Despite all the justified doubts and concerns, it's also worth noting that Mozilla runs one of the few independent browser engines left, with limited ways to actually fund it.
When they're not here anymore, there aren't many parties left to argue about web standards in favor of a free web.
So I'd keep watching them as always, without painting them as evil just because of some misstep...
"The Firefox Browser is the only major browser backed by a not-for-profit that doesn’t sell your personal data to advertisers while helping you protect your personal information."
Now just says.
"The Firefox Browser, the only major browser backed by a not-for-profit, helps you protect your personal information."
This is not some misstep, it is the breaking of a promise.
If I remember correctly, more than 50% of their revenue came from Google Search in the past.
They are now at 2.6% market-share, I can imagine that revenue-stream is making it hard to keep the lights on.
It's sad that it came to this, but somewhat understandable as they don't really have these other lucrative side-businesses of Google, Apple, Microsoft.
FWIW, the change is that the new wording allows them to build a revenue-stream based on telemetry data, while the original wording prohibits them from such a financing model at all.
Outside of Europe this might be significant, but in European legal context the difference is that they could now ASK you if you allow them to use your telemetry to create revenue, and only do it IF YOU AGREE (small nudge to push for privacy-friendly laws).
I would say they are changing the promise, not breaking it. Breaking it would have been if they sold data with the old description (which is not the case, is it?).
Since they claim that they are not changing the promise, only being more clear about it, the implication is that they did sell data under the old description.
The definition of the word "sell" has a different meaning in a post-AI world and in specific California have a new bill adding some other contexts to it, so despite not actually doing anything differently (go and look at the Firefox source tree if you don't believe me) they have to change their wording.
ETA: Setting Google as their default search engine in exchange for funding from Google has been cited as an example of "selling user data to Google", if you'd like a concrete example of what I'm talking about.
> 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.”
I have. That is and has been an accurate description of selling data. Feel free to explain what you feel the change is definition is and maybe this community can help you see how there is no difference at all.
Does it matter if they weren't arguing in favor of a free web to begin with? Quite the opposite in fact; their stated stance is they want to remove people they disagree with from the web.
Despite all the justified doubts and concerns, it's also worth noting that Mozilla runs one of the few independent browser engines left, with limited ways to actually fund it.
When they're not here anymore, there aren't many parties left to argue about web standards in favor of a free web.
So I'd keep watching them as always, without painting them as evil just because of some misstep...