AI Summary:
Overview:
- Mozilla is updating its new Terms of Use for Firefox due to criticism over unclear language about user data.
- Original terms seemed to give Mozilla broad ownership of user data, causing concern.
- Updated terms emphasize limited scope of data interaction, stating Mozilla only needs rights necessary to operate Firefox.
- Mozilla acknowledges confusion and aims to clarify their intent to make Firefox work without owning user content.
- Company explains they don’t make blanket claims of “never selling data” due to evolving legal definitions and obligations.
- Mozilla collects and shares some data with partners to keep Firefox commercially viable, but ensures data is anonymized or shared in aggregate.
What do you think a browser does?
The browser manufacturer doesn’t need a license to my inputs to process them and give them to the server it’s supposed to give them to. If you type a text in Libre office, does it ask you for a license to the text in order to save it?
No, but that’s a local program processing and saving data entirely on your system. It’s a world of difference from what a web browser does, which is oversee a whole suite of protocols connecting you to remote servers and transmitting data back and forth in requests that build on and reference each other. With the complexity of modern web interactions, there’s a ton of reasons why a browser might need to store your data and share it with others, even ignoring profit-seeking motives.
And let’s remember that the last thing Mozilla got heat for was the introduction of a method to anonymize bulk user data for sharing & selling purposes, as opposed to the granular, extremely invasive tracking that 99% of websites are doing these days.
I see a company that needs to make a decent amount of money in a crazy competitive environment, that’s trying their best to do so in the way least destructive to user privacy and choice.
Not even the lemmy instance you’re on needs a license to your content, and it is stored there and displayed for the world to see. Why is that? Because storing and displaying your posts is the very thing you want it to do. That is the service it is providing for you, and you declare that you want it to do that by clicking “send”. They would need a license if they wanted to do anything else with your stuff, which doesn’t directly have to do with displaying your posts in the fediverse.
The browser is supposed to take my requests and inputs, carry them to the server that I’m talking to and bring back the answer. The mail doesn’t need a license to my letters. That only changes if they want to open them and do something I originally had not intended.
But you know who claims a license to your content? Meta. Because you’re the product there, not the costumer.
Ftfy. It’s never going to replace more invasive tracking and just constitutes yet another party collecting my data.
Mozilla already makes enough money from passive investment income. They don’t need to make any money from Firefox at all (but they do, it’s from google). They also don’t need to pay their CEO 6 Million a year.
Edit: Typo