Firefox users are getting an updated EULA where Mozilla gets copyright to everything you post online through their browser.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4JOnQY_qbo

If you want to train your AI on stuff I post you’re gonna have to steal it the good old fashioned way.


I think I’m going to go play around with Ladybird for a bit. (BTW, due to be available in 2026. For now I’m switching to a GNU fork of Firefox.)

https://icecatbrowser.org/

Sir, I see that your company has the copyright on about 50000 radical manifestos that encourage violence and overthrow of the government...

I don't agree that Firefox is turning evil. Mental Outlaw is okay, but he gets things wrong often.

Imagine uploading a song online through Firefox and it takes double the bandwidth because you're also sending it to Mozilla, simply isn't happening.

No one is asking for any permission for data to train their AIs anyway. If it's available to take, they simply take. Not only that, but these companies are rarely ever training their own AI models, they outsource this work.

It just isn't logical, and Mozilla clarified what they meant, which made perfect sense to me.

Good to know. Thanks!

There seems to be already changes to the TOA: https://thehackernews.com/2025/03/mozilla-updates-firefox-terms-again.html

Whether the new wording is more or less "evil" is up to lawyers.

Whether the new wording is more or less "evil" is up to lawyers.

I'm certainly no lawyer, but I trust enough my legal knowledge to accept that I see no issue with anything I've read.

Their Privacy Notice is very reasonable and logical. "for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox" this implies that anything it does with your data was with your explicit consent. I would agree this is more narrowly tailored than their last TOA, but I don't see anything wrong with the previous one either.

When we input data into the browser, it has to process it. This is normal, and the policy simply says you're allowing them to do it. Most of the data processing is on your local browser and not even on Mozilla servers.

If you upload a file to a site (like a video to Youtube or song to SoundCloud), it shouldn't go to Mozilla servers, and you wouldn't expect it to.


You can look at their Privacy Notice if you're worried about AI where it says:

Some Firefox features... are powered by artificial intelligence (AI) based on small language models downloaded to your device. These operate locally — web page content, PDFs, images and tab URLs stay on your device and are not sent to Mozilla’s servers or used for training purposes without your explicit consent.

Even here, if anything is ever sent for AI training, it'll likely be if you report an issue or something (and give consent for this) and then Mozilla can send that data to the AI training partner so they can evaluate the model's weaknesses.

That would be my guess, and again simply doesn't matter as it requires explicit consent (so it won't be a setting that's automatically enabled when you install Firefox).


Legal things get updated all the time as fresh eyes look over wording and determine whether they're leaving themselves open to a potential lawsuit (even if frivolous) in some way or because of new laws or practices.


Their TOA does not look evil, is easy to read, and would not allow them to do anything evil as far as I can see.

Good to know. Thanks!

Yea, just my input. I ended up leaving a mean comment on Mental Outlaw's video as I was also upset by the comments I saw on the video - no actual discussions.

It really upset me that he was so focused on the license you were giving Firefox and completely disregards what they're explicitly stating the data will (and can only) be used for.

He has a big following and likely a disproportionate amount of them use lesser known browsers like Firefox. Generating this negative controversy only hurts Firefox while he's not even sure, and doesn't seem to be remotely qualified to talk about any Legalese.


Sorry I'm ranting.

I am also not a lawyer, but I agree with your rant zapshe.
I don't feel like dissecting the ToS at the moment, but a major point of contention here is the terminology of whether or not Mozilla will "sell your data". Per some California law [1], the definition of what counts as "selling your data" is a lot broader than what the average person would expect.

Speaking of tech youtubers... the following comes from me watching/reading the wiki from Louis Rossmann [2] [3].

Mozilla, even before adding/changing their ToS, was already doing things that could be interpreted as violating their previous claims. My understanding is that per this California law, the fact that Firefox has an agreement with Google to put Google as the default search engine, thereby encouraging people to send their data to Google via the browser, can be seen as "selling your data".

Mozilla also has sponsored search suggestions and links, which, again, could be interpreted as data selling.

[1] https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=CIV&sectionNum=1798.140.#
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8bTquKjzos
[3] https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/Mozilla_introduces_TOS_to_Firefox#cite_note-ccpa-16

Some people are saying that the new ToS now makes it easier for Mozilla to sneak in "real" data selling without changing their ToS further. Maybe? I'm not sure. Not a lawyer :)

Regardless, Mozilla communicated these changes in a very poor manner and it's understandable why people are upset.

Louis Rossmann does good work (I support his right to repair efforts) and I like some of his videos, but I also can't watch him regularly as I feel I don't align with his views and approach very well (and he tends to start drama I feel).

In this particular case, I think Mozilla was simply trying to protect itself while doing the right thing, and it got backlash for it. I imagine that their TOS wording was nothing strange in the world of TOSs.

They wanted the TOS to be clear they have every right to use your data (to protect themselves) as long as it was done in accordance with giving you a functional browsing experience as per your requests (to show they aren't being evil).

It seems the second part was ignored and the first part was hyper-focused.

Some people are saying that the new ToS now makes it easier for Mozilla to sneak in "real" data selling without changing their ToS further

It would go against their privacy policy from what I read, which is mentioned in the TOS as well I believe.

Regardless, Mozilla communicated these changes in a very poor manner and it's understandable why people are upset.

Even in the video you linked, he talks about it being a "nothing burger" and that only Mozilla's communication seems to be at fault.. But the comment section is still clearly hostile.


I guess I'm.. disappointed by the internet? Which is dumb of me.