3 ms·

They also said "Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you (in the way that most people think about “selling data”)", and I'm struggling to fathom what they could poss

by saghm 2y ago

They also said "Mozilla doesn’t sell data about you (in the way that most people think about “selling data”)", and I'm struggling to fathom what they could possibly think that "most people" think selling data could mean other than "giving your data to someone else for compensation", which seems pretty much exactly what the California law says. Yes, it's embedded in some legalese, but surely Mozilla has lawyers?

fredzel 2y ago
Most people probably envision selling data akin to shady person trading usb stick in dark alley or hackers selling huge batches of stolen data, so that statement will be true almost by default
- LoganDark 2y ago
  most people I speak to about this tend to imagine selling data to be like people cold calling you with scams, getting suspicious advertisements that happen to be about stuff you just happened to be saying in the other room (which actually happened), and stuff like that. in Mozilla's case I'm pretty sure it's whatever Pocket is, considering how difficult it is in Firefox to turn that garbage off
kmacdough 2y ago
I think they're trying to make the distinction between "we sell your searches and clicks attached to your personal id" and "we sell derivative aggregated information like we have a lot of users of X style to advertise to". But it's kinda hard to sift through exactly what they can and can't sell under this.
- luckylion 2y ago
  Wouldn't derivative aggregated information not be included in definitions like the one quoted because they specifically about personal data? If you sell the information how many customers you have and how many shoes you've sold last month, are you selling your customer's personal data?
  - wtallis 2y ago
    > If you sell the information how many customers you have and how many shoes you've sold last month, are you selling your customer's personal data? To make that analogy fair for the scope of what Mozilla's doing, the shoe store would have to be selling data about what color shirts people are wearing when they visit the shoe store.
    - skydhash 2y ago
      That is fair. But a more accurate analogy would be that the sales representative that goes to people house is reporting to the store what color people are wearing at home. Firefox is installed on my computer, not on a VPS owned by Mozilla. I'm not browsing Mozilla website. Why are they entitled to record and share everything I do?
bonoboTP 2y ago
Most people don't think about this stuff and are simply uninformed. Referring to what "most people think" is a cop-out from their side. But I think the sense Mozilla are referring to is the more obvious and over-the-top things like selling your name, phone number, email, postal address, your Amazon purchasing history, or to ramp it up more, your passwords, your credit card info etc.
- wkat4242 2y ago
  The latter is a pretty high bar. Even Google doesn't do that.
  - bonoboTP 2y ago
    Just saying that you can stretch it pretty far with vague language like "we aren't doing [bad thing] in the sense that most people would understand [bad thing]".
x0x0 2y ago
CCPA/CPRA have a very broad definition of sale. > (1) “Sell,” “selling,” “sale,” or “sold,” means selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s personal information by the business to a third party for monetary or other valuable consideration. Most people would view a sale as Mozilla getting cash back for the data. But that "other valuable consideration" (which the AG declined to clarify or create a factor-based approach for deciding) makes Mozilla vulnerable to lawyers. The same parasites that claimed that embedding a chatbot on your website violates the California wiretapping laws and have been extracting cash from sites will figure out a way to do the same to Mozilla. see the wave of CIPA chatbot lawsuits. For instance, suppose Mozilla partners with a search engine and could be claimed to get a discount or some other consideration for letting that search partner use search terms to improve the search engine. Something that isn't advertising related at all. That's probably a sale under CPRA.
- wtallis 2y ago
  > For instance, suppose Mozilla partners with a search engine and could be claimed to get a discount or some other consideration for letting that search partner use search terms to improve the search engine. Something that isn't advertising related at all. That's probably a sale under CPRA. If a search engine partner wants to use search terms to improve their search engine, they only have to look at their own logs. They don't need Mozilla to collect, aggregate, and sell them any data to accomplish that. Mozilla doesn't need to worry about selling data if they never possess that data in the first place. Your complaint about "other valuable consideration" is just a complaint that the law isn't crippled by stupid loopholes.
  - x0x0 2y ago
    > Your complaint about "other valuable consideration" is just a complaint that the law isn't crippled by stupid loopholes. That's not the law. The search engine partner using those logs is probably valuable consideration and hence a sale. Mozilla doesn't even need to keep the data; just an api passthrough will qualify.

by saghm 2y ago

fredzel 2y ago

Most people probably envision selling data akin to shady person trading usb stick in dark alley or hackers selling huge batches of stolen data, so that statement will be true almost by default

LoganDark 2y ago
most people I speak to about this tend to imagine selling data to be like people cold calling you with scams, getting suspicious advertisements that happen to be about stuff you just happened to be saying in the other room (which actually happened), and stuff like that. in Mozilla's case I'm pretty sure it's whatever Pocket is, considering how difficult it is in Firefox to turn that garbage off

kmacdough 2y ago

I think they're trying to make the distinction between "we sell your searches and clicks attached to your personal id" and "we sell derivative aggregated information like we have a lot of users of X style to advertise to". But it's kinda hard to sift through exactly what they can and can't sell under this.

luckylion 2y ago
Wouldn't derivative aggregated information not be included in definitions like the one quoted because they specifically about personal data? If you sell the information how many customers you have and how many shoes you've sold last month, are you selling your customer's personal data?
- wtallis 2y ago
  > If you sell the information how many customers you have and how many shoes you've sold last month, are you selling your customer's personal data? To make that analogy fair for the scope of what Mozilla's doing, the shoe store would have to be selling data about what color shirts people are wearing when they visit the shoe store.
  - skydhash 2y ago
    That is fair. But a more accurate analogy would be that the sales representative that goes to people house is reporting to the store what color people are wearing at home. Firefox is installed on my computer, not on a VPS owned by Mozilla. I'm not browsing Mozilla website. Why are they entitled to record and share everything I do?

bonoboTP 2y ago

Most people don't think about this stuff and are simply uninformed. Referring to what "most people think" is a cop-out from their side. But I think the sense Mozilla are referring to is the more obvious and over-the-top things like selling your name, phone number, email, postal address, your Amazon purchasing history, or to ramp it up more, your passwords, your credit card info etc.

wkat4242 2y ago
The latter is a pretty high bar. Even Google doesn't do that.
- bonoboTP 2y ago
  Just saying that you can stretch it pretty far with vague language like "we aren't doing [bad thing] in the sense that most people would understand [bad thing]".

x0x0 2y ago

CCPA/CPRA have a very broad definition of sale. > (1) “Sell,” “selling,” “sale,” or “sold,” means selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s personal information by the business to a third party for monetary or other valuable consideration. Most people would view a sale as Mozilla getting cash back for the data. But that "other valuable consideration" (which the AG declined to clarify or create a factor-based approach for deciding) makes Mozilla vulnerable to lawyers. The same parasites that claimed that embedding a chatbot on your website violates the California wiretapping laws and have been extracting cash from sites will figure out a way to do the same to Mozilla. see the wave of CIPA chatbot lawsuits. For instance, suppose Mozilla partners with a search engine and could be claimed to get a discount or some other consideration for letting that search partner use search terms to improve the search engine. Something that isn't advertising related at all. That's probably a sale under CPRA.

wtallis 2y ago
> For instance, suppose Mozilla partners with a search engine and could be claimed to get a discount or some other consideration for letting that search partner use search terms to improve the search engine. Something that isn't advertising related at all. That's probably a sale under CPRA. If a search engine partner wants to use search terms to improve their search engine, they only have to look at their own logs. They don't need Mozilla to collect, aggregate, and sell them any data to accomplish that. Mozilla doesn't need to worry about selling data if they never possess that data in the first place. Your complaint about "other valuable consideration" is just a complaint that the law isn't crippled by stupid loopholes.
- x0x0 2y ago
  > Your complaint about "other valuable consideration" is just a complaint that the law isn't crippled by stupid loopholes. That's not the law. The search engine partner using those logs is probably valuable consideration and hence a sale. Mozilla doesn't even need to keep the data; just an api passthrough will qualify.