Mozilla: Difference between revisions
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{{CompanyCargo | |||
|Description=American free software developer known for Firefox and Thunderbird. | |||
|Founded=1998 | |||
|Industry=Computing | |||
|Logo=Mozilla logo 2024.png | |||
|ParentCompany=Mozilla Foundation | |||
|Type=Non-profit | |||
|Website=https://www.mozilla.org/ | |||
}} | |||
'''{{Wplink|Mozilla}}''' is a {{Wplink|free software}} community which develops, publishes and supports open-source software. The community is supported institutionally by the non-profit {{Wplink|Mozilla Foundation}} and its tax-paying subsidiary, the {{Wplink|Mozilla Corporation}}. | |||
==Consumer impact summary== | |||
{{Ph-C-CIS}} | |||
===Mozilla Manifesto=== | ===Mozilla Manifesto=== | ||
Mozilla has published the community Manifesto, with 10 key principles:<ref>https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/details/</ref><blockquote> | Mozilla has published the community Manifesto, with 10 key principles:<ref>{{Cite web |author= |title=The Mozilla Manifesto |url=https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/details/ |website=Mozilla |date= |access-date=1 Mar 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20251223055636/https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/details/ |archive-date=23 Dec 2025}}</ref> | ||
#The internet is an integral part of modern life—a key component in education, communication, collaboration, business, entertainment and society as a whole. | <blockquote>#The internet is an integral part of modern life—a key component in education, communication, collaboration, business, entertainment and society as a whole. | ||
#The internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible. | #The internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible. | ||
#The internet must enrich the lives of individual human beings. | #The internet must enrich the lives of individual human beings. | ||
| Line 17: | Line 25: | ||
#Transparent community-based processes promote participation, accountability and trust. | #Transparent community-based processes promote participation, accountability and trust. | ||
#Commercial involvement in the development of the internet brings many benefits; a balance between commercial profit and public benefit is critical. | #Commercial involvement in the development of the internet brings many benefits; a balance between commercial profit and public benefit is critical. | ||
#Magnifying the public benefit aspects of the internet is an important goal, worthy of time, attention and commitment. | #Magnifying the public benefit aspects of the internet is an important goal, worthy of time, attention and commitment.</blockquote> | ||
</blockquote> | |||
== | ==Incidents== | ||
This is a list of all consumer-protection incidents this company is involved in. Any incidents not mentioned here can be found in the [[:Category:{{FULLPAGENAME}}|{{PAGENAME}} category]]. | |||
Mozilla | ===Mr Robot promotional web extension (''2017'')=== | ||
In December 2017 Mozilla, in collaboration with the Mr Robot team, created and included by default a web extension in [[Firefox]] called Looking Glass.<ref name=":1">{{Cite web |author= |title=Mozilla addressing the Looking glass incident |url=https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/retrospective-looking-glass/ |website=Mozilla |date=30 Jan 2018 |access-date=1 Mar 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250331150343/https://blog.mozilla.org/en/products/firefox/retrospective-looking-glass/ |archive-date=31 Mar 2025}}</ref> While the extension was disabled by default, many users were confused and worried to discover a unknown extension installed in their browser with a cryptic description "MY REALITY IS JUST DIFFERENT THAN YOURS".<ref>{{Cite web |author=Beer_Doctor |title=What is Looking Glass. |url=https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/7jh9rv/what_is_looking_glass/ |website=[[Reddit]] |date=13 Dec 2017 |access-date=1 Mar 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20230610080325/https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/7jh9rv/what_is_looking_glass/ |archive-date=10 Jun 2023}}</ref> This description was later expanded to include references to Mozilla's collaboration.<ref>{{Cite web |author=gregglind |title=v1.0.4, fixes ui, changes id, expanded description. |url=https://github.com/mozilla/addon-wr/commit/21ff53d2d5baab591d29b4ea5847d74cb6901b2c |website=GitHub |date=14 Dec 2017 |access-date=1 Mar 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250312155431/https://github.com/mozilla/addon-wr/commit/21ff53d2d5baab591d29b4ea5847d74cb6901b2c |archive-date=12 Mar 2025}}</ref> | |||
=== | When activated, the extension executes code on all websites visited by the user, searching for all words matching a list. Every match is then wrapped in HTML span tags,<ref>{{Cite web |author=gregglind |title=Looking Glass extension injecting HTML |url=https://github.com/mozilla/addon-wr/blob/da464ac8f1c3b089405ca96fc68b999d2b624ef4/addon/webextension/content-script.js#L27 |website=GitHub |date=12 Dec 2017 |access-date=1 Mar 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250708193135/https://github.com/mozilla/addon-wr/blob/da464ac8f1c3b089405ca96fc68b999d2b624ef4/addon/webextension/content-script.js |archive-date=8 Jul 2025}}</ref> and tooltips are injected to be displayed when the user hovers over these matches. CSS code is injected to make the words appear upside down and the tooltips work.<ref>{{Cite web |author=gregglind |title=Looking Glass extension injecting CSS |url=https://github.com/mozilla/addon-wr/blob/da464ac8f1c3b089405ca96fc68b999d2b624ef4/addon/webextension/background.js#L78 |website=GitHub |date=12 Dec 2017 |access-date=1 Mar 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250708193126/https://github.com/mozilla/addon-wr/blob/da464ac8f1c3b089405ca96fc68b999d2b624ef4/addon/webextension/background.js |archive-date=8 Jul 2025}}</ref> Also three specific websites did have their headers changed to have a value "x-1057" injected. | ||
While the extension could on rare occasion break some website with the HTML and CSS injection, it did not do anything malicious or dangerous. The extension was not collecting any personal information at all, but Mozilla admitted it had made a mistake in its response addressing the issue:<ref name=":1" /> | |||
<blockquote>'''A SHIELD study must be designed to answer a specific question.'''<br /> | |||
We evaluated Looking Glass based on whether or not it upheld user privacy. Since it did not collect any data, we felt that it was safe. In retrospect, not capturing data was a strong indicator that this was not a good SHIELD study candidate, so we’re making sure we’re going to specifically evaluate future studies based on this criteria to ensure that we don’t repeat our mistake.</blockquote> | |||
In | ===Anonym acquisition (''June 2024'')=== | ||
In June 2024, Mozilla became an advertiser by acquiring Anonym, a company claiming to be a privacy-preserving digital advertiser, potentially going against its mission of being a proponent of privacy.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chambers |first=Laura |title=Introducing Anonym: Raising the Bar for Privacy-Preserving Digital Advertising |url=https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-the-bar-for-privacy-preserving-digital-advertising/ |website=Mozilla |date=16 Jun 2024 |access-date=1 Mar 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240617084245/https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mozilla-anonym-raising-the-bar-for-privacy-preserving-digital-advertising/ |archive-date=17 Jun 2024}}</ref> | |||
===Privacy-preserving attribution (''July 2024'')=== | |||
Privacy-preserving attribution (PPA) is an experimental feature introduced in Firefox version 128, designed to help advertising sites measure the performance of their ads while maintaining user privacy. It is marketed as an alternative method for performing attribution without relying on online tracking of users' browsing activity, which is incompatible with privacy. The functionality is explained on the Mozilla support page as follows:<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |author= |title=Privacy-Preserving Attribution |url=https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution#w_how-can-i-disable-ppa |website=Mozilla |date=2024 |access-date=1 Mar 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240617221145/https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/privacy-preserving-attribution#w_how-can-i-disable-ppa |archive-date=17 Jun 2024}}</ref> | |||
=== | <blockquote>#Websites that show you ads can ask Firefox to remember these ads. When this happens, Firefox stores an “impression” which contains a little bit of information about the ad, including a destination website. | ||
#If you visit the destination website and do something that the website considers to be important enough to count (a “conversion”), that website can ask Firefox to generate a report. The destination website specifies what ads it is interested in. | |||
#Firefox creates a report based on what the website asks, but does not give the result to the website. Instead, Firefox encrypts the report and anonymously submits it using the Distributed Aggregation Protocol (DAP) to an “aggregation service”. | |||
#Your results are combined with many similar reports by the aggregation service. The destination website periodically receives a summary of the reports. The summary includes noise that provides differential privacy.</blockquote> | |||
Browsing activity information is not sent to anyone, not even Mozilla. Users with PPA enabled, however, must rely solely on the company to honor principle number 4 in its Manifesto:<ref name=":0" /> | |||
<blockquote>PPA does not involve sending information about your browsing activities to anyone. This includes Mozilla and our DAP partner (ISRG). Advertisers only receive aggregate information that answers basic questions about the effectiveness of their advertising.</blockquote> | |||
This feature does not allow users to make an informed decision and choose whether to opt in or not, as it is enabled by default and requires that the user actively opt out.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Naprys |first=Ernestas |title=Firefox’s new data collection feature sparks user backlash: here’s how to disable it |url=https://cybernews.com/privacy/firefox-data-collection-feature-sparks-backlash/ |website=cybernews |date=16 Jul 2024 |access-date=1 Mar 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20240716125552/https://cybernews.com/privacy/firefox-data-collection-feature-sparks-backlash/ |archive-date=16 Jul 2024}}</ref> This goes against principle number 8 of the Manifesto. | |||
== | |||
===Removing the "We don't sell your data" promise=== | ===Removing the "We don't sell your data" promise (''February 2025'')=== | ||
In February 2025, Mozilla started to delete references to their "We don't sell your data" promise from the source code, as first reported | In February 2025, Mozilla started to delete references to their "We don't sell your data" promise from the source code, as first reported on [https://www.haiku-os.org/ Haiku operating system] by developer ''waddlesplash'' on the forum thread for their Firefox/Iceweasel port.<ref>{{Cite web |author=waddlesplash |title=Iceweasel: Telemetry acceptible for Firefox trademarks? |url=https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/iceweasel-telemetry-acceptible-for-firefox-trademarks/16106/51 |website=Haiku OS |date=27 Feb 2025 |access-date=1 Mar 2026 |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20250708193121/https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/iceweasel-telemetry-acceptible-for-firefox-trademarks/16106/51 |archive-date=8 Jul 2025}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |author1=Zhu |first=Jingwen |author2=maureenlholland |date=25 Feb 2025 |title=Tos copy updates (fix #16016) |url=https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e |url-status=live |archive-url=http://web.archive.org/web/20260111124524/https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d459addab846d8144b61939b7f4310eb80c5470e |archive-date=11 Jan 2026 |access-date=1 Mar 2026 |website=GitHub}}</ref> | ||
They also switched the wording from "The best privacy" to "Always protected". | They also switched the wording from "The best privacy" to "Always protected". | ||
===Introducing TOS for Firefox (2025)=== | ===Introducing TOS for Firefox (''February 2025'')=== | ||
{{Main|Mozilla introduces TOS to Firefox}} | {{Main|Mozilla introduces TOS to Firefox}} | ||
In February 2025 Mozilla introduced [[terms of use]] (TOS) for the Firefox browser for the first time as well as an updated [[privacy policy]]. The new privacy policy has caused concern among the browser's user base, revolving around how the section that describes the rights Mozilla has over their data is phrased. | |||
In | |||
== | ==Alternatives== | ||
There are other browsers using the same browser engine as Firefox, but with the telemetry and data gathering removed and privacy-friendly preferences enabled by default. For desktop operating systems, these include [https://librewolf.net/ LibreWolf], [https://mullvad.net/browser Mullvad Browser] and the [https://www.torproject.org/download/ Tor Browser]. On Android, [https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid/ Fennec] is available through the F-Droid store. | |||
Completely free alternative browsers are currently under active development, some of which show promise to become viable, truly independent, open-source browser engines in the foreseeable future. These include the browser initiated by SerenityOS creator Andreas Kling. | |||
[https:// | As for Thunderbird, some open-source soft forks such as [https://www.betterbird.eu/ BetterBird] are available. | ||
==Products== | |||
*Thunderbird (2003—Present) | |||
*[[Firefox]] (2004—Present) | |||
*Pocket (2017—2025)<ref name="shutdown">{{Cite web |author= |title=Investing in what moves the internet forward |url=https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/building-whats-next/ |website=Mozilla |date=22 May 2025 |access-date=20 Aug 2025 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250730024535/https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/building-whats-next/ |archive-date=30 Jul 2025}}</ref> | |||
*Fakespot (2021—2025)<ref name="shutdown" /> | |||
==See also== | |||
{{Ph-C-SA}} | |||
==References== | |||
{{Reflist}} | |||
== | |||
[[Category:{{PAGENAME}}]] | |||
[[Category: | |||