this post was submitted on 28 Feb 2025

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Firefox deletes promise to never sell personal data, asks users not to panic | Mozilla says it deleted promise because "sale of data" is defined broadly (arstechnica.com)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Firefox maker Mozilla deleted a promise to never sell its users' personal data and is trying to assure worried users that its approach to privacy hasn't fundamentally changed. Until recently, a Firefox FAQ promised that the browser maker never has and never will sell its users' personal data. An archived version from January 30 says:

Does Firefox sell your personal 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.

That promise is removed from the current version. There's also a notable change in a data privacy FAQ that used to say, "Mozilla doesn't sell data about you, and we don't buy data about you."

The data privacy FAQ now explains that Mozilla is no longer making blanket promises about not selling data because some legal jurisdictions define "sale" in a very broad way:

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).

Mozilla didn't say which legal jurisdictions have these broad definitions.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Trust me bro

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

lmao another Mozilla shitshow

grabs popcorn 🍿

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 months ago

Everything turns to shit in the end.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (6 children)

Women CEOs are as shit as Male CEOs. Who would have thunk the war of the sexes was a cause dangled in front of the bougies so the elite could parasitise free from fear of popular revolt huh?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (8 children)

I feel a little vindicated. I started using Firefox basically when it was first released. I migrated away from it after several years because I simply didn't like the direction that Mozilla was taking it. Decades later I see them struggling down the same inevitable path I figured they'd always head down from the beginning.

Firefox bros used to get ultra pissed at me for shitting on their browser because I just knew Mozilla would eventually fuck it all up. And here we are.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (5 children)

palemoon is just firefox from the pre quantum days before the webextension enshittification and all they need is a decent mobile app and their own sync

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (3 children)

Yeah, these guys were late participants in the browser wars. They aren't your friends.

With all things the same i just use duckduckgo because.... ducks!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

Sorry, I'm lost..

Who are you referring to the was late to the browser wars?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Aaaand that's why I switched to Brave. If you have shit performance and are selling my data, what's the redeeming quality? 8gb of RAM should be enough to browse the internet. IDK why Firefox insists it isn't....

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago (4 children)

If Firefox is losing its footing as a privacy focused browser then where do we go? If your on Mac maybe Safari?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 months ago

Any of the Firefox forks. This is Mozilla not Firefox that is making these decisions.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Perhaps Ladybird once it's released?

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 months ago

The screw-ups keep mounting like they want to be Google.

They (and we)'ve got to admit, the solution is not going to come from within their (managerial) ranks.

At this point I'd be happy to offer my services as a BDFL for Mozilla, at but a small fraction of the wages of any of their C-suites.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago

At least Ecosia plants trees, and the way those trees produce oxygen and absorb CO2 is a benefit to me.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (3 children)

So sad. I have used Firefox since 2006. Today I removed it for good from all of my devices. So long old friend. I cant wait for Ladybird to release.

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