Firefox maker Mozilla deleted a promise to by no means promote its customers’ private information and is attempting to guarantee nervous customers that its method to privateness hasn’t essentially modified. Till lately, a Firefox FAQ promised that the browser maker by no means has and by no means will promote its customers’ private information. An archived version from January 30 says:

Does Firefox promote your private information?

Nope. By no means have, by no means will. And we shield you from most of the advertisers who do. Firefox merchandise are designed to guard your privateness. That’s a promise.

That promise is faraway from the current version. There’s additionally a notable change in a data privacy FAQ that used to say, “Mozilla would not promote information about you, and we do not purchase information about you.”

The information privateness FAQ now explains that Mozilla is not making blanket guarantees about not promoting information as a result of some authorized jurisdictions outline “sale” in a really broad manner:

Mozilla would not promote information about you (in the best way that most individuals take into consideration “promoting information”), and we do not purchase information about you. Since we try for transparency, and the LEGAL definition of “sale of information” is extraordinarily broad in some locations, we have needed to step again from making the definitive statements you realize and love. We nonetheless put a number of work into ensuring that the information that we share with our companions (which we have to do to make Firefox commercially viable) is stripped of any figuring out info, or shared solely within the combination, or is put via our privateness preserving applied sciences (like OHTTP).

Mozilla did not say which authorized jurisdictions have these broad definitions.

Customers complain: “Not acceptable”

Customers criticized Mozilla in discussions on GitHub and Reddit. One space of concern is over new terms of use that say, “Once you add or enter info via Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to make use of that info that can assist you navigate, expertise, and work together with on-line content material as you point out along with your use of Firefox.”