Mozilla's New Terms of Use Are Out of Step with Firefox's Direct Competition

On Wednesday, Mozilla introduced legal updates to users of Firefox, and something feels off. I read, and re-read the new Terms of Use and while much of it reads like standard boilerplate from any tech company, there’s a new section that is unexpected: 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. The community has also zeroed in on this phrase, with contributors asking directly what up with that? While I’m not going to ponder about why Mozilla wants this royalty-free license to my intellectual property, I immediately wondered whether using Microsoft Word also needed this kind of license grant – since it is processing my words. I was quickly informed by a chatroom interlocutor that: To the extent necessary to provide the Services to you and others, to protect you and the Servi ... Read full article.