this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025
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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 An archived version from January 30 says: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.

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[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 34 points 1 hour ago (3 children)

current acting CEO of Mozilla is Laura Chambers. An Australian native and has quite...interesting work history.

1000001226

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?

[–] pebbles@sh.itjust.works 4 points 49 minutes ago

Man, this is very disappointed news. Thanks though, good to know.

[–] zipzoopaboop@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 12 minutes ago

Stanford too

[–] unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz 4 points 56 minutes ago (1 children)

McKinsey, you forgot that, whatever the fuck it is

[–] TheRealKuni@midwest.social 4 points 35 minutes ago (1 children)
[–] unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz 1 points 26 minutes ago

shit no i shouldn't pretended. i do NOT want to learn more. but yes, thanks for the link.

[–] Solventbubbles@lemmy.world 9 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

Son of a bitch I just got back into Firefox.

[–] CH3DD4R_G0BL1N@sh.itjust.works 4 points 35 minutes ago

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

[–] MITM0@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago
[–] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 4 points 58 minutes ago* (last edited 58 minutes ago) (2 children)

What's the next Android browser I'm installing fam?

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 3 points 25 minutes ago

I just have friends send me memes to my clamshell flip phone through SMS

[–] unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz -1 points 50 minutes ago

beg borrow or steal android devices until you get one worth your time.

[–] nthavoc@lemmy.today 21 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I remember a time when Google wrote "Don't be evil" all over their stuff.....

[–] unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz 5 points 51 minutes ago

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.

[–] FrostyCaveman@lemm.ee 11 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

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

[–] unemployedclaquer@sopuli.xyz -1 points 49 minutes ago

just uninstall firefox

[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 0 points 15 minutes ago

Trust me bro

[–] wuphysics87@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Several questions:

  1. How are they getting our data?
  2. What is the nature of the data?
  3. Can we do anything in about:config?
[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 5 points 1 hour ago

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

[–] Pyr_Pressure@lemmy.ca 25 points 4 hours ago

They can't just promise they "never will" and then get rid of it. People who used the service under the original agreement should still be able to claim that benefit since it was promising to never sell it.

[–] JuxtaposedJaguar@lemmy.ml 19 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Mozilla is trying to increase their revenue by doing everything other than improving Firefox

[–] MITM0@lemmy.world 2 points 1 hour ago

Like they could also make a FOSS alternative to VS-Code but nah

[–] Feathercrown@lemmy.world 31 points 5 hours ago

That clarification is not making me calm

[–] bizzle@lemmy.world 34 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

I'm about to get my tattoo removed wtf

[–] KrapKake@lemmy.world 19 points 4 hours ago

Just get "RIP" tattooed under it.

[–] Kecessa@sh.itjust.works 21 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

If it's really you...

Wtf?

[–] bizzle@lemmy.world 10 points 4 hours ago

It is lmfao it was my first one 🥲

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 8 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

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

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[–] HipsterTenZero@dormi.zone 38 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

promises don't count if you delete them. everyone knows that

[–] LMurch@thelemmy.club 21 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

"If I put my wedding ring in my pocket, it's not cheating..."

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[–] Xanza@lemm.ee -4 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I feel a little vindicated. I started using Firefox basically when it was first released. I migrated away from it after several years because I simply didn't like the direction that Mozilla was taking it. Decades later I see them struggling down the same inevitable path I figured they'd always head down from the beginning.

Firefox bros used to get ultra pissed at me for shitting on their browser because I just knew Mozilla would eventually fuck it all up. And here we are.

[–] RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 8 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say. I told ya so? I was smarter than everyone else and figured it out first?

FF has been one of the better full-featured browsers with generous amount of add-ons/plugins. There was no reason not to use it vs some less functional browser or some corporate data miner like Chrome. It still is, however some alternatives are catching up. Time will tell how it all shakes out as far as the battle between functionality, privacy, ad- and tracking-blockers, and people willing to build and maintain free browsers and plugins.

[–] Xanza@lemm.ee 0 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

I’m not sure what you’re trying to say.

The first thing I said;

I feel a little vindicated.

I apologize. I literally don't know how to make it any more clear than that.

[–] parmesan@lemmy.world 14 points 6 hours ago (2 children)

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.

[–] AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 1 points 59 minutes ago (1 children)

They could make it more specific. Instead they just removed it.

[–] parmesan@lemmy.world 1 points 37 minutes ago

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.

[–] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 28 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

The problem I have with this is that "anonymized" data in the past has often been trivial to de-anonymize. And if they can remove some promises now, they're going to keep going in that direction. Just like Microsoft telemetry used to be less but is getting worse and worse.

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[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago
[–] grue@lemmy.world 109 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Mozilla needs to understand that I don't want it to have my data to sell or not in the first place.

[–] OutlierBlue@lemmy.ca 18 points 5 hours ago

That's the thing that bothers me about all these companies now. My data is my data, not theirs. They shouldn't even be allowed to collect it, let alone sell it or give it to anyone who wants it.

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