02-26-2025
09:20 AM
- last edited on
03-01-2025
09:08 AM
by
Jon
For the first time, we’re introducing a Terms of Use for Firefox, alongside an updated Privacy Notice.
Earlier today, we published a blog post explaining why we’re making this change and what it means for you.
Now, we want to hear from you.
We’re committed to engaging with our community and keeping you informed about how we build Firefox—and why we make the decisions we do. Firefox wouldn’t be where it is today without the support of our users, and we want to continue working together to build a better internet for all.
To kick off the discussion, here are a few key points from the blog post:
We’d love to hear your thoughts! Check out the full blog post and share your feedback here. If you have any questions, let us know—we’ll be actively monitoring the discussion and will reply where we can.
Update
Thank you all for taking the time to share your questions and reactions. We’ve been listening and made some updates to address areas of concern. I’ve started a new discussion topic covering what’s changed in the Terms of Use based on your feedback, and clearing up a few points of confusion.
02-27-2025 03:55 PM
Ashley,
Thank you for writing. I want to be clear what I’m saying here really isn’t about you, it’s about the text of the Terms of Use. Such policies are written by lawyers, and my own experience dealing has taught me to be skeptical of anything a lawyer says or writes if they are not actually working -for me-. I apologize for the fact that I will be addressing the language of the Terms of Use and other policies from that perspective.
You wrote:
Regarding our position around licensing, we need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible.
I notice you are using the word “license” and not saying “Terms of Use”. Firefox already had a license, and I agreed to it at the time I previously installed it. That is separate from the Terms of Use, and as @rdavidatwell wrote earlier “Terms of Use and Privacy Policy documents are for web services, not for browsers”. The fundamental reason I am upset is because it looks like Firefox is transitioning from being a piece of software to a “service” which has “Terms of Use”. That means now those terms can change at any time even if I’m not installing a new copy or version of that software.
Then there is the “Privacy Policy”. I pulled up the old version in archive.org, and there are definitely big changes which appear to authorize data to be collected and used for advertising purposes. As @jkaelin points out above, it looks like a very important promise that “we don’t sell your personal data” is also being removed from the code. That seems like a big deal.
Regarding your second bullet:
With respect to AI, our goal with Firefox is to build a browser that meets all the needs of a modern internet user while protecting your privacy and your rights online.
My need in the current “high threat environment” is a browser with no AI and zero telemetry so that I can have the maximum amount of privacy and security I can achieve. You acknowledge that there are AI features that are on by default. And while you state that this can be disabled, in fact I was unaware of the “alt-text” AI specifically until you pointed it out. I can therefore conclude based on Mozilla’s direction and what you are saying is that other AI features which are “on by default” will be added in the future, and that I might not even know about them or that I would need to turn them off. (that’s not even getting into whether turning the feature off really achieves what I need: not just to hide features but to ensure they are not there at all).
In your third bullet you wrote:
Our Acceptable Use policy has been in effect for some time now. These broad principles govern what we think is appropriate behavior on the specific user platforms we manage, like Mozconnect and our support platforms, not your browsing behavior.
But the language of the FireFox “Terms of Use” state:
Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.
This is specifically stating that FireFox, not MozConnect, must comply with the Acceptable Use Policy. If the intent was what you stated, then that language in the Terms of Use is simply wrong.
Unfortunately all that matters in the end is the language of the terms of service, not anything you might say or promise here.
Additionally this new policy was rolled out to be effective immediately rather than say 30 days from now. People didn’t really have time to evaluate or ask questions about it before it went into effect. That by itself is a problem. We must now assume Mozilla could change the Terms of Use with zero notice and people will only see it long after changes go into effect.
I hope Mozilla will consider changing their direction.
02-27-2025 04:06 PM
Now we're getting mixed messages from Mozilla. The ToU says that we "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." But don't say how long you have those rights for. However your privacy says you don't have rights to our data.
WHICH ONE IS IT? You haven't clarified anything. If anything, it's worse!
02-27-2025 08:28 PM
"we need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible."
No, you don't. You never have before, and you don't need it now. Anything that doesn't go through your servers, you don't need a license for. And anything that doesn't *need* to go through your servers shouldn't be going through them in the first place.
02-28-2025 02:33 AM
AsheleyT, please, leave mozilla foundation. Don't destroy project that was build by so many talented people!
The clarifications you gave are not improving situation. This should stay in firefox, otherwise it's not Firefox any more:
"Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox produ...
If you don't understand this, how could you lead this project?
02-28-2025 02:41 AM
Thank you for taking the time to engage, but unfortunately, I can't consider that the reply is in any way convincing, or really addressing the issues with valid arguments.
02-28-2025 03:37 AM
BTW, do I understand correctly that pornhub blocked by these so called "new rights"?
02-28-2025 04:10 AM
I wouldn't call it blocked,because I wouldn't describe this legal instrument as a block, but it's certainly against the rules, but maybe so are so pictures from some museums, some movies on Netflix/Disney/Amazon Prime/other streaming services, even newscasts on Youtube with images from war, or from crimes.
The degree of lack of though that go into this policy is appalling.
02-28-2025 04:19 AM
And it's not even about pictures, any depiction, or representation of those types of content are affected, and all types of things are affected, not only art, information/journalism and research, so is education (sexual education, anti-bullying, etc...), all sorts of campains to prevent risks and abuses, etc...
02-28-2025 05:35 AM
with all due respect that is a lot of junk
you do not need such a vague update for that anyway...
02-28-2025 09:03 AM
Regarding our position around licensing, we need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use the words you type into Firefox to perform your searches, for example.
It feels like you're being put in the uncomfortable position of an intermediary here and having to deliver the "party line".
Would it be possible to arrange a Q&A session between the community and the actual lawyers who literally wrote the verbiage here? That could be clarifying for both sides.
02-28-2025 11:17 AM
You mentioned "Acceptable Use Policy" within same blog post, if it's an actual legal document, why it's not accessible within "Legal" page? That "Acceptable Use Policy" page is only accessible within "Firefox Terms of Use" page. And thus that's indicates, that something is amiss in my view.
As for AI - If you do implement that feature, it's better be OFF by default. Not everyone need that and if someone actually want to use it, they need to opt-in in order to use. Simple as that.
02-28-2025 11:37 AM
if any of us wanted that or didn't care, wouldn't we be on chrome right now ?? the only reason firefox still exists is the goodwill and word of mouth of a very devoted but small userbase, that is completely turning against you, everyone who did not alert Mozilla about this very obvious fact is incompetent, and everyone who did not listen should be fired.
02-28-2025 02:18 PM
No, your Acceptable Use policy has never been in effect on Firefox. You (Mozilla) have only just made the conscious decision to put it in the Firefox ToU. You (AshleyT, the representative of Mozilla and not the individual person) are knowingly lying.
Also, a clarification on a blog doesn't change the words in the ToU. You (Mozilla) should clarify this in there.
02-28-2025 02:25 PM
> We knew this would have a lot of interest and so we’ve waited to dive into the conversation because we see some themes emerging that I’ll respond to broadly here.
We don't have "interest" - we've been using FF for decades(!) and now wake up to the climax of en**bleep**tification and "Nope. Never have, never will." being removed.
And because you knew this would turn into a dumpster fire you ... waited and watched? If you need to "explain" why "LEGALLY" everything is totally LEGAL ...
I just rage-quitted this sinking ship but I couldn't resist to comment on how someone has tagged the post as "lied" xD - love it!
03-01-2025 12:02 PM
If you don't answer these simple questions then you (Mozilla) are not acting in good faith:
What are your future plans for monetisation of this data?
Why are you removing the 'We don't sell your data' in April?
What are the financial forecasts for this?
Who is making the decisions about this?
Why can't you be open and honest?
Every browser and internet company says they care about your data. You say things are clear from your documentation but not to me and I have PhD level education and have been using 'Firefox' since NCSA Mosaic.
A simple statement in your documentation stating clearly all of the ways that you intend to get revenue and ballpark figure of how much this will raise.
It is absolutely not necessary to sell (or otherwise) monetise user data to develop a browser.
Why can't people just be clear about things?
Does making money come under providing users with a better service legal cover?
02-27-2025 01:36 PM
How is this a good thing?
So when I write story's images and videos I upload via the browser it is supposed to be between my computer and the website and no middle man, this seems no better privacy for us user's
I really don't want to change browser's but if Mozilla is going this route then the future of Firefox and your company is beyond recovery at this point
be better Mozilla
02-27-2025 02:33 PM
I'm beyond angry, and it's staggering that you underestimated our reaction to this so badly. You've gone too far. Shame on you.
02-27-2025 02:37 PM - edited 02-27-2025 03:15 PM
A bit of reminder from old times:
"Net neutrality, also known as network neutrality, is the principle that all internet traffic should be treated equally by Internet Service Providers (ISPs). This means that ISPs should not discriminate or charge differently based on the user, content, website, platform, application, type of attached equipment, or method of communication. The concept is designed to ensure a free and open internet, where users can access all legal content and services without interference or preference from ISPs."
Now compare that to what Firefox is doing right now.
02-28-2025 02:31 AM - edited 02-28-2025 02:33 AM
Yes, Mozilla shouldn't involve useless thing like politics, just focus on technology like Firefox and VPN, etc and privacy and freedom of Internet.
02-27-2025 03:26 PM
Mozilla doesn’t need to build any AI things.
All Mozilla needs to do is: make a web browser that is standards compliant and does not adopt any of the nonsense that for-profit companies are doing to try and destroy the web.
Mozilla doesn’t need to run a VPN service, data broker service or anything else.
I just want my money to donate to the development of the browser.
No AI stuff. No cryptocurrency donations. No proprietary plugins. No DRM.
Firefox shouldn’t even have a EULA. Mozilla should be collecting ZERO information from the browser that they cannot collect from httpd logs.
Anything beyond Firefox browsing the web and Thunderbird sending/receiving email/usenet messages should nothing for Mozilla to worry about.
02-27-2025 04:00 PM
Mozilla should just go ahead and dissolve at this point. Betraying every single thing the Mozilla has stood for, for the past decade or more, over some ridiculous, planet destroying, thieving AI fad. Every single person who works for Mozilla is a failure, and should be ashamed of themselves.
02-27-2025 05:50 PM
I have been a loyal Firefox user since 1. There's been some disappointing decisions before but this one is over the line. I'm out and taking my VPN sub elsewhere.
02-27-2025 05:54 PM
02-27-2025 06:51 PM
02-27-2025 07:34 PM - edited 02-27-2025 07:38 PM
"upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information"
Such sloppy wording is extremely risky. The expression obviously includes also my binary data including what I upload on behalf of my employer, i.e. his and other's confidential data. THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE.
02-27-2025 09:03 PM - edited 02-27-2025 09:10 PM
As a longtime (admittedly not nearly as long of a time as some people here, however) Firefox user, I am very disappointed to see this change and lack of sufficient clarification and segmentation on the changes.
This said, I am frequently willing to play devil's advocate. As much of a shame as it is, maybe there is a valid argument for having AI/whatever services available in the browser to attract/retain a specific segment of users. Some of these services, being well, services, could feasibly need a terms of use attached to them for whatever reasons. And I do understand that Mozilla has not had a particularly good financial situation in quite some time, so the need to make money is there. I get that. But don't enshrine it into the policies that supporting Mozilla financially or in other ways with our data is a requirement to use the browser.
When there's a significant and very passionate installed user base of technical people who are using the product for privacy-oriented reasons, ambiguity and overzealousness with the privacy permissions / rights / licenses Mozilla grants themselves is not going to do this user base any favours. Even if it is NOT the intention at all for Mozilla to be construing that EVERYTHING happening by users in the Firefox browser has a license granted to Mozilla for their use, can be data-mined for profit, whatever... the current wording appears (IANAL) to be readily interpretable as such. If this intention really, truly, is not the case, then it is essential to properly reword the terms thoroughly to say exactly what is meant and exactly where, when, & how it applies, if this happens by default or is an opt-in thing. The premise (as can be interpreted presently) that a universal and unforgiving license deal is needed to use what is essentially a fancy tool and NOT (at its core, anyway) a service is just nuts.
As an example think of, say, a digital camera. This is usually completely (or virtually completely) a product... a tool. It may have auxiliary services, maybe cloud sync or automatic photo editing, whatever, I don't know. Feasibly these aspects could need terms of use to avoid liability on the company's part. Or whatever their goal is. But I think it is very likely you will not find a camera itself with terms of use, or one that grants the manufacturer rights to do as they please with any and all photos taken with the camera. Again... maybe this isn't Mozilla's intention, but plain and simple, it's how it's been laid out, and this is likely not going to be acceptable to a very large number of people.
I feel as if anything that would fall under the realm of being able to be used/sold by Mozilla should be opt in only and very clearly present the conditions of it on opt in. Heck, even make it easy to opt in. Add it on the first run screen that exists in the browser for new installations and/or major upgrades. It is just a certainty however that to a lot of people having such features or services exist on the platform at all will already make them uncomfortable.
I miss the days of "classic" Firefox for sure, but I still think it's a good browser. In fact I think its considerably better now than it was a few years ago. I try my best to promote the Firefox and other FOSS that I like - it would be a shame to see Firefox succumb to disconnection from the user base such as numerous other projects over time. Especially in this case when there's (IMO) no serious non-chromium options out there. I think a lot of people would argue that the death already happened some time ago, but I am hopeful that there is still a chance to recover.
02-28-2025 02:58 PM
@i430VX wrote:As an example think of, say, a digital camera. This is usually completely (or virtually completely) a product... a tool. It may have auxiliary services, maybe cloud sync or automatic photo editing, whatever, I don't know. Feasibly these aspects could need terms of use to avoid liability on the company's part. Or whatever their goal is. But I think it is very likely you will not find a camera itself with terms of use, or one that grants the manufacturer rights to do as they please with any and all photos taken with the camera.
Excellent analogy.
02-27-2025 10:12 PM
You guys just deleted the promise you made about never selling our 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"
02-28-2025 04:36 AM
They had their fingers crossed behind back when they said.
But seriously: there is this new corporate trend of twisting meaning of words. Eg. "lifelong license" means now "12 months", "you purchase" means "you are granted temporary license" and so on. So this is Mozilla's "never": never, until we decide we can sell you like slaves.
02-28-2025 07:59 AM
Thank you for raising the concern and let me clarify. 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).
02-28-2025 08:22 AM
@AshleyT wrote:Thank you for raising the concern and let me clarify. 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.
Then why does the policy say that you can? "We promise not to" in a blog post is not legally actionable. "We're carving out these rights, but we're never going to use them, honest" is not convincing.
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.
Why is Mozilla using the browser to do anything that could run afoul of "sale of data" laws anywhere?!? Honestly this makes me more concerned, not less.
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)...
Once more, this should be applied at opt-in for the features affected, not imposed globally on download.
Anyway, how commercially viable is Firefox going to be if all of the users who were here because of the legally-protected privacy you offered jump ship for browsers that continue to offer the protections you once promised? "Commercial viability" is never going to happen if you abandon your last remaining distinctive.
Once again, you're not going to be able to clarify your way out of this. You're going to have to change course if you want to stop the bleeding.
02-28-2025 08:57 AM
Who says that Mozilla NEEDS to do these things to make Firefox commercially viable. People have previously offered to PAY/DONATE to support Firefox countless of times and nobody at Mozilla cared.
To this day, it's only possible to donate to the Mozilla Foundation and not towards developing Firefox. In fact, many people only donate to the foundation because they falsely believe that it's going towards developing Firefox.
I would also like to support Firefox through other ways, like offering bounties for fixing longstanding bugs (some bugs are over 20 years old) or maintaining beloved features like the compact mode that got deprecated or PWAs.
Firefox had so much love and goodwill from people who promoted it for free, helped friends and family members installing and using it, who put little Firefox buttons on their websites to promote it.
Over the years, Mozilla threw all that away with a complete lack of care by telling these exact "power users" that they're not the target demographic, that it doesn't matter what they think about changes and that Firefox isn't a democracy. The planned changes might be the last straw to completely destroy the relationship with these users.
And at no point did Mozilla think about working with the millions of loyal users and Firefox fans when it comes to making Firefox independent from Google and ready for the future. They'd rather feed these loyal users to the lions that they promised to protect them from for over twenty years. It honestly blows my mind.
02-28-2025 09:08 AM - edited 02-28-2025 09:38 AM
OK, I know how I read this.
Firefox sends my data to Mozilla who then, perhaps with some anonymisation or aggregation (which might or might not work), sell [edit: or share] it on to their ‘partners’ for Mozilla’s commercial benefit. So, you now cannot legally say you’re not selling our data from FireFox because you are selling our data.
All that about honesty and transparency now feels even more false, because you won’t say ‘yes, we do sell your data’ to the question.
02-28-2025 10:28 AM
@AshleyT wrote: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.
Yet. Looking over Firefox Privacy Notice provided in the blog post, there's interesting bit i might point at the fact, it's explicitly discloses that you have intention (as I going to interpret) to serve us advertisements, so data you collect on us within said ToS might be used for advertisement within browser on "New Tab" page:
To serve relevant content and advertising on Firefox New Tab
We use technical data, language preference, and location to serve content and advertising on the Firefox New Tab page in the correct format (i.e. for mobile vs desktop), language, and relevant location. Mozilla collects technical and interaction data, such as the position, size, views and clicks on New Tab content or ads, to understand how people are interacting with our content and to personalize future content, including sponsored content. This data may be shared with our advertising partners on a de-identified or aggregated basis.
In some instances, when ads are enabled on New Tab, additional browsing data may also be processed locally on your device to measure the effectiveness of those ads; such data will only be shared with Mozilla and/or our advertising partners via our privacy-preserving technologies on an aggregated and/or de-identified basis.
And I'm honestly in a big doubt that privacy-preserving tech, that quote is mentioning will help to protect it. In this day and age of technology, it's very easy to identify and track on person, within anonymized pool of data from multiple sources advertising companies have on hand, which they sourced from other companies. Like with a freedom, if you give even a small bit of privacy, you will give it all. I'm not convinced with your motives, Firefox. Not a chance. You lost a bit of my trust with AI stuff, now this. I might jump ship if this continues.
02-28-2025 11:44 AM
killing your product and angering your userbase is not commercially viable, overpaying incompetent CEOs is not commercially viable, making everyone hate mozilla and stop donating doesn't seem to be so commercially viable either !
02-28-2025 01:13 PM
Its a non profit its not supposed to be "commercially viable". How about you just tell the community how much money exactly you hope this massive breach of trust and good will earns you.
02-28-2025 02:31 PM
Why did you (Mozilla) put a time bomb on all references to not selling data on the website? What does Mozilla have planned for 25-04-2025?
02-28-2025 02:31 PM - edited 02-28-2025 03:10 PM
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).
OK, but do you realise that privacy isn't the only reason that people object to the online advertising economy?
Online ads don't just compromise our privacy - they steal our attention and ens---tify the web.
I don't want my data to contribute to that malevolent "ecosystem", regardless of how anonymised and aggregated it is. Looks like Mozilla no longer shares my values.
Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you (in the way that most people think about “selling data“)
I don't know about "most people". But it certainly sounds Mozilla is planning to do what I think of as "selling data about me".
02-28-2025 12:55 AM
Why not just have a paid subscription option? Why do we have just straight to selling our data?
02-28-2025 01:52 AM - edited 02-28-2025 01:54 AM
Firefox, I still rmember when you where the promising new kid on the block. Sad to see you go over to the dark side. RIP.
You will be uninstalled from my and my families devices.