Confusion about Firefox: Mozilla changes terms

Firefox's FAQs have recently stated that the personal data of the users of Firefox are protected. Before that, it was explicitly said that they “are not sold to advertisers”. In another place since last week, it has also not been free that Firefox is free and you don't even pay with your data, but only that the browser has “no hidden costs” and you have to pay nothing.

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Some people are worried, so the browser provider is now taking out the sale of the data. In a statement by Mozilla it says: “Mozilla does not sell any data about you (in kind what most people understand by the sale of data) and we do not buy any data about you.” The wording was changed for legal reasons. The term “selling” includes more than people normally combine it.

Firefox and the changed terms of use

As is well known, what is in a FAQ does not correspond to the terms of use or data protection guidelines. There was also a change there – at short notice. Mozilla has already changed it again. It said: “If you upload or enter information from Firefox, hereby grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, global license to use this information in order to help you with navigation, experience and interaction with online content, as you can indicate with your use of Firefox.”

Mozilla reacted to the allegations directly on the same day to call the Passus as a standard phrase. As a result, the Mozilla paragraph does not allow property rights to be granted the data. The statement also says: “We need a license so that we can enable some of the fundamental functions of Firefox. Without you, for example, we could not use the information entered in Firefox.”

In fact, a browser can also be used with minimal data transmission-the best known is probably the Tor browser, which does not even pass on the IP address. However, there are also several browsers that build on the Firefox code base and take even more data protection-friendly ways. Waterfox, for example, does not raise telemtried data and allows unsigned extensions.

However, Firefox, however, is not about data that affects usage behavior and are sold for advertising purposes, but about those that are necessary, so that all the websites visited, for example, also work correctly.

The change in the terms of use does not give Mozilla the right, confirms Mozilla to use the data for something different than what is described in the data protection directive. There it is said: “Mozilla collects certain data, such as technical data and setting data, in order to provide the core functionality of the Firefox browser and the associated services, to differentiate your device from others, to save and consider your settings and to provide you with standard functions such as” New Tab “, PDF processing, password manager and complete cookie protection.”