Firefox updated their Terms of Use?
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Firefox updated their Terms of Use? Let's see!
As you type a search query within Firefox, Firefox offers search suggestions to provide you with faster and more direct access to what you’re looking for. Some of the search suggestions come from your search provider (“Search Suggestions”). Others come from Firefox, and are based on information stored on your local device (including recent search terms, open tabs, and previously visited URLs), or content from Mozilla and Mozilla’s partners, including paid sponsors and internet resources like Wikipedia (“Suggestions from Firefox”).
Here chat. Here. This is where Firefox dies.
"information stored in your local device" and "content from mozilla's parners" and "paid sponsors".
This is a very convoluted way of saying "we use your personal data to segment you into something we can sell to advertisers".
This is EXACTLY what chrome does, this is exactly why a lot of us stopped using Chrome and moved back to Firefox.In some circumstances Mozilla’s partners will receive de-identified search and interaction data, in order to serve relevant suggestions and measure user engagement with suggested content.
This is making me really mad. THIS IS JUST CORPO-SPEAK TO DESCRIBE HOW THE ENTIRE INTERNET ADVERTISEMENT INDUSTRY WORKS. This is HOW FACEBOOK WORK. This is how GOOGLE WORK. This is how the entire programmatic advertisement industry work. This is what we call "sell your personal data". No, no one sells your address, no one sells your name. BECAUSE IT'S ILLEGAL IN A SIGNIFICANT PART OF THE WORLD.We also work with advertising providers to deliver relevant sponsored content using programmatic technologies. To support this, we may share limited, non-identifying information — such as device type, IP-derived location information, and category of content viewed — to help determine which ads to display. We don’t share any information that identifies you. You can turn off sponsored content in your New Tab settings at any time.
Oh it's so nice of you Mozilla, to do THE MINIMUM LEGAL REQUIREMENTS when selling our data. You don't share information that identify me? so nice of you! you know how else does that? Meta! Google! Tiktok! Somehow big tech mega corporations are willing to comply with the minimum legal requirements as you do, mozilla!In some cases, we may share or publish aggregated and anonymized data to facilitate research or as part of the lawful business purposes outlined above (such as sharing aggregated insights with advertising partners).
This is called "advertisement segmentation" and it's what it paid for Zuckenberg fortress in Hawaii!! Going places, Moz, you are operating exactly as how Facebook used to do in 2016!To provide our services as described above, we may disclose personal data to: Partners, service providers, suppliers and contractors
"We never disclose your personal data!!! well, unless it's one of our partners who pays us for it, of course!"
oh wait! they include a table of what kind of data they share with partners!Technical dataLocationLanguage preferenceSettings dataUnique identifiersSystem performance dataInteraction dataSearch dataBrowsing data
The SHARE FUCKING EVERYTHING. THEY ARE SELLING EVERYTHING. "Unique identifiers" is the closest to personal identifiable data they can sell. That's what advertisers can use to make a profile of you: They may not know your name, but they will know everything else about you.
This is the same information that google collects and sells from you. THE SAME.
Fucking ghouls. This is where Firefox died, folks.I think this is not nearly as bad as it looks when you thoroughly examine the terms and privacy policy. First, it says in their privacy policy that:
Note: Firefox does not share information like your browsing history, search queries, or saved passwords with marketing technology partners. Mozilla only collects the data necessary to measure and improve our marketing campaigns.
(in the "to market our services" section, far right column.)A lot of the scary data is used for ads on the new tab page, which first of all you can opt-out of, and secondly that data is processed on-device according to Mozilla. They never see it, and neither do the sponsors. Your browser gets a list of sponsors from Mozilla and decides on-device which ones to show you based on your history.
Mozilla has an entire page explaining all the identifiable information they scrub to prevent you from being tracked by their ads. I know some people don't like having opt-out ads at all, but frankly tracking-free ads with an opt-out switch are completely fine. Developing a browser costs money, and it seems like Mozilla has found a way to get that money without compromising on privacy. Could Mozilla communicate about this better? Yeah, absolutely. However, saying "this is where Firefox dies" is irresponsible fearmongering.
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I think this is not nearly as bad as it looks when you thoroughly examine the terms and privacy policy. First, it says in their privacy policy that:
Note: Firefox does not share information like your browsing history, search queries, or saved passwords with marketing technology partners. Mozilla only collects the data necessary to measure and improve our marketing campaigns.
(in the "to market our services" section, far right column.)A lot of the scary data is used for ads on the new tab page, which first of all you can opt-out of, and secondly that data is processed on-device according to Mozilla. They never see it, and neither do the sponsors. Your browser gets a list of sponsors from Mozilla and decides on-device which ones to show you based on your history.
Mozilla has an entire page explaining all the identifiable information they scrub to prevent you from being tracked by their ads. I know some people don't like having opt-out ads at all, but frankly tracking-free ads with an opt-out switch are completely fine. Developing a browser costs money, and it seems like Mozilla has found a way to get that money without compromising on privacy. Could Mozilla communicate about this better? Yeah, absolutely. However, saying "this is where Firefox dies" is irresponsible fearmongering.
Nope. They explain in the ToS they are now using programmatic ads. Programmatic ads work by Mozilla sharing anonymized data about you with advertisers, so they can target their campaigns at your profile. These profiles are compiled by Mozilla from the personal data they have from you.
This is exactly how the advertisement model of Google or Facebook work. The "processed on device" is just smoke and mirrors to make you think they are more ethical than them: the product they sell is exactly the same, the usage they do of your data is the same, the data they share about is the same. -
And to be 100% clear: Mozilla didn't found any way to sell data without compromising our privacy. Their way is the same model Facebook has been using for over a decade. What they found is a gimmick they can use for PR and trick people who don't understand how the online advertising industry works
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Firefox updated their Terms of Use? Let's see!
As you type a search query within Firefox, Firefox offers search suggestions to provide you with faster and more direct access to what you’re looking for. Some of the search suggestions come from your search provider (“Search Suggestions”). Others come from Firefox, and are based on information stored on your local device (including recent search terms, open tabs, and previously visited URLs), or content from Mozilla and Mozilla’s partners, including paid sponsors and internet resources like Wikipedia (“Suggestions from Firefox”).
Here chat. Here. This is where Firefox dies.
"information stored in your local device" and "content from mozilla's parners" and "paid sponsors".
This is a very convoluted way of saying "we use your personal data to segment you into something we can sell to advertisers".
This is EXACTLY what chrome does, this is exactly why a lot of us stopped using Chrome and moved back to Firefox.In some circumstances Mozilla’s partners will receive de-identified search and interaction data, in order to serve relevant suggestions and measure user engagement with suggested content.
This is making me really mad. THIS IS JUST CORPO-SPEAK TO DESCRIBE HOW THE ENTIRE INTERNET ADVERTISEMENT INDUSTRY WORKS. This is HOW FACEBOOK WORK. This is how GOOGLE WORK. This is how the entire programmatic advertisement industry work. This is what we call "sell your personal data". No, no one sells your address, no one sells your name. BECAUSE IT'S ILLEGAL IN A SIGNIFICANT PART OF THE WORLD.We also work with advertising providers to deliver relevant sponsored content using programmatic technologies. To support this, we may share limited, non-identifying information — such as device type, IP-derived location information, and category of content viewed — to help determine which ads to display. We don’t share any information that identifies you. You can turn off sponsored content in your New Tab settings at any time.
Oh it's so nice of you Mozilla, to do THE MINIMUM LEGAL REQUIREMENTS when selling our data. You don't share information that identify me? so nice of you! you know how else does that? Meta! Google! Tiktok! Somehow big tech mega corporations are willing to comply with the minimum legal requirements as you do, mozilla!In some cases, we may share or publish aggregated and anonymized data to facilitate research or as part of the lawful business purposes outlined above (such as sharing aggregated insights with advertising partners).
This is called "advertisement segmentation" and it's what it paid for Zuckenberg fortress in Hawaii!! Going places, Moz, you are operating exactly as how Facebook used to do in 2016!To provide our services as described above, we may disclose personal data to: Partners, service providers, suppliers and contractors
"We never disclose your personal data!!! well, unless it's one of our partners who pays us for it, of course!"
oh wait! they include a table of what kind of data they share with partners!Technical dataLocationLanguage preferenceSettings dataUnique identifiersSystem performance dataInteraction dataSearch dataBrowsing data
The SHARE FUCKING EVERYTHING. THEY ARE SELLING EVERYTHING. "Unique identifiers" is the closest to personal identifiable data they can sell. That's what advertisers can use to make a profile of you: They may not know your name, but they will know everything else about you.
This is the same information that google collects and sells from you. THE SAME.
Fucking ghouls. This is where Firefox died, folks.@javi guess its back to qutebrowser?🥴
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Firefox updated their Terms of Use? Let's see!
As you type a search query within Firefox, Firefox offers search suggestions to provide you with faster and more direct access to what you’re looking for. Some of the search suggestions come from your search provider (“Search Suggestions”). Others come from Firefox, and are based on information stored on your local device (including recent search terms, open tabs, and previously visited URLs), or content from Mozilla and Mozilla’s partners, including paid sponsors and internet resources like Wikipedia (“Suggestions from Firefox”).
Here chat. Here. This is where Firefox dies.
"information stored in your local device" and "content from mozilla's parners" and "paid sponsors".
This is a very convoluted way of saying "we use your personal data to segment you into something we can sell to advertisers".
This is EXACTLY what chrome does, this is exactly why a lot of us stopped using Chrome and moved back to Firefox.In some circumstances Mozilla’s partners will receive de-identified search and interaction data, in order to serve relevant suggestions and measure user engagement with suggested content.
This is making me really mad. THIS IS JUST CORPO-SPEAK TO DESCRIBE HOW THE ENTIRE INTERNET ADVERTISEMENT INDUSTRY WORKS. This is HOW FACEBOOK WORK. This is how GOOGLE WORK. This is how the entire programmatic advertisement industry work. This is what we call "sell your personal data". No, no one sells your address, no one sells your name. BECAUSE IT'S ILLEGAL IN A SIGNIFICANT PART OF THE WORLD.We also work with advertising providers to deliver relevant sponsored content using programmatic technologies. To support this, we may share limited, non-identifying information — such as device type, IP-derived location information, and category of content viewed — to help determine which ads to display. We don’t share any information that identifies you. You can turn off sponsored content in your New Tab settings at any time.
Oh it's so nice of you Mozilla, to do THE MINIMUM LEGAL REQUIREMENTS when selling our data. You don't share information that identify me? so nice of you! you know how else does that? Meta! Google! Tiktok! Somehow big tech mega corporations are willing to comply with the minimum legal requirements as you do, mozilla!In some cases, we may share or publish aggregated and anonymized data to facilitate research or as part of the lawful business purposes outlined above (such as sharing aggregated insights with advertising partners).
This is called "advertisement segmentation" and it's what it paid for Zuckenberg fortress in Hawaii!! Going places, Moz, you are operating exactly as how Facebook used to do in 2016!To provide our services as described above, we may disclose personal data to: Partners, service providers, suppliers and contractors
"We never disclose your personal data!!! well, unless it's one of our partners who pays us for it, of course!"
oh wait! they include a table of what kind of data they share with partners!Technical dataLocationLanguage preferenceSettings dataUnique identifiersSystem performance dataInteraction dataSearch dataBrowsing data
The SHARE FUCKING EVERYTHING. THEY ARE SELLING EVERYTHING. "Unique identifiers" is the closest to personal identifiable data they can sell. That's what advertisers can use to make a profile of you: They may not know your name, but they will know everything else about you.
This is the same information that google collects and sells from you. THE SAME.
Fucking ghouls. This is where Firefox died, folks.@javi I don’t really want to defend Firefox, they’ve certainly made some questionable choices. But this is all wrong. What this text is saying: search suggestions don’t all come from the same place. There are the search suggestions from the search engine of your choice – these are the only ones where a third party is involved, and that third party doesn’t get any of your data. Firefox will also suggest matches from your history, bookmarks and open tabs – this is done locally. Showing sponsored suggestions is also done locally. You don’t have to like them but there is no privacy issue here.
The language of the privacy policy is certainly not optimal (due to legal requirements I guess) but I’m mostly certain that “partners will received de-identified search and interaction data” talks about Mozilla Telemetry. This feature lives under “Firefox Data Collection and Use” in the Firefox settings, you are free to uncheck everything. I did so a while ago but not because I object to this functionality as such, I rather disliked the way they pseudonymize the data – they could have done better.
Showing ads in New Tab certainly was and is a controversial topic. Regardless of the language in the Privacy Policy however, implementing this in the least privacy invading way was part of the point here. Again: you don’t have to like Mozilla showing you ads (and personally I chose that I don’t want to see them), but privacy-wise their implementation isn’t even remotely comparable to what any website you are visiting does.
None of this is really new. All of this has been around for at least a decade I think, often way longer. I’m not sure what exactly prompted your post, did they change the language of the privacy policy? It’s a lot of legal ass covering and generalization here which says very little about what the browser is actually doing.
Disclaimer: It has been a while since I last looked at Firefox source code. But I doubt that things changed radically since then.
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Firefox updated their Terms of Use? Let's see!
As you type a search query within Firefox, Firefox offers search suggestions to provide you with faster and more direct access to what you’re looking for. Some of the search suggestions come from your search provider (“Search Suggestions”). Others come from Firefox, and are based on information stored on your local device (including recent search terms, open tabs, and previously visited URLs), or content from Mozilla and Mozilla’s partners, including paid sponsors and internet resources like Wikipedia (“Suggestions from Firefox”).
Here chat. Here. This is where Firefox dies.
"information stored in your local device" and "content from mozilla's parners" and "paid sponsors".
This is a very convoluted way of saying "we use your personal data to segment you into something we can sell to advertisers".
This is EXACTLY what chrome does, this is exactly why a lot of us stopped using Chrome and moved back to Firefox.In some circumstances Mozilla’s partners will receive de-identified search and interaction data, in order to serve relevant suggestions and measure user engagement with suggested content.
This is making me really mad. THIS IS JUST CORPO-SPEAK TO DESCRIBE HOW THE ENTIRE INTERNET ADVERTISEMENT INDUSTRY WORKS. This is HOW FACEBOOK WORK. This is how GOOGLE WORK. This is how the entire programmatic advertisement industry work. This is what we call "sell your personal data". No, no one sells your address, no one sells your name. BECAUSE IT'S ILLEGAL IN A SIGNIFICANT PART OF THE WORLD.We also work with advertising providers to deliver relevant sponsored content using programmatic technologies. To support this, we may share limited, non-identifying information — such as device type, IP-derived location information, and category of content viewed — to help determine which ads to display. We don’t share any information that identifies you. You can turn off sponsored content in your New Tab settings at any time.
Oh it's so nice of you Mozilla, to do THE MINIMUM LEGAL REQUIREMENTS when selling our data. You don't share information that identify me? so nice of you! you know how else does that? Meta! Google! Tiktok! Somehow big tech mega corporations are willing to comply with the minimum legal requirements as you do, mozilla!In some cases, we may share or publish aggregated and anonymized data to facilitate research or as part of the lawful business purposes outlined above (such as sharing aggregated insights with advertising partners).
This is called "advertisement segmentation" and it's what it paid for Zuckenberg fortress in Hawaii!! Going places, Moz, you are operating exactly as how Facebook used to do in 2016!To provide our services as described above, we may disclose personal data to: Partners, service providers, suppliers and contractors
"We never disclose your personal data!!! well, unless it's one of our partners who pays us for it, of course!"
oh wait! they include a table of what kind of data they share with partners!Technical dataLocationLanguage preferenceSettings dataUnique identifiersSystem performance dataInteraction dataSearch dataBrowsing data
The SHARE FUCKING EVERYTHING. THEY ARE SELLING EVERYTHING. "Unique identifiers" is the closest to personal identifiable data they can sell. That's what advertisers can use to make a profile of you: They may not know your name, but they will know everything else about you.
This is the same information that google collects and sells from you. THE SAME.
Fucking ghouls. This is where Firefox died, folks.I strongly recommend the librewolf fork. I switched a while ago for other pragmatic reasons - some pop-ups on stock firefox went away under librewolf. But it should also be better around the monetization, of which so far as I can tell there is none. And it's otherwise compatible so far less painful than a bigger jump to an entirely different browser.
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Firefox updated their Terms of Use? Let's see!
As you type a search query within Firefox, Firefox offers search suggestions to provide you with faster and more direct access to what you’re looking for. Some of the search suggestions come from your search provider (“Search Suggestions”). Others come from Firefox, and are based on information stored on your local device (including recent search terms, open tabs, and previously visited URLs), or content from Mozilla and Mozilla’s partners, including paid sponsors and internet resources like Wikipedia (“Suggestions from Firefox”).
Here chat. Here. This is where Firefox dies.
"information stored in your local device" and "content from mozilla's parners" and "paid sponsors".
This is a very convoluted way of saying "we use your personal data to segment you into something we can sell to advertisers".
This is EXACTLY what chrome does, this is exactly why a lot of us stopped using Chrome and moved back to Firefox.In some circumstances Mozilla’s partners will receive de-identified search and interaction data, in order to serve relevant suggestions and measure user engagement with suggested content.
This is making me really mad. THIS IS JUST CORPO-SPEAK TO DESCRIBE HOW THE ENTIRE INTERNET ADVERTISEMENT INDUSTRY WORKS. This is HOW FACEBOOK WORK. This is how GOOGLE WORK. This is how the entire programmatic advertisement industry work. This is what we call "sell your personal data". No, no one sells your address, no one sells your name. BECAUSE IT'S ILLEGAL IN A SIGNIFICANT PART OF THE WORLD.We also work with advertising providers to deliver relevant sponsored content using programmatic technologies. To support this, we may share limited, non-identifying information — such as device type, IP-derived location information, and category of content viewed — to help determine which ads to display. We don’t share any information that identifies you. You can turn off sponsored content in your New Tab settings at any time.
Oh it's so nice of you Mozilla, to do THE MINIMUM LEGAL REQUIREMENTS when selling our data. You don't share information that identify me? so nice of you! you know how else does that? Meta! Google! Tiktok! Somehow big tech mega corporations are willing to comply with the minimum legal requirements as you do, mozilla!In some cases, we may share or publish aggregated and anonymized data to facilitate research or as part of the lawful business purposes outlined above (such as sharing aggregated insights with advertising partners).
This is called "advertisement segmentation" and it's what it paid for Zuckenberg fortress in Hawaii!! Going places, Moz, you are operating exactly as how Facebook used to do in 2016!To provide our services as described above, we may disclose personal data to: Partners, service providers, suppliers and contractors
"We never disclose your personal data!!! well, unless it's one of our partners who pays us for it, of course!"
oh wait! they include a table of what kind of data they share with partners!Technical dataLocationLanguage preferenceSettings dataUnique identifiersSystem performance dataInteraction dataSearch dataBrowsing data
The SHARE FUCKING EVERYTHING. THEY ARE SELLING EVERYTHING. "Unique identifiers" is the closest to personal identifiable data they can sell. That's what advertisers can use to make a profile of you: They may not know your name, but they will know everything else about you.
This is the same information that google collects and sells from you. THE SAME.
Fucking ghouls. This is where Firefox died, folks.@javi *laughs in Lynx*
LYNX – The Text Web-Browser
Thomas Dickey is the maintainer/developer of the Lynx text-browser. This page gives some background and pointers to Lynx resources.
(lynx.invisible-island.net)
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Firefox updated their Terms of Use? Let's see!
As you type a search query within Firefox, Firefox offers search suggestions to provide you with faster and more direct access to what you’re looking for. Some of the search suggestions come from your search provider (“Search Suggestions”). Others come from Firefox, and are based on information stored on your local device (including recent search terms, open tabs, and previously visited URLs), or content from Mozilla and Mozilla’s partners, including paid sponsors and internet resources like Wikipedia (“Suggestions from Firefox”).
Here chat. Here. This is where Firefox dies.
"information stored in your local device" and "content from mozilla's parners" and "paid sponsors".
This is a very convoluted way of saying "we use your personal data to segment you into something we can sell to advertisers".
This is EXACTLY what chrome does, this is exactly why a lot of us stopped using Chrome and moved back to Firefox.In some circumstances Mozilla’s partners will receive de-identified search and interaction data, in order to serve relevant suggestions and measure user engagement with suggested content.
This is making me really mad. THIS IS JUST CORPO-SPEAK TO DESCRIBE HOW THE ENTIRE INTERNET ADVERTISEMENT INDUSTRY WORKS. This is HOW FACEBOOK WORK. This is how GOOGLE WORK. This is how the entire programmatic advertisement industry work. This is what we call "sell your personal data". No, no one sells your address, no one sells your name. BECAUSE IT'S ILLEGAL IN A SIGNIFICANT PART OF THE WORLD.We also work with advertising providers to deliver relevant sponsored content using programmatic technologies. To support this, we may share limited, non-identifying information — such as device type, IP-derived location information, and category of content viewed — to help determine which ads to display. We don’t share any information that identifies you. You can turn off sponsored content in your New Tab settings at any time.
Oh it's so nice of you Mozilla, to do THE MINIMUM LEGAL REQUIREMENTS when selling our data. You don't share information that identify me? so nice of you! you know how else does that? Meta! Google! Tiktok! Somehow big tech mega corporations are willing to comply with the minimum legal requirements as you do, mozilla!In some cases, we may share or publish aggregated and anonymized data to facilitate research or as part of the lawful business purposes outlined above (such as sharing aggregated insights with advertising partners).
This is called "advertisement segmentation" and it's what it paid for Zuckenberg fortress in Hawaii!! Going places, Moz, you are operating exactly as how Facebook used to do in 2016!To provide our services as described above, we may disclose personal data to: Partners, service providers, suppliers and contractors
"We never disclose your personal data!!! well, unless it's one of our partners who pays us for it, of course!"
oh wait! they include a table of what kind of data they share with partners!Technical dataLocationLanguage preferenceSettings dataUnique identifiersSystem performance dataInteraction dataSearch dataBrowsing data
The SHARE FUCKING EVERYTHING. THEY ARE SELLING EVERYTHING. "Unique identifiers" is the closest to personal identifiable data they can sell. That's what advertisers can use to make a profile of you: They may not know your name, but they will know everything else about you.
This is the same information that google collects and sells from you. THE SAME.
Fucking ghouls. This is where Firefox died, folks.@javi Took a trip through searchfox and there's some pretty ominous stuff with "inferred interests" and "private new tab pings" going on especially around the top sites and sponsored suggestions functionalities since last May, see for example https://searchfox.org/firefox-main/source/browser/extensions/newtab/lib/TelemetryFeed.sys.mjs
I would recommend that people sticking with upstream FF disable sponsored everything, top sites, and use enterprise policies to set DisableTelemetry and DisableRemoteImprovements settings to true (sponsored everything can also be disabled through policies).
"Remote improvements" which is often referred to as Nimbus in the code is a facility which Mozilla uses to remotely twiddle your preferences for phased rollouts and perhaps some more nefarious purposes. In some cases the Nimbus preference will override things you have set in about:config. (This appears to use a component called Normandy to access its backend, which is a part of the older "Firefox Studies" thing.)
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@javi I don’t really want to defend Firefox, they’ve certainly made some questionable choices. But this is all wrong. What this text is saying: search suggestions don’t all come from the same place. There are the search suggestions from the search engine of your choice – these are the only ones where a third party is involved, and that third party doesn’t get any of your data. Firefox will also suggest matches from your history, bookmarks and open tabs – this is done locally. Showing sponsored suggestions is also done locally. You don’t have to like them but there is no privacy issue here.
The language of the privacy policy is certainly not optimal (due to legal requirements I guess) but I’m mostly certain that “partners will received de-identified search and interaction data” talks about Mozilla Telemetry. This feature lives under “Firefox Data Collection and Use” in the Firefox settings, you are free to uncheck everything. I did so a while ago but not because I object to this functionality as such, I rather disliked the way they pseudonymize the data – they could have done better.
Showing ads in New Tab certainly was and is a controversial topic. Regardless of the language in the Privacy Policy however, implementing this in the least privacy invading way was part of the point here. Again: you don’t have to like Mozilla showing you ads (and personally I chose that I don’t want to see them), but privacy-wise their implementation isn’t even remotely comparable to what any website you are visiting does.
None of this is really new. All of this has been around for at least a decade I think, often way longer. I’m not sure what exactly prompted your post, did they change the language of the privacy policy? It’s a lot of legal ass covering and generalization here which says very little about what the browser is actually doing.
Disclaimer: It has been a while since I last looked at Firefox source code. But I doubt that things changed radically since then.
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@javi I don’t really want to defend Firefox, they’ve certainly made some questionable choices. But this is all wrong. What this text is saying: search suggestions don’t all come from the same place. There are the search suggestions from the search engine of your choice – these are the only ones where a third party is involved, and that third party doesn’t get any of your data. Firefox will also suggest matches from your history, bookmarks and open tabs – this is done locally. Showing sponsored suggestions is also done locally. You don’t have to like them but there is no privacy issue here.
The language of the privacy policy is certainly not optimal (due to legal requirements I guess) but I’m mostly certain that “partners will received de-identified search and interaction data” talks about Mozilla Telemetry. This feature lives under “Firefox Data Collection and Use” in the Firefox settings, you are free to uncheck everything. I did so a while ago but not because I object to this functionality as such, I rather disliked the way they pseudonymize the data – they could have done better.
Showing ads in New Tab certainly was and is a controversial topic. Regardless of the language in the Privacy Policy however, implementing this in the least privacy invading way was part of the point here. Again: you don’t have to like Mozilla showing you ads (and personally I chose that I don’t want to see them), but privacy-wise their implementation isn’t even remotely comparable to what any website you are visiting does.
None of this is really new. All of this has been around for at least a decade I think, often way longer. I’m not sure what exactly prompted your post, did they change the language of the privacy policy? It’s a lot of legal ass covering and generalization here which says very little about what the browser is actually doing.
Disclaimer: It has been a while since I last looked at Firefox source code. But I doubt that things changed radically since then.
There are the search suggestions from the search engine of your choice – these are the only ones where a third party is involved
Showing sponsored suggestions is also done locally. You don’t have to like them but there is no privacy issue here.
the TOS:
Firefox fetches suggestions from Mozilla’s servers as you type your query
Mozilla processes this data to serve you relevant suggestions, understand how useful the suggestions are to you, and improve the service.
that is the opposite of local. local'nt
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I strongly recommend the librewolf fork. I switched a while ago for other pragmatic reasons - some pop-ups on stock firefox went away under librewolf. But it should also be better around the monetization, of which so far as I can tell there is none. And it's otherwise compatible so far less painful than a bigger jump to an entirely different browser.
@tbortels @javi woop woop! Now available on #OpenBSD - thanks @libreleah !
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There are the search suggestions from the search engine of your choice – these are the only ones where a third party is involved
Showing sponsored suggestions is also done locally. You don’t have to like them but there is no privacy issue here.
the TOS:
Firefox fetches suggestions from Mozilla’s servers as you type your query
Mozilla processes this data to serve you relevant suggestions, understand how useful the suggestions are to you, and improve the service.
that is the opposite of local. local'nt
@memoria @javi I don’t know what kind of text disaster happened here but this is easy to test. I open the Browser Toolbox, this lets me see all the network traffic including the requests performed by Firefox itself. I type “test” into the search box and get – the expected few requests to Startpage, my search engine.
Ok, this isn’t exactly the default configuration in my browser. I’m starting Firefox with a brand new profile, all default. Enabled remote/browser debugging, opened Browser Toolbox again and typed a search into the location bar. I see the expected requests to Google:
https://www.google.com/complete/search?client=firefox&channel=fen&q=test. There is also a slightly delayed Mozilla Telemetry request and that’s it. With other searches some of Google’s results have preview images, so I see these images being downloaded fromgstatic.com. No difference if I search for “buy” or “shopping” or any typical advertising keywords.Finally, after a while I see a request to
https://ads.mozilla.org/v1/ads-preflight– no data transmitted, this is merely asking the server to geolocate me. The actual request happens via ohttp which the Browser Toolbox doesn’t know how to decode. A quick source code search shows that this request is unrelated to my searches, it is about the ads on New Tab page. There are two possible requests that follow: discovery and top sites, the latter containing the ads. In both cases the server gets that preflight data back and other than that close to nothing. -
@memoria @javi I don’t know what kind of text disaster happened here but this is easy to test. I open the Browser Toolbox, this lets me see all the network traffic including the requests performed by Firefox itself. I type “test” into the search box and get – the expected few requests to Startpage, my search engine.
Ok, this isn’t exactly the default configuration in my browser. I’m starting Firefox with a brand new profile, all default. Enabled remote/browser debugging, opened Browser Toolbox again and typed a search into the location bar. I see the expected requests to Google:
https://www.google.com/complete/search?client=firefox&channel=fen&q=test. There is also a slightly delayed Mozilla Telemetry request and that’s it. With other searches some of Google’s results have preview images, so I see these images being downloaded fromgstatic.com. No difference if I search for “buy” or “shopping” or any typical advertising keywords.Finally, after a while I see a request to
https://ads.mozilla.org/v1/ads-preflight– no data transmitted, this is merely asking the server to geolocate me. The actual request happens via ohttp which the Browser Toolbox doesn’t know how to decode. A quick source code search shows that this request is unrelated to my searches, it is about the ads on New Tab page. There are two possible requests that follow: discovery and top sites, the latter containing the ads. In both cases the server gets that preflight data back and other than that close to nothing.@WPalant @javi you tested the current implementation, which is valuable data, but the current implementation is not the same as mozilla's option to exercise every right they grant themselves in the terms of service. the problem here is that the terms of service communicates future intent, otherwise they wouldn't risk the reputation damage of including this text in a highly visible legal document
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Firefox updated their Terms of Use? Let's see!
As you type a search query within Firefox, Firefox offers search suggestions to provide you with faster and more direct access to what you’re looking for. Some of the search suggestions come from your search provider (“Search Suggestions”). Others come from Firefox, and are based on information stored on your local device (including recent search terms, open tabs, and previously visited URLs), or content from Mozilla and Mozilla’s partners, including paid sponsors and internet resources like Wikipedia (“Suggestions from Firefox”).
Here chat. Here. This is where Firefox dies.
"information stored in your local device" and "content from mozilla's parners" and "paid sponsors".
This is a very convoluted way of saying "we use your personal data to segment you into something we can sell to advertisers".
This is EXACTLY what chrome does, this is exactly why a lot of us stopped using Chrome and moved back to Firefox.In some circumstances Mozilla’s partners will receive de-identified search and interaction data, in order to serve relevant suggestions and measure user engagement with suggested content.
This is making me really mad. THIS IS JUST CORPO-SPEAK TO DESCRIBE HOW THE ENTIRE INTERNET ADVERTISEMENT INDUSTRY WORKS. This is HOW FACEBOOK WORK. This is how GOOGLE WORK. This is how the entire programmatic advertisement industry work. This is what we call "sell your personal data". No, no one sells your address, no one sells your name. BECAUSE IT'S ILLEGAL IN A SIGNIFICANT PART OF THE WORLD.We also work with advertising providers to deliver relevant sponsored content using programmatic technologies. To support this, we may share limited, non-identifying information — such as device type, IP-derived location information, and category of content viewed — to help determine which ads to display. We don’t share any information that identifies you. You can turn off sponsored content in your New Tab settings at any time.
Oh it's so nice of you Mozilla, to do THE MINIMUM LEGAL REQUIREMENTS when selling our data. You don't share information that identify me? so nice of you! you know how else does that? Meta! Google! Tiktok! Somehow big tech mega corporations are willing to comply with the minimum legal requirements as you do, mozilla!In some cases, we may share or publish aggregated and anonymized data to facilitate research or as part of the lawful business purposes outlined above (such as sharing aggregated insights with advertising partners).
This is called "advertisement segmentation" and it's what it paid for Zuckenberg fortress in Hawaii!! Going places, Moz, you are operating exactly as how Facebook used to do in 2016!To provide our services as described above, we may disclose personal data to: Partners, service providers, suppliers and contractors
"We never disclose your personal data!!! well, unless it's one of our partners who pays us for it, of course!"
oh wait! they include a table of what kind of data they share with partners!Technical dataLocationLanguage preferenceSettings dataUnique identifiersSystem performance dataInteraction dataSearch dataBrowsing data
The SHARE FUCKING EVERYTHING. THEY ARE SELLING EVERYTHING. "Unique identifiers" is the closest to personal identifiable data they can sell. That's what advertisers can use to make a profile of you: They may not know your name, but they will know everything else about you.
This is the same information that google collects and sells from you. THE SAME.
Fucking ghouls. This is where Firefox died, folks.@javi This is where we use the AI against them. We have an ai teardown the binary and generate source code, that we then remove all the AI from.
🤪 and publish as open source. -
@javi This is where we use the AI against them. We have an ai teardown the binary and generate source code, that we then remove all the AI from.
🤪 and publish as open source.The code is already open source
