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 An archived version from January 30 says: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.
I don’t believe Mozilla doesn’t have the best interests of the browser at heart, I believe that they do think their browser is the their number one product.
But that’s the problem. It’s free software, going up against a juggernaut whose browser is just another side project to drive engagement with their core product.
A juggernaut who just so happens to be one of Mozilla’s primary source of income. All it will take is a little bit of legislation somewhere in the world to make that deal less attractive and Mozilla could be dead in the water. And it will take all of those forks with it, paving the way for Google to become the true web Hegemony.
Mozilla needs to diversify to ensure they can continue to provide stewardship to the browser.
But trying to make money in 2025 just seems to summon the enshittification brigade.
Free software is not free. Someone has to make it.
Have they considered just asking for money? Also getting rid of the giant holes that they keep pouring their money into?
A lot of people love Firefox, and would happily donate. They could also trim a lot of fat at Mozilla quite easily.