[-] LWD@lemm.ee 2 points 8 hours ago

We actually do have better terminology for "local to Mozilla" and "remote to Mozilla"... It's first party and third party.

And, from the looks of it, Mozilla is indeed using Google Cloud Services as a third party, according to their privacy policy.

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 2 points 8 hours ago
[-] LWD@lemm.ee 1 points 8 hours ago

Information We Share.

We use third parties to provide the Service to you, and have contracted with these companies requiring them to protect your information (Third-Party Services):

Google Cloud Platform. Google Cloud Platform (GCP) is a cloud-computing platform. We use GCP to manage services that facilitate responses to user prompts and page summarization.

https://orbitbymozilla.com/privacy

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 2 points 8 hours ago

As of September 19th, 2024, Webacy is still listed in the Mozilla Venture Capital portfolio:

https://mozilla.vc/portfolio/

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Title changed. Can you explain your offense at not having [2023] in the title? Other people actually had a reason to complain, but you did not.

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 0 points 9 hours ago

There's already a thread regarding this article's age in this post

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 4 points 11 hours ago

Mozilla purchased FakeSpot back in May 2023, and at the time, I sounded the alarm because of the dubious privacy policy they imported without changing.

People told me to Wait and See. And I waited, and Mozilla never changed it.

Unfortunately, if you Wait and See for too long, things apparently become Too Old Too Matter.

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 8 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 12 hours ago)

Mozilla genuinely believes that this company follows the principles of the Mozilla Manifesto. At least, according to what Mozilla.vc says on its homepage.

(See more of the $35 million of its investments there.)

Other investments include:

  • Rodeo, an app that acknowledges the Gig Economy is harmful to Uber and Lyft drivers, but fundamentally doesn't want to change those harms.
  • HuggingFace, a company valued at $4.5 billion already.
  • lockrMail, an "inbox protecting" tool with a Chrome extension but no Firefox equivalent, and a direct competitor to Firefox Relay.
[-] LWD@lemm.ee 1 points 12 hours ago

So do you actually draw the line at Mozilla never building stuff like this into their browser, or is that a line you would be willing to cross too?

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 1 points 12 hours ago

I won't trust the AI Mozilla uses until they show us the source data. Not the source code that consumes a massive binary blob; the stuff that generated the binary blob they are using.

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 3 points 14 hours ago

The language is confusing, and Mozilla should fix it themselves.

The important takeaway is: data is sent over an IP address controlled by Google, to a remote server, running Google software. No processing is taking place on someone's local computer.

38
submitted 14 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) by LWD@lemm.ee to c/firefox@lemmy.ml

Gary Vee is a notorious ~~grifter~~ NFT salesman with a checkered past.

Webacy is a cryptocurrency wallet "technology layer" that "provides security features" like password backup, "digital wills", etc.

29
submitted 3 days ago by LWD@lemm.ee to c/firefox@lemmy.ml

On Valentine's Day 2024, Mozilla came out with a piece critical of AI chatbots titled "Creepy.exe: Mozilla Urges Public to Swipe Left on Romantic AI Chatbots Due to Major Privacy Red Flags."

But before they found red flags, back in 2019, Mozilla promoted a workshop on a creepy, rainbow-washed, chatbot ecosystem where people identified as "queer" were required to bare their most intimate sexual thoughts.

From the post:

your... interactions will be recorded... you will occasionally be prompted with random survey questions

What kinds of questions did they randomly ask the people who would "queer the AI"? Creepy stuff like

Have you ever sexted with a stranger?
Have you ever sexted with a machine?
Do you remember the first time you were aroused by language?
Do you think an artificial intelligence could help fulfill some of these... needs?

The workshop providers guided people into establishing an intimate, sexual connection with the chatbot they could create.

How might we build trust with an AI?
How might we give it its own sense of desire?

Even the consenting participants in the workshop complained about the AI's creep factor:

it feels like the A.I. is gas-lighting you. Seems like a noncommittal sexting bot. It should at least be clear about what it’s trying to do.

The startup that Mozilla fostered for this panel ended up crashing and burning, but its creepier, worse brethren live on inside of Firefox 130, displayed as first-class options within Mozilla's chatbot options. I just thought it would be fun to take a trip down memory lane to see how many creepy red flags AI companies could get within Mozilla's view without ever concerning them.

93
submitted 2 months ago by LWD@lemm.ee to c/firefox@lemmy.ml

Now that Google and Microsoft each consume more power than some fairly big countries, maybe it's time for 2024 Mozilla to take heed of 2021 Mozilla's warnings.

119
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by LWD@lemm.ee to c/firefox@lemmy.ml

There seems to be minimal information about this online, so I'm leaving this here so cooler heads can prevail in discussion.

Link to filing: https://archive.org/details/jyjfub

Notable portions:

Teixeira was hired as Chief Product Officer and was in line to become CEO.

Mr. Teixeira became Chief Product Officer (“CPO”) of Mozilla in August, 2022. During the hiring process, Mr. Teixeira had conversations with executive recruiting firm, Russell Reynolds Associates, that one of Mozilla Corporation’s hiring criteria for the CPO role was an executive that could succeed Mitchell Baker as CEO.

Also, shortly after being hired, Mr. Teixeira had conversations with Ms. Baker about being positioned as her successor.

After taking medical leave to deal with cancer, Mozilla swiftly moved to replace CEO Mitchell Baker with someone else.

Shortly before Mr. Teixeira returned from leave, Mozilla board member Laura Chambers was appointed Interim CEO of Mozilla and Ms. Baker was removed as CEO and became Executive Chair of the Board of Directors.

After returning, Teixeira was ordered to lay off 50 preselected employees, and he objected due to Mozilla not needing to cut them and their disproportionate minority status.

In a meeting with Human Resources Business Partner Joni Cassidy, Mr. Teixeira discussed his concern that people from groups underrepresented in technology, like female leaders and persons of color, were disproportionately impacted by the layoff.

... Ms. Chehak verbally reprimanded Mr. Teixeira, accusing him of violating [a] non-existent “onboarding plan” and threatening to place Mr. Teixeira back on medical leave if he did not execute the layoffs as instructed.

Mozilla's lack of inclusivity was a known problem

In February 2022, Mozilla commissioned the firm of Tiangay Kemokai Law, P.C. to assess its performance in providing a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace culture.

The report delivered in 2023 from Tiangay Kemokai Law, P.C. states in part: “MoCo falls into the Cultural Incapacity category based on leadership’s inadequate response to the needs of a diverse culture or else the need to create a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive culture, which is reflected in current systems, processes and procedures, policies and practices, or the lack thereof, and are incongruent with MoCo’s stated values and goals.”

Steve Teixeira has been put on leave.

On May 23, 2024, Mozilla placed Mr. Teixeira on administrative leave.

Mr. Teixeira requested a reason for being placed on administrative leave.

Mozilla did not provide Mr. Teixeira with a reason why he was placed on administrative leave.

Mozilla cut off Mr. Teixeira’s access to email, Slack messaging, and other Mozilla systems.

Mozilla instructed employees not to communicate with Mr. Teixeira about work-related matters.

Upon information and belief, an investigation into Mr. Teixeira’s allegations was finally conducted in late May 2024, but Mozilla did not do so under its internal policies and procedures regarding managing complaints of discrimination. Mr. Teixeira was not contacted to participate in the investigation into his complaint of unlawful treatment.

Coverage online so far

~~I say "alleged" because there appears to be no consensus on the veracity of this document.~~

Update: this appears to be confirmed.

This has received no "news" coverage besides one angry loudmouth (Bryan Lunduke) whose entire commentary career has been shaped by his political beliefs, regardless of truth.

57
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by LWD@lemm.ee to c/firefox@lemmy.ml

I recently downloaded Firefox Nightly and noticed some new settings that were enabled by default:

  • Suggestions from Firefox Nightly
    Get suggestions from the web related to your search
  • Suggestions from sponsors
    Support Firefox Nightly with occasional sponsored suggestions

Learn more about Firefox Suggest

The link in the UI doesn't mention sponsorships anywhere. But this page does:

Who are Mozilla’s partners for sponsored suggestions?

We partner with organizations to serve up some of these suggestion types... For sponsored results, we primarily work with adMarketplace, while also providing non-sponsored results from Wikipedia.

This page links to the adMarketplace Privacy Policy which makes it pretty clear this company is okay with collecting your IP address and passing it to further unnamed entities.

Elsewhere, they say Firefox sends them "the number of times Firefox suggests or displays specific content and your clicks on that content, as well as basic data about your interactions with Firefox Suggest", and then will share interaction information "in an aggregate manner with our partners".


Update: Switched the link from the Desktop to the Mobile version. Added more quotes from FF, and bolded info about their one named AdTech partner.

7
deleted (i.imgur.com)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by LWD@lemm.ee to c/lemmyshitpost@lemmy.world

Done in Boost.

89
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by LWD@lemm.ee to c/firefox@lemmy.ml

Today, when I navigated to amazon.com on Firefox for Android, I received a jarring message that I could "try" a new service, Fakespot, on the app.

Fakespot is littered with privacy issues.

Among other things, FakeSpot/Mozilla was forced to admit:
"We sell and share your personal information"

Fakespot's privacy policy allows them to store and/or sell:

  • Your email address
  • Your IP address
  • "Protected chacteristics"
    ie gender, sexuality, race...
  • Data scraped from across the web
  • Account IDs
  • Things you bought
    (This is sold to advertisers)
  • Things you considered buying
    (This is sold to advertisers)
  • Your precise location
    (This is sold to advertisers)
  • Inferences about you
    (This is sold to advertisers)

Right before Mozilla acquired them, Fakespot updated their privacy policy to allow transfer of private data to any company that acquired them. (Previous Privacy Policy here. Search "merge" in both.)

People donate to Mozilla because they believe in the company's stated goals. Why were the donations put into an acquisition of a company with this kind of privacy policy? And why has Mozilla focused on bundling it as bloat into their browser? Now that Brave is in hot water for becoming bloated, Mozilla should buck the trend, not follow it.

0
deleted (lemm.ee)
submitted 10 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) by LWD@lemm.ee to c/firefox@lemmy.ml

Today, when I navigated to amazon.com on Firefox for Android, I received a jarring message that I could "try" a new service, Fakespot, on the app.

What's Fakespot? A "review-checking, scammer-spotting service for Firefox."

Among other things, FakeSpot/Mozilla was forced to admit:
"We sell and share your personal information"

Fakespot's privacy policy allows them to collect and sell:

  • Your email address
  • Your IP address
  • Account IDs
  • A list of things you purchased and considered purchasing
  • Your precise location (which will be sent to advertising partners)
  • Data about you publicly available on the web
  • Your curated profile (which will also be sent to advertising providers)

Right before Mozilla acquired them, Fakespot updated their privacy policy to allow transfer of private data to any company that acquired them. (Previous Privacy Policy here. Search "merge" in both.)

Who asked for this? Who demanded integration into Firefox, since it was already a (relatively unpopular) browser extension people could have used instead?

view more: next ›

LWD

joined 10 months ago