Firefox is trying to gain back user trust with this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=O-xyNkvIB9g
This is a legit question: Should anybody trust Firefox again unless they put “we won’t sell your data” back into the privacy policy? I’m actually not sure if they haven’t already done so, let me elaborate:
https://brave.com/privacy/browser/ Brave: “We do not sell, trade, or transfer your information to any third parties.” This seems to obviously be in the legally binding text part. As is this one: “It’s Brave’s policy to not collect personal data1 unless it’s necessary to provide services to our users, or to meet certain legal obligations. We do not buy or sell personal data about consumers.” (Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer.)
However, for Firefox it seems ambiguous to me, which worries me: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/#notice There is no appearance of “sell” in the entire privacy document, excpet for the top summary where i’m not sure if it’s at all legally non-binding.
Does anybody know if it is legally binding? If Mozilla were serious about it, why would they leave it ambiguous whether it is…?
Based on that, I’m not sure if Mozilla’s video about getting users back is worth trusting. I wonder if it’s just me.
Update for clarification: I’m not using Brave myself, and this isn’t a suggestion anybody should blindly do so.
Very funny to mention Brave like it’s a normal browser.
Why wait for that to start distrusting FF https://lemmy.ml/c/librewolf
OP works for Brave. Original post is just an ad.
I use Librewolf myself, but I’m concerned about upstream Firefox dying so this whole situation frustrates me. The only reason I mention Brave is because Brave is also a company (unlike Librewolf) and has a Terms of use to compare Mozilla to (unlike Librewolf).
I just know from a privacy standpoint that I always understood Brave to be a hardcore no even dating back to 2018.
That could be true, I honestly don’t know. The crypto stuff in Brave definitely seems weird.
Could you link where they say that?
Regardless, they are afflicted by Lawyer Brain and need to hike it to BlueSky
The reasoning for Firefox changing their policy is that legally, in some jurisdictions, a sale of data is very ambiguous.
They are sending a “count of active users” to advertisers, which their legal team thinks counts as a sale of private data.
Is this good enough a reason? Up to you really. Their policy is fairly wide open for further actual data sales now, it certainly gives me an itchy feeling.
So why can Brave still have that clause? That’s what I don’t get. I also feel like Mozilla could try to do something like “we don’t ever sell your data, except this one corner case” and just explain it, but it seems like they didn’t even bother. (I could be completely misunderstanding things and perhaps I’m being unfair here. It’s just how it comes across to me as an uninformed doofus.)
You’d have to ask Braves lawyers. It could just be that Mozilla is more risk averse, perhaps brave thinks they won’t be sued.
It would be nice if they were clearer, but I think they don’t want to (or legally cant) define exactly what they do.
Trust is hard to gain, very easy to lose. And much harder to regain, once its lost.
I have been a Firefox user since… its Mosaic days. And even after Chrome became a thing, FF remained my default choice. It was just my browser, I would shrug at anyone telling me Chrome was so much better.
Alas, their recent switch in regards to data/ads and after that their focus on AI, after a few previous decisions of them that quite worried me too, convinced me to do what I had never imagined I would do: replace FF as my default browser.
I now use Waterfox, and if Firefox is still installed on my Linux box I have not used it since (I’m a liar: I clicked it once, out of habit). I just don’t feel comfortable using it, it’s not my browser anymore. It’s just a browser, like Chrome or Edge, some corp is trying to force feed me, and to screw me with. Thx, but no.
I would love to see FF change path and regain my trust. But this will take some efforts.
Used Firefox for god knows how long. Reading your post made me want to try out Waterfox and I must say I really really like it so far. Gonna keep using it and maybe I’ll even uninstall Firefox down the line.
No need to rush a decision, give it a swirl and you will see ;)
Single reason it’s my main browser still are addon functionality.
Interesting, it’s also not a chapter in https://browser.engineering/
That being said I imagine Google messed up the whole landscape with its Manifest V3 situation.
Also I imagine after a certain expertise threshold, one can relatively easily re-create an addon themselves. I’m thinking people who are familiar with Tridactyl or GreaseMonkey might not be as sensitive as this problematic.
They legally cannot state that they will not sell data, because - according to some states’ laws - things like “XX% of users utilise Google as their primary search engine” is already “selling user data”.
Because they use user data to calculate that percentage, and it’s being used in relationship with Google who is paying Mozilla.
If this one corner case is the reason, why doesn’t Mozilla put it into the legal text? I feel like the ambiguity hurts their position here. That Mozilla is silent about specifics in the legal text, seems rather scary to me.
Because it’s not one corner case. There are multiple - they have other sponsors and advertisers.
I meant specifying the corner case of what exact type of data is shared, not an exhaustive list of companies it’s shared with that would inevitably go out of date.
I meant specifying the corner case of what exact type of data is shared
You mean this?
not an exhaustive list of companies
You mean this?
that would inevitably go out of date.
They, and everybody else who shares user data, are legally obligated to keep track of said data and have that published and available for both users and other companies.
“Technical data”, “Interaction Data”, very specific, uh-uh. (I’m being sarcastic.) The latter especially sounds like it can be literally a keylogger. Update: it isn’t, see response, but it e.g. seems to include all sites and sub pages visited which already seems fairly bad.
I would love for Mozilla to fix this, which is why I try to be pragmatic and concrete. But so far, they don’t seem willing to do so.
I would love for Mozilla to fix this, which is why I try to be pragmatic and concrete. But so far, they don’t seem willing to do so.
Here’s the problem - people don’t care if the information is there or not. Microsoft has been disclosing their required telemetry data for years and people still thing it’s an invasion of their privacy.
Take you for example - I gave you a source, you checked 1/3rd of the information in it and started complaining.
Why am I assuming you didn’t bother to read the whole thing? Because you’re claiming that “technical data” is too obscure of a term to figure out what it is. “Interaction Data”, in your words, “can be literally a keylogger”, right? Well, it’s very clearly defined in the table:
Click counts, impression data, attribution data, how many searches performed, time on page, ad and sponsored tile clicks.
Which of these would you consider to be “literally a keylogger”, hmm?
Point taken and I appreciate the correction, but it still seems to include e.g. all URLs which could leak all your search queries and other rather invasive conclusions. If anything, this makes me feel like it confirms Mozilla does sell data it shouldn’t. I’m not trying to impose my personal conclusions on others, however.
Buying the company usually means buying all of their user information as well. Other companies can change their policies too. I think you should judge them by their actions, and give them a chance to answer your questions before you condemn them.
(Did you try asking them about your concerns?)
Since there are alternatives, I don’t find that argument too compelling. I’m hoping people will continue to speak up about this though. Ideally I would want Mozilla to do better with their policy, assuming they actually act nice and just aren’t very good at making their policy sound like it.
Lynx doesn’t sell your data, use it
Shit post
Frustration post
Maybe mozilla is just more honest than crypto and affiliate scammers? They all sell your data , just have to try and give as little as possible to them.
I think when they defended the removal they said they changed it because the definition of “sell” was quite broad in some jurisdictions
https://brave.com/privacy/browser/ Brave: “We do not sell, trade, or transfer your information to any third parties.” This is obviously in the legally binding text part.
This is only for data that the user transmits to them in conjunction with feedback.
Here’s another quote: “It’s Brave’s policy to not collect personal data1 unless it’s necessary to provide services to our users, or to meet certain legal obligations. We do not buy or sell personal data about consumers.” That one isn’t in the feedback section.
Problem with FOSS movement happened is not all parts are self sustainable. Which leads to market fit revenue system which is basically selling data as of now. Hope this changes in future.
Have you tried waterfox?
Owned by an advertising companyNot true anymore, my badNo, that has changed since almost 3 years.
Source: https://www.waterfox.com/blog/a-new-chapter-for-waterfox/
Please verify before you accidentally spread misinformation.
I was not aware this, will edit the comment. Thank you!
deleted by creator
FWIW I don’t recommend starting a post about selling data where the very first link points to a Google product.
Consider next time not linking to YouTube but instead the blog post that linked to it and ideally an alternative more privacy conscious frontend, e.g. invidious.
It seems like the official original source for this video is Youtube.
I switched to waterfox, I will never trust Mozilla again for a wide variety of reasons.
The problem with forks is that you need to trust the original party (Mozilla) AND the developer of the fork. Also, that fork will inevitably lag in security updates coming from the original party.
Firefox is still pretty customizable with user and enterprise policies, and most telemetry can be disabled. They have shown that they listen to their userbase, even if capitalism forces the for-profit part to make cuestionable decisions.
