you!

[-] reseller_pledge609@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Just be aware that there is a slight chance of sites not working as expected due to all of the privacy tweaks. It's mostly fine though.

Good luck!

[-] root@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Anything for iOS? Or do I need to go back to Graphene?

[-] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Everything on iOS will be based on WebKit. Apple doesn’t allow third-party browser engines on iOS. Even the official Google Chrome app is running WebKit under the hood instead of Chromium.

That’s why browser extensions never get supported on iOS; They’re literally made for the wrong browser engine. If you want extensions, you’re forced to use the default Safari app, because that’s the only browser that natively supports extension apps.

[-] perry@aussie.zone 3 points 1 month ago

This isn’t true anymore, as vendors have the ability to provide other engines within the EU.

[-] absentrevision@lemm.ee 1 points 3 weeks ago

Orion browser is compatible with firefox AND chrome extensions

[-] Captainautism@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 month ago

I’m using Orion. It stores nothing. It’s WebKit based, I think.

[-] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

Everything on iOS is WebKit based. Apple doesn’t allow third-party browser engines on iOS. Even the official Chrome and Firefox apps are just reskins of the WebKit engine that iOS’ default Safari uses.

It’s why things like Firefox extensions never got ported to iOS; They’re made for Gecko, not WebKit. If you want extensions, you have to use the default Safari browser.

[-] perry@aussie.zone 2 points 1 month ago

Not in the EU, at least. Time will tell if any major vendor bothers to provide a custom engine (read: their own). But important to note that this isn’t the limitation it was.

[-] Captainautism@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

Oh wow, I didn't know that.

[-] reseller_pledge609@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 month ago

Nothing that I know of, sorry. I have never used iOS before and don't know anyone who has.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 9 points 1 month ago

I have used Firefox for literally its entire existence -- it was still called "Phoenix" when I started using it! -- and even I am on the brink of switching. That's how abjectly fucked up Mozilla has gotten.

[-] DougHolland@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

Hello, old timer! Pretty sure it was just plain Netscape when I installed it (not yet called Navigator), but I'd never heard of it as Phoenix. It has served me well for 30 years across a dozen computers, but now it might be time to move on.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Netscape Navigator was different software. It became the browser component of Netscape Communicator, then Mozilla Application Suite, then Mozilla Seamonkey, and has now been spun off from Mozilla and is just called Seamonkey.

Mozilla Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox was a from-scratch rewrite to make a minimalist standalone browser without the bloat of Mozilla Application Suite, where nonessential features could be added as extensions. (That's why it was initially named "Phoenix": because it was rising from the ashes of Navigator.)

(For the record, I am not so old as to have used Netscape 1.0.)

[-] DougHolland@lemmy.world 6 points 1 month ago

(: Man, the things I learn from smart folks on Lemmy...

[-] mox@lemmy.sdf.org 9 points 1 month ago

Here's where they quietly removed the promise from their FAQ:

https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e#diff-a24e74e4595fa85440a2f4e7e5dcfe68aba6e1e593aef05a2d35581a91423847

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 month ago

Some counter-points for those of you who want to dig further:

Louis Rossmann video - goes over Mozilla's likely motivation, California's CCPA
Louis Rossmann's wiki page about it - very in-depth, more-so than the video

So there are two explanations here:

Mozilla is in CYA mode due to potential violations of the CCPA (details on the bill)
Mozilla decided to turn evil

Both are certainly possible, but given that the vast majority of Mozilla's funding is from the Google search partnership, I think the former is more likely.

Regardless, I believe Mozilla is scummy, especially since Rossmann points out that Firefox development could be sustained on only investment returns of the org. Here's the relevant portion of the above video where he discusses that (specifically this timestamp, where he goes over their 2022 and 2023 returns, but the earlier bit is instructive as well).

[-] Zero22xx 7 points 1 month ago

Mozilla have been slowly but steadily turning to shit for years now. Long ago already, they became the kind of company that lays off workers in order to pay the CEO an unreasonable amount.

I think that the moment people should've seen as a turning point where Mozilla stopped giving a shit about the users was when they did all of those unpopular UI changes a while back (like removing compact mode). They used telemetry to justify these changes, while I'm sure they must've been aware that their "privacy focused browser" schtick probably attracts a lot of people who switch telemetry off. And even if they were that stupid, the over all reaction online to the changes should've been enough of a clue for them. But they still did it anyway.

UI changes might be small in the greater scheme of things but the UI is also what 90% of users base their experience on. So it just means that they do not give a flying fuck about the user base. And they're going to be slowly but surely enshitifying the browser whether anyone likes it or not.

[-] lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com 2 points 1 month ago

I hope, in the end, Firefox and Thunderbird survive...

If Firefox is gone, the clones/forks will probably die as well. And the complexity of a web browser makes it hard to just give the project to some new people...