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Mozilla is Introducing 'Terms of Use' to Firefox | Also about to go into effect is an updated privacy notice (www.omgubuntu.co.uk)

submitted 15 hours ago* (last edited 15 hours ago) by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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Hot off the back of its recent leadership rejig, Mozilla has announced users of Firefox will soon be subject to a ‘Terms of Use’ policy — a first for the iconic open source web browser.

This official Terms of Use will, Mozilla argues, offer users ‘more transparency’ over their ‘rights and permissions’ as they use Firefox to browse the information superhighway — as well well as Mozilla’s “rights” to help them do it, as this excerpt makes clear:

You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet.

When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.

Also about to go into effect is an updated privacy notice (aka privacy policy). This adds a crop of cushy caveats to cover the company’s planned AI chatbot integrations, cloud-based service features, and more ads and sponsored content on Firefox New Tab page.

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[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 14 points 12 hours ago (1 children)

Look at the links in my comment, and you'll see that all of the categories of telemetry data there can be opted out of with that single switch.

JFC please read the actual documents instead of going "nothing about opting out" when it's literally right there.

[–] solrize@lemmy.world -1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

They use the term telemetry in a special way. If they are collecting info from users, that is telemetry under a different name, ok fine. Not collecting info means they receive 0 bits.

[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

I truly don't understand what point you're trying to make here.

Mozilla defines telemetry as "data collection." Any collection of data by Mozilla is considered telemetry, as is described by the docs page that is cited on the Telemetry Collection & Deletion page.

If you deselect the Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla option, this disables all telemetry, or in other words, all data collection by Mozilla.

[–] solrize@lemmy.world -2 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

It says

Mozilla will collect light data on usage, such as how frequently people use the feature overall,

That says to me they want to know (among other things) how many browser users make zero use of the AI feature. To acquire that info, they have to collect it. You have to assume the worst when you see phrasing like that.

[–] SqueakyBeaver@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 hours ago

Ah yes, they're going to collect all those 0's /s

No, they're going to collect a "this person used the chatbot sidebar" if that person has telemetry enabled. That's it.

If something changes or comes to light, then I'll be worried, but this just seems like normal technical data they use to know what to prioritize.