The Linux Lugcast Podcast

Mozilla this week asked Firefox users to abide by new Terms of Use, and updated its Privacy Notice as well as an FAQ – only to quickly issue a clarification that it isn’t actually claiming ownership of user data.

Mind you, the language of the Terms of Use document initially suggested as much:

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.

But Mozilla subsequently removed those terms, and insisted it was just necessary boilerplate.

Yes, because it was. Many jurisdictions are passing differing data privacy and security laws, some of which define the "sale" of data as any data ever being transferred to an entity that isn't the one you're directly interacting with. (in this case, Mozilla) Mozilla realized this could present an issue if they claimed to "never sell user data" if "sale" could be interpreted so broadly, so they removed that definitive language and instead updated their terms to clarify usage rights.

The piece of the new terms they cited literally proves my point. "as you indicate with your use of Firefox" is the part that clarifies it's only as you choose to use the information, again, because under some of these laws, using Mozilla's services to interact with the internet could be classified as Mozilla "selling" your data to the services you're interacting with through Firefox. The updated terms mean the exact same thing, but are just more clearly worded:

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.

They even updated their original blog post with a very clear disclaimer, part of which states:

Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example.

They're very clearly just trying to legally clarify how they function to prevent things like frivolous lawsuits based around these newer pieces of data privacy legislation.

The insanely clickbait-y headlines around this are driving me insane with how bad faith and terribly researched they are. Even the ones, like the one above, coming out after the further clarification, just say "Mozilla has said they won't commit to a thing they can't legally commit to, but they argue this is because they can't legally commit to it" and then word the headline in such a way that it primes people to immediately assume the worst possible intent.