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"Everyone else is doing it" is not a defense. Firefox users are often using it because they didn't have that in their terms. Now they do. People are upset about

"Everyone else is doing it" is not a defense. Firefox users are often using it because they didn't have that in their terms. Now they do. People are upset about the rug pull.

db48x 2y ago
I know it’s not a defense for bad behavior; I didn’t say that it was. 99% of Chrome users have never read its ToS, and the same is true for Firefox users. They are not using Firefox because the ToS is better; they are using Firefox mostly for nostalgia at this point. But I agree that people are upset, and that they think that Mozilla is taking something away from them. The reality is that we have always implicitly been giving Mozilla permission to do these things, because they are necessary for the operation of the browser. In order to comment on HN you must type some text into a form and then tell the browser to submit it. The browser saves a copy of that text for you so that it isn’t lost if the power goes out or the browser crashes or the website is offline. Here in the United States that text automatically has a copyright, you own that copyright, and you and you alone have the exclusive right to publish that text. You have to give Mozilla, or Firefox, permission to act on your behalf. Mozilla’s lawyers have apparently decided that this requires you to _explicitly_ grant them permission to do these things for you. I think that’s stupid, but I think it’s pretty obvious that Mozilla isn’t stealing anything here. We always give the software we use implicit permission to act on our behalf. I also think it is also very stupid that Mozilla’s leadership couldn’t predict this outcome in advance. It points to incompetence on their part. At the very least they should have kicked this back to be rewritten to be more explicit about what “operating Firefox” means, including specific examples. In fact they should have just enumerated all of the ways that Firefox stores data about you and what part of operating the browser that data is used for. History, bookmarks, form data, everything.

"Everyone else is doing it" is not a defense. Firefox users are often using it because they didn't have that in their terms. Now they do. People are upset about the rug pull.

db48x 2y ago

I know it’s not a defense for bad behavior; I didn’t say that it was. 99% of Chrome users have never read its ToS, and the same is true for Firefox users. They are not using Firefox because the ToS is better; they are using Firefox mostly for nostalgia at this point. But I agree that people are upset, and that they think that Mozilla is taking something away from them. The reality is that we have always implicitly been giving Mozilla permission to do these things, because they are necessary for the operation of the browser. In order to comment on HN you must type some text into a form and then tell the browser to submit it. The browser saves a copy of that text for you so that it isn’t lost if the power goes out or the browser crashes or the website is offline. Here in the United States that text automatically has a copyright, you own that copyright, and you and you alone have the exclusive right to publish that text. You have to give Mozilla, or Firefox, permission to act on your behalf. Mozilla’s lawyers have apparently decided that this requires you to _explicitly_ grant them permission to do these things for you. I think that’s stupid, but I think it’s pretty obvious that Mozilla isn’t stealing anything here. We always give the software we use implicit permission to act on our behalf. I also think it is also very stupid that Mozilla’s leadership couldn’t predict this outcome in advance. It points to incompetence on their part. At the very least they should have kicked this back to be rewritten to be more explicit about what “operating Firefox” means, including specific examples. In fact they should have just enumerated all of the ways that Firefox stores data about you and what part of operating the browser that data is used for. History, bookmarks, form data, everything.