Mozilla is under fire for its updated Firefox user agreement

Mozilla last week updated the Firefox user agreement — something that normally does not provoke strong reactions.

This time, however, the changes led to a wave of criticism, because some of the wording can be interpreted as giving Mozilla free rein to do whatever it wants with users’ data. In particular, the following paragraph has raised user ire:

“When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox”

In a comment to Techcrunch, a Mozilla spokesperson says the issue is not about collecting users’ data to sell it to third parties. Instead, it’s about gaining knowledge on how chatbots are used. Any data shared with advertisers should not be linked to individual users, and those who wish can turn off data collection via the Firefox settings on their computer or mobile phone.

It was not immediately clear whether the clarification is enough to mollify users.