Mozilla Changes Firefox Terms of Use
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?
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Ultimately, Microsoft specifically disclaims ownership of your content - something Mozilla does not do.
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.
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.
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.
There are only two business models on the web - either you pay with your data/attention or you pay with your wallet.
Previously:
- Firefox Removes “Do Not Track”
- The State of Mozilla
- Firefox at 20
- Updated Adobe Terms of Use
- Slack AI Privacy
- The Enshittification of All Things
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.
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.
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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.
Mozilla has failed to pay its bills.
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).
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I'm curious what the commentariat here thinks of Mozilla. I've heard a lot of people say they've long since turned to the dark side and cannot be trusted, if they ever could've been trusted, and others who see them as one of the few remaining bastions of privacy on the internet. What do you think?
Also, since this might be especially relevant, I'm wondering what people think of the various forks of Firefox, and if they have a favorite. (e.g. Waterfox, LibreWolf, Floorp)
The skuttlebutt I've heard from various sources is that Mozilla has slowly drifted from their core mission/reason for existence. The org is dominated by non-technical people who couldn't care less about the actual software as long as they can continue to rake in donations from people who still believe in the mission. Even better if they can get paid for data and serving ads at the same time.
I'm sure there are serious people there who continue to believe in the mission and want to push everything forward, but /none/ of the people with actual power fit that description. Again, this is just the rumors that I've heard, so I'm not sure how accurate it is, but it fits the externally available evidence.
I'm using Basilisk on my old devices. It works well, and seems to be updated every time cloudfare decides to do something twisted to prevent websites from being scraped.
As to the Mozilla organization itself, it seems to be a shambles. IMO, the CEO was paid far too much for a non-profit and cut too many good and interesting things: the servo project, IIRC the Rust project, and some Xiph folks. They now think of themselves as an AI company for no discernible reason. So I'm not overly impressed with it, and tend to agree with gildarts' view.
I like Firefox, I hate the Mozilla organization. The organization seems to be aligned opposite of its users (and some of its contributors). Lunduke has been good in highlighting the stupidity of the Mozilla organization.
The breaking point is likely going to be when Google stops paying the Mozilla org for search defaults.
Is there a recommended Firefox fork for Mac that's updated frequently, but free of Mozilla stupidity?
Zen Browser is a newer Gecko-based browser that looks more like Arc than Firefox. I haven't really put it through its paces yet, but it does have vertical tabs as a standard UI feature. https://zen-browser.app/
As for Mozilla, I am concerned that their abandonment of advocacy has left the future of the Web in the hands of Apple and Google. Maybe the Ladybird project will one day take the role that Mozilla is relinquishing: https://ladybird.org/
#Hammer
When I use a Mac, I've been using Waterfox as my browser for the past few years.
It is updated regularly (with some lag, obviously).
It is free of all Mozilla stupidity.
I've been using LibreWolf for a while now. It seems to have a similar goal as Waterfox, which is to be Firefox with all of the questionable Mozilla stuff removed. I'm not sure of any reason to use one over the other, or what the practical differences are.
This isn't acceptable. If Mozilla isn't going to sell our data, they wouldn't remove the section of their terms of service that says they won't sell our data
I don't believe *anything* an executive says that isn't legally binding in the agreement.
I've been using and recommending Firefox again but unless they fix this fast, I'm going to dump it. I'd be happy to pay for a web browser, but I'll never use one that sells my data. Ever.
It now reads "You give Mozilla the rights necessary to operate Firefox. This INCLUDES processing your data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice. It also INCLUDES a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox. This does not give Mozilla any ownership in that content." (emphasis added)
The two "includes" statements do NOT limit the rights granted to Firefox--they are just specific examples. What are the rights that are allegedly necessary to operate Firefox? Why can't they list all of them specifically?
