Mozilla introduces TOS to Firefox

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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 revolving around the way the section that describes the rights Mozilla has over their data is phrased.

Background

Mozilla anounced on the 26th of February 2025 the introduction of an TOS and an updated privacy policy for the Firefox web browser. In the topics outlined in the TOS past use of the browser and transparency around it was handled via the open source licence and public commitments by the organization.

Questionable phrasing in the TOS and consumer response

The new terms contain phrasing that has caused concern by the users of Firefox and the reasoning for its inclusion in the privacy focused browser. Concerns center especially around the phrasing of terms outlined in the section titled "You Give Mozilla Certain Rights and Permissions":

You give Mozilla all rights necessary to operate Firefox, including processing data as we describe in the Firefox Privacy Notice, as well as acting on your behalf to help you navigate the internet. When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox.

The vagueness of the terms has resulted in users questioning how much of their data they were granting Mozilla a licence to use, especially since the company puts a lot of emphasis on transparency and privacy on their manifesto. Of note is the concern of the possible use of user "input" to "help you experience online content" by training and creating AI/LLM based tools.

Date of effect

It is also worth noting that the announcement of the introduction of the TOS and new privacy policy was made in a blog post one day after the terms and privacy policy are to take effect. No other communication was made to users of the browser as of February 27th 2025.

Change of Firefox's FAQ

File:Firefox-faq.png

Firefox FAQ wording changes, new left old right.

Also of note is a recent change to the firefox FAQ page to remove the section promising not to sell personal data:

Does Firefox sell your personal data?

Nope. Never have, never will. And we protect you from many of the advertisers who do. Firefox products are designed to protect your privacy. That’s a promise.

and removing part of the sentence answering the question "Is Firefox free?" that read ", and we don’t sell your personal data.".

Both of these were present in the FAQ until at least January 30th 2025.

Mozilla's response

Partial screenshot of lawful basis section for data usage from the Firefox privacy policy.

At the time of writing Mozilla has not issued an official response but has updated the initial blog post to include the following:

UPDATE: We’ve seen a little confusion about the language regarding licenses, so we want to clear that up. We need a license to allow us to make some of the basic functionality of Firefox possible. Without it, we couldn’t use information typed into Firefox, for example. It does NOT give us ownership of your data or a right to use it for anything other than what is described in the Privacy Notice.

While not putting concerns to rest due to the broadness that can be attributed to the wording of the terms, the privacy policy does contain fairly extensive and clear statements on how data is to be used by the company. It does not explicitly contain mention of AI/LLM tools other than the ability to use third party chat assistants (as well as the fact that Mozilla has no access to those chats).

See also

• Mozilla