People are talking about Mozilla again, and yet again it is not for good reasons.
Discontinuation Of Pocket And Fakespot
Pocket (social bookmarking service) and Fakespot (fake product review spotter) were two closed-source services that were acquired by Firefox, whose features were integrated into Firefox. Their respective browser extensions were also maintained by Mozilla - until they weren't. Mozilla recently announced that they would be shutting down these two services as they were not sustainable. While Pocket never really caught on, Fakespot was used by a lot of people to filter out unreliable product reviews on e-commerce sites.
Many questioned Mozilla when it acquired companies selling closed-source applications. Questions were asked again about Mozilla's commitment to open source when those features were integrated into Firefox. Now, the discontinuation of those services leaves everyone asking "what was the whole point?"
Additionally, acquiring a company and then killing it just sounds like something out of Google's playbook, although Google typically kills threats and not unrelated services.
AI Link Previews
Mozilla added an experimental feature that would allow users to place their mouse over a link and press a keyboard shortcut to bring up a preview of the webpage that the link leads to. This preview would contain the thumbnail, the headline, a snippet of text, a reading time estimate, and a few AI-generated key points from the page.
A lot of outrage focused on how this feels like yet another instance of a product cramming AI where it's not needed at the expense of privacy. However, while the usefulness of this feature is up for debate (or rather, personal choice), Mozilla actually took a very privacy-centric approach to this. The AI is a Small Language Model that runs locally on the user's computer, so no servers are being given information on websites you visit for the mere purpose of summarizing them.
Terms Of Service Updates
Mozilla added a Terms of Service that rubbed users the wrong way, much of it very valid. After a youtube (and Peertube) channel called The Linux Experiment published a scathing yet reasonable critique of Mozilla, a member of the upper management at Thunderbird reached out to The Linux Experiment to offer clarifications. These points were first discussed over the course of a few days, and then published to the same channel in the form of an interview. While the overall message from the interview has been that Mozilla meant well, but did not communicate its intentions clearly (which has been a long-running trend, by the way), there are still some concerns that were not allayed by the interview.
Why Have A Terms Of Service At All?
Mozilla and Firefox did survive for over a decade without needing Terms Of Service at all, so the creation of the document immediately rang alarm bells for many people. However, upcoming laws in the EU require major service providers - defined such that Firefox is one - to publish a copy of their Terms of Service.
Why Obtain A Licence For Our Information
The new Terms of Service state that Mozilla gains a worldwide non-exclusive right to use (not own) data entered by you in Firefox for the purpose of serving you. While this is necessary for a browser to do its job, the vagueness of this statement led some to fear that anything done in Firefox could be used to train AI. Mozilla denies this.
Why Remove "We Don't Sell Your Data" From The FAQ Page?
Because California's "Sell User Data" definitions are overly broad and cover sponsored content that Firefox places on the New Tab page.
Why Retain The Right To Update/Terminate The Agreement?
Apparently this is boilerplate, but Mozilla could've done better to promise, say, a 6-month notice. Mozilla also apparently retains the right to restrict a user's access to Firefox, which is absolutely against open source principles. It is also concerning that Mozilla can even consider suspending a single user's access to Firefox - that kind of feature does not go down well with digital rights advocates.