Comment by exelius
9 years ago
Seems kind of like it is part of an ARG. I can't say I'm totally against something like that; Mozilla's gotta make money somehow, and as long as it's not selling out user privacy it's a better tradeoff than Chrome.
9 years ago
Seems kind of like it is part of an ARG. I can't say I'm totally against something like that; Mozilla's gotta make money somehow, and as long as it's not selling out user privacy it's a better tradeoff than Chrome.
You think having advertisers change text on unrelated websites you visit is an acceptable tradeoff?
Yes
Still better than everything else
> Mozilla's gotta make money somehow
Actually they do not. their revenue is at an all time high despite the market share reaching an all time low.
https://www.cnet.com/news/mozilla-revenue-jump-fuels-its-fir... https://www.computerworld.com/article/3240008/web-browsers/m... https://www.ghacks.net/2017/12/02/mozillas-revenue-increased...
Not to mention the great amount of money they've wasted in certain previous frivolous, doomed projects, like Firefox OS - great idea, by the way, to make your "native" app platform the most power hungry, slowest of them all, and then market the OS only for pairing it with low end devices sold to third worlders - because third worlders totally need slow software running on the hardware they can barely afford - it's not as if they were people, with real world needs, just like us, and not lab rats. For a company that prides itself on its open values.. that's really treating people with contempt.
However they're experimenting with selling user privacy to 3rd party companies, with small percentage of users in Germany (it's enabled by default).
Come on! their business model has been exactly that since they created the corporation to stop illegally collect money from google.
The whole partnership with google to put its search engine as default is about enabling google to profile firefox users and shows them ads.
> Mozilla's gotta make money somehow
They're a nonprofit; they're not allowed to just "make money". And, they already take donations.
I think the the term “non-profit” is more about how an organization spends the money, rather than how they make it. Non profits and charities definitely bring in money through channels other than donations...
I agree.
I merely challenge the notion that a nonprofit -- which proudly tumpets its benevolence and non-profitness -- should get a free pass for covertly installing advertising arrangements, just because they need to "make money".
Their charter and marketing is all about defending the internet from the companies doing shady things to make money, so they can't have their cake and eat it.
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Non-profit orgs are such due to legal designations that give them favorable tax treatment. In return they promise to organize and operate only to fulfill a charitable mission. The mission of Mr. Robot (content sniffing) has nothing to do with the charitable mission of Mozilla, "Our mission is to ensure the Internet is a global public resource, open and accessible to all."
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> I think the the term “non-profit” is more about how an organization spends the money, rather than how they make it.
Tax-exempt non-profit (especially charity) status is very much about both how money is made and how it is distributed/spent.
This is a very common misconception about non-profits that is not true. The details depend on local laws, but generally a non-profit only means that the owner of the non-profit can't take the all of the actual profit (money) directly out of the non-profit via dividends. Things like non-profits must be focused public good or they can't pay high (or any) salaries are urban legends that have no basis in reality.
The key word is "just".
That's not a misconception I share. I understand Mozilla can and should make money to further its mission.
But unlike a for-profit, making money isn't the mission of Mozilla. So needing to make money can't be used as a justification for doing naughty things against the public good.
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They also have limits on political speech. The IRS gives them breaks. One of the big misunderstandings/myths is that a church cannot support a political candidate.
Some people cry "free speech violation" but they can endorse a candidate, they just need to give up their tax privileges. This is why the ACLU is split into two parts. One you can donate to and get tax dedications for, but the other is their lobbying arm, and therefore cannot allow tax deductions for their donors.
"non-profit" isn't a magical incantation that means they can run with a revenue deficit forever though. They have expenses and there has to be enough revenue coming in to cover those expenses, or they will go out of business. That's true for any business, whether it's for-profit or non-profit.
Mozilla foundation (the non profit) set up Mozilla Corporation (the for profit raking in hundreds of millions of dollars) when the IRS investigated the foundation about tax fraud.
Of course non profits are allowed to make money.
I believe the idea is that Mr. Robot fans use Firefox to participate in the ARG, not that Firefox users suddenly start watching Mr. Robot. So if anything I'd expect that Mozilla pays Mr. Robot for this.