this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2025
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Actually no, I don't want to hold both to the same standard. Google is a for profit company. I expect them to do shady shit. I expect more out of Mozilla. Doesn't mean that they screwed this up the way the media says they did. They screwed up the communication big time
Just being non-profit doesn't mean an org won't do shady stuff.
Yeh, I have higher standards for Mozilla, but I'm also more willing to trust them if they say they are making it right.
I trust and expect very little good from Google, other than convenience.
A company that is able to pay 20 millions a year to a ceo is for profit. Change my mind
The company itself is not for profit. The CEO gets payed way too much, but a for-profit company would return money to the owners (mostly shareholders/investors), which Mozilla is not
Before continuing, I want to specify that I'm agreeing with you but clarifying the situation because there is a business interest involved here.
The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit with several wholly-owned, for-profit business subsidiaries, most notably the Mozilla Corporation. The Corporation markets and distributes several Mozilla products, including the Firefox browser, as well as its other commercial ventures like Pocket. The corporate subsidiaries' profits do get returned to the owner of those businesses, which is the Foundation.
That is a very American definition of for profit.
Here in Germany, a non-profit is not allowed to do any profit. They are allowed to cover their costs, that's it. (Of course it is more complicated but that is the essence).
For years and years, Mozilla is doing shady stuff.
Let's for example look the way how they enabled DoH. Or their decision to let themselves pay by google for making google the default search engine. Or now, spinning up their own ad network.
And on the other hand, if google does something like their new ad auction stuff (that is run completely in your browser and the api is open btw) than there are only bad intentions, according to some folks.
If we keep argumenting this way, Mozilla will make itself the very thing we hate, and we are loosing a very important alternative to chrome
So, now, I am not willing to give them any more slag. They have to change
Google the company only has bad intentions, despite what many working for Google might want to achieve. It’s proven time and time again that it couldn’t care less about anything other than profit, and if you don’t think profit over everything isn’t nefarious, then we just disagree.
That said, I agree with everything else you said.
Just to clarify. Google is not good. Google sees us as the product.
But: just because it is this way, misrepresentation of a real privacy feature, just because it is Google, is still bad. And treating Mozilla with silk gloves does make this worse, because it seems to lack objectivity.
And we, as a privacy loving, opensource breathing, community can not campaign for our goals successfully if we lack objectivity in communication.
That is just not true... You are not allowed to pay your profits to anyone, but investing it or building reserves is absolutely permitted and a really important thing to do especially if you're dependent on donations...
I agree, but that will never make me use Chrome or any Chromium based browser. Like probably a lot of people here I do not use vanilla Firefox, but rather LibreWolf and the like
As mentioned, it is of course more complicated. But I guarantee you, that german courts and the "IRS" will revoke your non profit status if you pay 20 millions to your CEO. I was chairman in a few german non profits, and the requirements are high.