An Update on our Terms of Use

[AshleyT]

On Wednesday we shared that we’re introducing a new Terms of Use (TOU) and Privacy Notice for Firefox. Since then, we’ve been listening to some of our community’s concerns with parts of the TOU, specifically about licensing. Our intent was just to be as clear as possible about how we make Firefox work, but in doing so we also created some confusion and concern. With that in mind, we’re updating the language to more clearly reflect the limited scope of how Mozilla interacts with user data.

Here’s what the new language will say:

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. 

In addition, we’ve removed the reference to the Acceptable Use Policy because it seems to be causing more confusion than clarity.

Privacy FAQ

We also updated our Privacy FAQ to better address legal minutia around terms like “sells.” While we’re not reverting the FAQ, we want to provide more detail about why we made the change in the first place. Check out the full blog post to read more.

[Sphaela]

"new language" is not good enough, it's still very much vague and raise more questions with the "nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license" part. FOSS users expect no BS like this. I hope mozilla rethink this decision and withdraw the TOU.

[adddada]

What happened guys? you used to be cool.I will stop using firefox Thanks for almost 20 years.

[jefg]

How can Firefox be used in government or corporate settings? Are governments or companies really going to agree to license all content entered into the browser to Mozilla? Have you folks thought through the implications of the licensing clause of your TOS?

[betatross]

If the definition of selling data keeps changing then Mozilla needs to keep changing how they operate to continue to not sell our data. It's the only reason people had any trust in this company. Which is now forever tarnished.

The way this is being communicated is so corporate and soulless I have no reason to believe anything you say going forwards unless this is completely reversed. I will be moving people away from the official Firefox builds as much as I possibly can until this is completely reversed. I will never recommend products from Mozilla again.

[ScottyHereCapn]

Nope. Still not good enough. I do not agree to give you a license for my data, period, much less an unlimited fiat on your part to transfer or sell it to other parties. 

Again, this is dangerous for marginalized communities. It removes one of the few applications that doesn’t contribute to the surveillance state that the US is even now setting up to hunt these people down and imprison them, if not give them the Auschwitz treatment. 

Even with aggressive anonymization, everyone leaves a trace, and any trace can be followed back to its source. Grammatical and syntactic choices, habitual words and phrases, any of this and more can be used to build a fingerprint and a profile on someone, which then can be fed to an AI crawler to scrape data looking for a match. I foresee a lot of false positives arising which puts innocents in the line of fire. 

Perhaps I am doomsaying but guess what? I work in data resiliency and security, and I have seen this happen before. 

Mozilla needs to reverse course on this, pronto. 

[Mozilla2Face]

Moved to LibreWolf. Mozilla's name is mud!

Below is a link to the important files to transfer from Firefox to LibreWolf profile. Replace the .firefox with .librewolf for file paths.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data

[FlaringComet]

I read this. In short, all of these things. First, Tell us WHY you're making these changes. As others have said, if it's financial, please set up a donation page similar to Wikipedia so we ourselves can help you directly rather than your having to turn to corporate revenue. If ads are part of the funding plan, we could turn off our blockers sometimes. However unless you explain why these changes are being implemented people aren't going to listen and work along with you;we need you to tell us what's going on.

[MozillaUser86]

Ashley,

Thank you for providing clarity.
Could you please provide a detailed technical explanation of what exactly is being done to make terms like this necessary? And what are the fears of Mozilla by not including this in the terms?

Words can say one thing a million different ways, but the truth is simple.
Transparency with the users is what helps keep them. Greed, selling out, or doing something similar to Google, Chrome or other browsers will just mean users leaving to them. Or, is this potentially what's intended?
Loyalty goes both ways.
Mozilla has a constant choice; its users, or something else $.
Please remember that there's a reason Firefox users have been loyal, and for so long.
I, for one, simply hope it remains a lasting relationship.
I admire Mozilla for actually putting something like this in their terms, as other entities have quietly been doing it for years.

[MyDataIsntYours]

I feel like Mozilla’s legal department isn’t aware that Firefox’s user base is both technical and sensitive to legalese. The whole attempting to use the California definition of “sell” as an excuse for the change (without clarifying why) feels like the sort of thing that would land with a very broad audience but not one that’s stuck around almost exclusively because they value privacy enough to both be discerning and be willing to put up with a subpar browsing experience to preserve said privacy. 

Someone there seriously needs to recognize that users aren’t going to respond to “here’s a slight tightening of the language so we can say we’ve heard you, while not addressing the actual issue”. Like I cannot imagine an outcome here where users are happy with  anything less than fully reverting the changes. And we’re aware of what anchoring is.

[seva]

nice username, bro

[pepe]

Time to move away from Firefox

It looks like I will have to program my own browser on top of everything else

Shame on you

jwz was right

[Cheerio]

Don't even bother trying to walk it back now.

Your name is in the gutter and it will stay there.

[Nick5]

So you're claiming that "Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you (in the way that most people think about “selling data”)"

and

"the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) defines “sale” as the “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 [a] business to another business or a third party” in exchange for “monetary” or “other valuable consideration.” "

Which is exactly how most people would describe selling data, so what have you been "selling" to who that NOW falls under this "new" definition?

[Erwan]

I demand a clear return of the assertion of "not selling" our data. It's non-negotiable. Otherwise, don't pretend to have a community anymore.

Signed: A loyal Firefox/Thunderbird user and influencer.

[seva]

It all depends on how many users Firefox loses, I think. If the loss is in the 10 percent range, Mozilla will not explain anything to you and will simply ignore you.

However, a user loss of 30% or more will force Mozilla to reconsider its policy, and perhaps Mozilla will start explaining something.

[User42]

I've been reading lots of users' comments. Many people have already switched browsers. I am also now researching for the best FF replacement, thanks to community suggestions. After all these years...

You become greedy, your greed destroys you.

[seva]

I switched to Brave. Yes, the Firefox community doesn't like Chromium-based browsers. But Brave reminds me of early Firefox in the way they listen to the community.

[Do-not-sell-out]

Don't sell our data ever. I don't want AI. I just want to watching silly internet videos and share it with my friends. 

If you break the promise to not sell our data, people will leave. True not all of them but you will lose life long users.