On Wednesday we shared that we’re introducing a new Terms of Use (TOU) and Privacy Notice for Firefox. Since then, we’ve been listening to some of our community’s concerns with parts of the TOU, specifically about licensing. Our intent was just to be as clear as possible about how we make Firefox work, but in doing so we also created some confusion and concern. With that in mind, we’re updating the language to more clearly reflect the limited scope of how Mozilla interacts with user data.
Here’s what the new language will say:
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.
In addition, we’ve removed the reference to the Acceptable Use Policy because it seems to be causing more confusion than clarity.
Privacy FAQ
We also updated our Privacy FAQ to better address legal minutia around terms like “sells.” While we’re not reverting the FAQ, we want to provide more detail about why we made the change in the first place.
TL;DR 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. We changed our language because some jurisdictions define “sell” more broadly than most people would usually understand that word. Firefox has built-in privacy and security features, plus options that let you fine-tune your data settings.
The reason we’ve stepped away from making blanket claims that “We never sell your data” is because, in some places, the LEGAL definition of “sale of data” is broad and evolving. As an example, the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) defines “sale” as the “selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s personal information by [a] business to another business or a third party” in exchange for “monetary” or “other valuable consideration.”
[…]
Source: An update on our Terms of Use
So this legal definition rhymes with what I would expect “sell” to mean. Don’t transfer my data to a third party – even better, don’t collect my data at all.
It’s a shame, as Firefox is my preferred browser, it’s not based on Google’s browser. So I am looking at the Zen browser and the Floorp browser now.
Robin Edgar
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