I’d agree that it’s overblown and I suspect this reaction comes from users not understanding the complex legal framework Mozilla operates in globally and regionally, and Mozilla doing what it does best, miscommunication.

IANAL but my interpretation of the situation is that in certain jurisdictions, California for example (where Mozilla is headquartered and where they have a legally binding contract in place with Google), they are and always have been “selling” your data from a LEGAL standpoint. It is a difference between how we users define selling (a literal exchange of data for money) versus how the law defines selling which can be much more broad and include things we wouldn’t define as selling.

As far as the law is concerned, again, in some but not all jurisdictions, a) all data has monetary value to tech companies, and b) with Mozilla & Google in particular there is a monetary exchange (ie. a contract worth millions of dollars) for Google Search being integrated into Firefox as the default.

Therefore, as far as the law is concerned, when you type into the Awesomebar or search box in Firefox, Firefox sends (sells) the data you entered (your data) to Google (because of course it does, that’s how the internet works) and this is a “sale of your data” under the legal definition. This is just one example from one jurisdiction Mozilla operates within, albeit a majorly influential and litigious jurisdiction.

My understanding is they had to make that their terms of use because if they didn’t they’d be liable to get sued into oblivion in jurisdictions where using a web browser to browse the internet constituted a legal sale.

Does this open the door to abuse and the literal sale of our data in the future, absolutely. But it’s on us to trust but verify, and do what we, the community, do best and hold Mozilla to account when they inevitably screw up.

Anyway, this was a much longer comment than I intended to write, but that’s my take as a someone who has not just used Mozilla products for decades but also contributed labour as well.

I don’t. I install a distro with sane defaults and get to work.

I spend most of my days working on healing myself with time in nature, and I’m developing a personal photography project connected to my natural surroundings. I also spend time working on my garden when weather permits and am learning to paint and draw when the weather is gloomy. All in all that keeps my days pretty packed and active, not even thinking about tech most days whereas before it was all consuming.

The majority of my career in tech was at Mozilla, followed by a relatively brief stint at Element. I’m lucky that I was able to spend my entire career working for companies whose missions and products I still champion. But even as good and well intentioned as they are, they cannot escape so-called “Silicon Valley” as they’re very much a part of it.

If you want to read about this on a website that isn’t full of ads and doesn’t just present as an ad for their own news app, here is the source material by Blind.com.

Unfortunately I couldn’t find a link to the raw survey data and I generally don’t trust surveys that aren’t accompanied by raw data.

I went looking for the data because 1901 respondents across 32 of the largest companies globally doesn’t seem like it would be statistically representative of any one company. If you assume the same sample size per company, which it probably isn’t but again that’s unverifiable because I couldn’t find the raw data, you’re looking at, what, 60 employees for a company the size of Google?

Look, I’m a recovering tech worker who left the industry because of the toxic work culture, having spent a quarter of my life at one of the good ones. Even there I saw the value of unions. No matter the industry, workers deserve the right to collective bargaining and fair treatment. But I don’t think surveys with unverifiable data help move that conversation forward.

Now, if I’m mistaken and someone finds a source link to the data that we can all verify, I’ll happily take another look and reconsider my opinion on it’s validity.