Asif Youssuff (Hacker News):
On Wednesday, Mozilla introduced legal updates to users of Firefox, and something feels off. I read, and re-read the new Terms of Use and while much of it reads like standard boilerplate from any tech company, there’s a new section that is unexpected:
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.
The community has also zeroed in on this phrase, with contributors asking directly what up with that?
[…]
Ultimately, Microsoft specifically disclaims ownership of your content - something Mozilla does not do.
Mozilla (Hacker News):
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.
Ajit Varma:
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.
Then why didn’t it say that or specifically limit how they can use the content?
In addition to the Terms of Use, we are providing a more detailed explanation of our data practices in our updated Privacy Notice.
This is the same thing Adobe did. It’s not great to put the key information in what is essentially a FAQ that doesn’t seem as legally binding as a ToS. And the clarification says that they can only use the data as described in the Privacy Notice, while the actual Terms of Service say that that Mozilla gets “all rights necessary” including using it as described in the Privacy Notice. So it seems like the Privacy Notice cannot constrain their behavior, but they want us to think it does.
Alex Kontos (Hacker News):
This situation reveals a recurring issue in how Mozilla communicates with its user base. I believe this represents a fundamental disconnect in communication strategy. Internally at Mozilla, I’m certain there were extensive discussions, agreements, disagreements, and careful consideration about how to phrase and present these changes. The team likely developed a clear understanding of the what, where, and why behind these policy updates.
However, when it came time to present this information to users, Mozilla seems to have forgotten that we—the external community—were not privy to those internal discussions. Critical context, nuance, and rationale that informed their decision-making process were missing from the initial announcement. What may have seemed perfectly clear to those inside Mozilla appeared ambiguous and concerning to those of us on the outside.
David Gerard (via Dave Rahardja, Hacker News):
New Mozilla TOS diff. This is what they just removed:
* 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.
The purpose of the new TOS appears to be to enable them to do this - such as for their advertising and AI sidelines.
Vlad Prelovac:
There are only two business models on the web - either you pay with your data/attention or you pay with your wallet.
Previously:
Update (2025-03-03): Peter N Lewis:
if the previous terms that were mutually agreed with include “never will”, then it seems unclear how they can now change that. They can introduce a new agreement, but can then unintroduce the old agreement?
I guess they could sell only information collected after the introduction of the new agreement.
Stevie Bonifield (Hacker News):
Firefox users are also concerned about what exactly Mozilla could do with their data within the somewhat vague bounds of “a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license.” The most obvious possible explanation is some sort of AI feature for Firefox. For AI to function well, it needs to consume huge amounts of training data, and that data has to come from somewhere.
Jay Peters:
Mozilla is revising its new Terms of Use for Firefox introduced on Wednesday following criticisms over language that seemed to give the company broad ownership over user data. With the change, “we’re updating the language to more clearly reflect the limited scope of how Mozilla interacts with user data,” the company says in a Friday post.
[…]
Friday’s post additionally provides some context about why the company has “stepped away from making blanket claims that ‘We never sell your data.’” Mozilla says that “in some places, the LEGAL definition of ‘sale of data’ is broad and evolving,”and that “the competing interpretations of do-not-sell requirements does leave many businesses uncertain about their exact obligations and whether or not they’re considered to be ‘selling data.’”
Liam Proven and Thomas Claburn (Hacker News):
Varma said its contractual language has been updated in an effort to assuage concerns. For one thing, it now states “this does not give Mozilla any ownership” of the data you put into Firefox to use it.
While much of the confusion can be written off as an unforced error in communication – legalese is often misunderstood – the developer’s privacy commitment has changed, in its wording at least. 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.
Jeff Johnson:
Mozilla has failed to pay its bills.
sylvestre:
Please don’t read too much into this ;) We moved from self-hosted Discourse to hosted Discourse. The transfer was initiated late from the Mozilla side (my bad) and the automatic system from Discourse kicked in.
See also: Louis Rossmann (Hacker News).
Advertising Artificial Intelligence Firefox iOS iOS 18 iOS App Legal Mac Mac App macOS 15 Sequoia Mozilla Privacy
Tom Warren (9to5Mac, Hacker News, Slashdot):
Microsoft is shutting down Skype in May and replacing it with the free version of Microsoft Teams for consumers. Existing Skype users will be able to log in to the Microsoft Teams app and have their message history, group chats, and contacts all automatically available without having to create another account, or they can choose to export their data instead. Microsoft is also phasing out support for calling domestic or international numbers.
From my perspective, that was the most useful part of Skype.
Zac Bowden:
Skype first launched in 2003 and was a very popular VOIP messaging platform in its heyday.
Dan Moren:
But there was a time when Skype was a revolution: free, good sounding voice calls across the Internet. Not to mention the ability to make cheap actual phone calls internationally, in a day and age when that was usually ridiculously expensive.
Hartley Charlton:
Microsoft acquired Skype in 2011 for $8.5 billion in what was then its largest-ever acquisition. At its peak, Skype had more than 300 million monthly active users and was synonymous with internet-based voice and video calling. The service steadily declined in relevance in recent years, with its active user base shrinking to approximately 36 million by 2023 as competitors such as Zoom, WhatsApp, and Microsoft’s own Teams platform gained traction.
Teams has since grown to 320 million monthly users, far surpassing Skype’s remaining user base. The company’s decision to discontinue Skype is apparently part of a broader effort to prioritize artificial intelligence features within Teams.
Dare Obasanjo:
Skype was a victim of Microsoft’s focus on Windows to the detriment of every other platform and a culture of mismanaging acquisitions under Steve Ballmer.
It was a great product in its heyday but that hasn’t been the case in over a decade.
Christina Warren:
The best part of Skype (RIP) was Ecamm’s Call Recorder plugin (also RIP) that was not only good for podcasting for YEARS but was a great way to record your phone calls if you used a Skype-out number. When I was a journalist, it was so useful.
Om Malik:
It makes me incredibly sad, but I am not surprised. The writing was on the wall. Skype has been dying a slow death for a long time. As far back as 2018, it was obvious what lay in store. At the time, I wrote about the great Skype vanishing.
[…]
Microsoft now talks about Teams being their focus, showing that even today they haven’t realized what made Skype a cultural, consumer force. Microsoft Teams is a terrible product — and I dread using it. In simplest terms, Teams is a perfect encapsulation of a bureaucratic, archaic, and outdated 50-year-old company that is trying to reinvent itself as an AI leader.
Previously:
Update (2025-03-03): Adam Engst:
Microsoft wants Skype users to transition to Microsoft Teams, but it remains unclear if Teams will fulfill all the functions for which people used Skype, such as calling landlines and cell phones from an app. If you’re still using Skype, how do you plan to replace it?
John Gruber:
The writing has been on the wall for a long time that Skype was no longer strategic for Microsoft. Really, even right after the acquisition, it never seemed Microsoft had any sort of plan for what to do with Skype — even though, at the time, it was their largest-ever acquisition.
But man, for a long while, Skype was singularly amazing, offering high-quality / low-latency audio calls at a time when everything else seemed low-quality / high-latency.
iOS iOS 18 iOS App Microsoft Teams Skype Sunset
Sarah Perez:
Apple on Thursday announced a range of new initiatives designed to help parents and developers create a safer experience for kids and teens using Apple devices. In addition to easier setup of child accounts, parents will now be able to share information about their kids’ ages, which can then be accessed by app developers to provide age-appropriate content. The App Store will also introduce a new set of age ratings that give developers and App Store users alike a more granular understanding of an app’s appropriateness for a given age range.
[…]
Nine U.S. states, including Utah and South Carolina, have recently proposed bills that would require app store operators like Apple to check kids’ ages in order to get parental consent before minors can download apps, for instance.
[…]
Several of the changes for child accounts are available in the public beta of iOS 18.4, out now. The ability to make updates to the age of a child account after it’s already created, as well as the Declared Age Range API, Age Ratings and App Store updates will be available later this year, Apple says.
I think this makes sense. It’s not clear to me whether Apple is just getting ahead of legislation or sort of had a change of heart. It still kind of sets up a strawman in describing its reluctance.
Nick Heer:
The company is developing a habit of sending PDF links directly to media outlets to circulate.
[…]
This is a direct response to a proposed U.S. law that would require Apple — and Google — to verify ages at the App Store level; it says its solution is an effective alternative. It may well be, but I do not buy this line of argument. It could, for example, wait to verify a user’s age until they attempt to download an app where it would be needed. Also, while Apple’s own data collection would be minimized by hypothetically offloading that responsibility onto third-parties, it would increase the number of copies of this sensitive information floating around.
Dan Moren:
There’s still a lot of work to be done, however. As the father of a two-year-old who gets only limited and controlled access to an iPad, I’ve run into numerous frustrations trying to both maintain appropriate security practices and let me conveniently manage the device. There are also numerous issues with critical features like Screen Time, which suffers from both inaccuracies in its measurements as well as methods for circumvention.
Previously:
App Store Apple ID Children iOS iOS 18 Legal Screen Time
Jonathan Stempel (MacRumors, 9to5Mac):
Apple has been sued by consumers who said its claim that three versions of Apple Watches are “carbon neutral” and environmentally friendly is false and misleading.
[…]
Apple, also known for the iPhone, launched the watches in September 2023, saying they would be carbon neutral through a combination of lower emissions and purchases of carbon offsets.
[…]
“In both cases, the carbon reductions would have occurred regardless of Apple’s involvement or the projects’ existence,” the complaint said. “Because Apple’s carbon neutrality claims are predicated on the efficacy and legitimacy of these projects, Apple’s carbon neutrality claims are false and misleading.”
I doubt that large numbers of people wouldn’t have purchased Apple Watches without them being carbon neutral, but I guess this is the easiest legal route to try to hold a company to account for (alleged) misleading advertising claims.
Benjamin Turner:
for me it came down to the realization of what apple was saying about the environment versus what they were doing locking down devices through software and hardware pairing that ultimately juices the circulation of ewaste
Previously:
Apple Apple Watch Apple Watch Series 9 Apple Watch Ultra 2 Environment Lawsuit Legal
