6 ms·

Seems kind of like it is part of an ARG. I can't say I'm totally against something like that; Mozilla's gotta make money somehow, and as long as it's not sellin

Seems kind of like it is part of an ARG. I can't say I'm totally against something like that; Mozilla's gotta make money somehow, and as long as it's not selling out user privacy it's a better tradeoff than Chrome.

revelation 9y ago
You think having advertisers change text on unrelated websites you visit is an acceptable tradeoff?
- walterstucco 9y ago
  Yes Still better than everything else
tamriel 9y ago
> Mozilla's gotta make money somehow They're a nonprofit; they're not allowed to just "make money". And, they already take donations.
- hbosch 9y ago
  I think the the term “non-profit” is more about how an organization spends the money, rather than how they make it. Non profits and charities definitely bring in money through channels other than donations...
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > I think the the term “non-profit” is more about how an organization spends the money, rather than how they make it. Tax-exempt non-profit (especially charity) status is very much about both how money is made and how it is distributed/spent.
  - tamriel 9y ago
    I agree. I merely challenge the notion that a nonprofit -- which proudly tumpets its benevolence and non-profitness -- should get a free pass for covertly installing advertising arrangements, just because they need to "make money". Their charter and marketing is all about defending the internet from the companies doing shady things to make money, so they can't have their cake and eat it.
    - djsumdog 9y ago
      There is a difference between a non-profit and a non-for-profit (most health insurance companies are the later; go try and figure that out). Firefox gets most of its donations from corporate sponsors. That's why the default search and switched back and fourth between Yahoo and Google; it's all about the amount of money they contribute for that. I'm not sure, but Pocket might be another example. User contributions are actually pretty low. They don't go out and request them though like NPR or Wikipedia.
      - Nullabillity 9y ago
        Mozilla bought Pocket a while ago.
      - bigbugbag 9y ago
        You're confusing mozilla foundation and mozilla corporation here. The default search with google and yahoo is not donations for the foundation but a commercial contract with the corporation. I'm not sure mozilla even gets a significant amount of donations compared to their commercial contracts.
    - gvx 9y ago
      While I agree with you on that, your previous comment was simply wrong. Non-profits are very much allowed to just "take money" (legal restrictions aside, but for-profit businesses also have legal restrictions). They're not allowed to take that money and distribute it to shareholders as profit.
    - TheRealPomax 9y ago
      That would be a valid complaint if this was an advertising arrangment, rather than one where if you watch the TV show, you learn that you can activate a firefox addon to participate in an small AR game that changes your normal web experience into a Mr Robot style web experience for the duration. The addon itself does not advertise for Mr. Robot, Mr. Robot advertises for this addon.
  - IncRnd 9y ago
    Non-profit orgs are such due to legal designations that give them favorable tax treatment. In return they promise to organize and operate only to fulfill a charitable mission. The mission of Mr. Robot (content sniffing) has nothing to do with the charitable mission of Mozilla, "Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all."
    - bigbugbag 9y ago
      The charitable mission of mozilla ended with their deal with google in 2004. Let's not forget that mozilla had frozen 15 millions dollars because of the IRS audit related to this deal and mozilla status, ending up settling outside of court for 1.5 millions.
- untog 9y ago
  Of course non profits are allowed to make money.
- dekrg 9y ago
  This is a very common misconception about non-profits that is not true. The details depend on local laws, but generally a non-profit only means that the owner of the non-profit can't take the all of the actual profit (money) directly out of the non-profit via dividends. Things like non-profits must be focused public good or they can't pay high (or any) salaries are urban legends that have no basis in reality.
  - tamriel 9y ago
    The key word is "just". That's not a misconception I share. I understand Mozilla can and should make money to further its mission. But unlike a for-profit, making money isn't the mission of Mozilla. So needing to make money can't be used as a justification for doing naughty things against the public good.
    - bigbugbag 9y ago
      Making money may not be the mission of the mozilla foundation, but it is the mission of the mozilla corporation fully owned by the mozilla foundation. And money it makes, in the hundred of millions, for serving its users to the worst known worldwide privacy offender, collecting and profiling user to sell advertising. The "good" non profit charity foundation is governing the "evil" for profit corporation giving away users to the worst opponent of the mission of the charity. Quite a contradiction in this.
  - djsumdog 9y ago
    They also have limits on political speech. The IRS gives them breaks. One of the big misunderstandings/myths is that a church cannot support a political candidate. Some people cry "free speech violation" but they can endorse a candidate, they just need to give up their tax privileges. This is why the ACLU is split into two parts. One you can donate to and get tax dedications for, but the other is their lobbying arm, and therefore cannot allow tax deductions for their donors.
- mindcrime 9y ago
  "non-profit" isn't a magical incantation that means they can run with a revenue deficit forever though. They have expenses and there has to be enough revenue coming in to cover those expenses, or they will go out of business. That's true for any business, whether it's for-profit or non-profit.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  Mozilla foundation (the non profit) set up Mozilla Corporation (the for profit raking in hundreds of millions of dollars) when the IRS investigated the foundation about tax fraud.
dao- 9y ago
I believe the idea is that Mr. Robot fans use Firefox to participate in the ARG, not that Firefox users suddenly start watching Mr. Robot. So if anything I'd expect that Mozilla pays Mr. Robot for this.
a254613e 9y ago
However they're experimenting with selling user privacy to 3rd party companies, with small percentage of users in Germany (it's enabled by default).
- bigbugbag 9y ago
  Come on! their business model has been exactly that since they created the corporation to stop illegally collect money from google. The whole partnership with google to put its search engine as default is about enabling google to profile firefox users and shows them ads.
bigbugbag 9y ago
> Mozilla's gotta make money somehow Actually they do not. their revenue is at an all time high despite the market share reaching an all time low. https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-revenue-jump-fuels-its-firefox-overhaul-plan/ https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-revenue-jump-fuels-its-fir... https://www.computerworld.com/article/3240008/web-browsers/mozillas-record-2016-revenue-funded-its-firefox-quantum-browser.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3240008/web-browsers/m... https://www.ghacks.net/2017/12/02/mozillas-revenue-increased-significantly-in-2016/ https://www.ghacks.net/2017/12/02/mozillas-revenue-increased...
- C6C6C6C 9y ago
  Not to mention the great amount of money they've wasted in certain previous frivolous, doomed projects, like Firefox OS - great idea, by the way, to make your "native" app platform the most power hungry, slowest of them all, and then market the OS only for pairing it with low end devices sold to third worlders - because third worlders totally need slow software running on the hardware they can barely afford - it's not as if they were people, with real world needs, just like us, and not lab rats. For a company that prides itself on its open values.. that's really treating people with contempt.

revelation 9y ago

You think having advertisers change text on unrelated websites you visit is an acceptable tradeoff?

walterstucco 9y ago
Yes Still better than everything else

tamriel 9y ago

> Mozilla's gotta make money somehow They're a nonprofit; they're not allowed to just "make money". And, they already take donations.

hbosch 9y ago
I think the the term “non-profit” is more about how an organization spends the money, rather than how they make it. Non profits and charities definitely bring in money through channels other than donations...
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > I think the the term “non-profit” is more about how an organization spends the money, rather than how they make it. Tax-exempt non-profit (especially charity) status is very much about both how money is made and how it is distributed/spent.
- tamriel 9y ago
  I agree. I merely challenge the notion that a nonprofit -- which proudly tumpets its benevolence and non-profitness -- should get a free pass for covertly installing advertising arrangements, just because they need to "make money". Their charter and marketing is all about defending the internet from the companies doing shady things to make money, so they can't have their cake and eat it.
  - djsumdog 9y ago
    There is a difference between a non-profit and a non-for-profit (most health insurance companies are the later; go try and figure that out). Firefox gets most of its donations from corporate sponsors. That's why the default search and switched back and fourth between Yahoo and Google; it's all about the amount of money they contribute for that. I'm not sure, but Pocket might be another example. User contributions are actually pretty low. They don't go out and request them though like NPR or Wikipedia.
    - Nullabillity 9y ago
      Mozilla bought Pocket a while ago.
    - bigbugbag 9y ago
      You're confusing mozilla foundation and mozilla corporation here. The default search with google and yahoo is not donations for the foundation but a commercial contract with the corporation. I'm not sure mozilla even gets a significant amount of donations compared to their commercial contracts.
  - gvx 9y ago
    While I agree with you on that, your previous comment was simply wrong. Non-profits are very much allowed to just "take money" (legal restrictions aside, but for-profit businesses also have legal restrictions). They're not allowed to take that money and distribute it to shareholders as profit.
  - TheRealPomax 9y ago
    That would be a valid complaint if this was an advertising arrangment, rather than one where if you watch the TV show, you learn that you can activate a firefox addon to participate in an small AR game that changes your normal web experience into a Mr Robot style web experience for the duration. The addon itself does not advertise for Mr. Robot, Mr. Robot advertises for this addon.
- IncRnd 9y ago
  Non-profit orgs are such due to legal designations that give them favorable tax treatment. In return they promise to organize and operate only to fulfill a charitable mission. The mission of Mr. Robot (content sniffing) has nothing to do with the charitable mission of Mozilla, "Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all."
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    The charitable mission of mozilla ended with their deal with google in 2004. Let's not forget that mozilla had frozen 15 millions dollars because of the IRS audit related to this deal and mozilla status, ending up settling outside of court for 1.5 millions.
untog 9y ago
Of course non profits are allowed to make money.
dekrg 9y ago
This is a very common misconception about non-profits that is not true. The details depend on local laws, but generally a non-profit only means that the owner of the non-profit can't take the all of the actual profit (money) directly out of the non-profit via dividends. Things like non-profits must be focused public good or they can't pay high (or any) salaries are urban legends that have no basis in reality.
- tamriel 9y ago
  The key word is "just". That's not a misconception I share. I understand Mozilla can and should make money to further its mission. But unlike a for-profit, making money isn't the mission of Mozilla. So needing to make money can't be used as a justification for doing naughty things against the public good.
  - bigbugbag 9y ago
    Making money may not be the mission of the mozilla foundation, but it is the mission of the mozilla corporation fully owned by the mozilla foundation. And money it makes, in the hundred of millions, for serving its users to the worst known worldwide privacy offender, collecting and profiling user to sell advertising. The "good" non profit charity foundation is governing the "evil" for profit corporation giving away users to the worst opponent of the mission of the charity. Quite a contradiction in this.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  They also have limits on political speech. The IRS gives them breaks. One of the big misunderstandings/myths is that a church cannot support a political candidate. Some people cry "free speech violation" but they can endorse a candidate, they just need to give up their tax privileges. This is why the ACLU is split into two parts. One you can donate to and get tax dedications for, but the other is their lobbying arm, and therefore cannot allow tax deductions for their donors.
mindcrime 9y ago
"non-profit" isn't a magical incantation that means they can run with a revenue deficit forever though. They have expenses and there has to be enough revenue coming in to cover those expenses, or they will go out of business. That's true for any business, whether it's for-profit or non-profit.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
bigbugbag 9y ago
Mozilla foundation (the non profit) set up Mozilla Corporation (the for profit raking in hundreds of millions of dollars) when the IRS investigated the foundation about tax fraud.

dao- 9y ago

I believe the idea is that Mr. Robot fans use Firefox to participate in the ARG, not that Firefox users suddenly start watching Mr. Robot. So if anything I'd expect that Mozilla pays Mr. Robot for this.

a254613e 9y ago

However they're experimenting with selling user privacy to 3rd party companies, with small percentage of users in Germany (it's enabled by default).

bigbugbag 9y ago
Come on! their business model has been exactly that since they created the corporation to stop illegally collect money from google. The whole partnership with google to put its search engine as default is about enabling google to profile firefox users and shows them ads.

bigbugbag 9y ago

> Mozilla's gotta make money somehow Actually they do not. their revenue is at an all time high despite the market share reaching an all time low. https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-revenue-jump-fuels-its-firefox-overhaul-plan/ https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-revenue-jump-fuels-its-fir... https://www.computerworld.com/article/3240008/web-browsers/mozillas-record-2016-revenue-funded-its-firefox-quantum-browser.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3240008/web-browsers/m... https://www.ghacks.net/2017/12/02/mozillas-revenue-increased-significantly-in-2016/ https://www.ghacks.net/2017/12/02/mozillas-revenue-increased...

C6C6C6C 9y ago
Not to mention the great amount of money they've wasted in certain previous frivolous, doomed projects, like Firefox OS - great idea, by the way, to make your "native" app platform the most power hungry, slowest of them all, and then market the OS only for pairing it with low end devices sold to third worlders - because third worlders totally need slow software running on the hardware they can barely afford - it's not as if they were people, with real world needs, just like us, and not lab rats. For a company that prides itself on its open values.. that's really treating people with contempt.