Yeah, legal words are frustrating like that. When the law comes to their house, using "acting purely as a user agent and sending data" will just help them on reddit but not on court. And no, you don't always send the data to the "address in URL bar", there can be services that are in iframes or with other add-on services like their Pocket, VPN, AI chats (ChatGPT...), similar to any client softwares sending data to other services that are not their own.
That's why they use these words, which actually can include more activities inside browser
> for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox.
There's a reason I won't interpret serious things by myself if I face legal entities without a proper lawyer.
I feel like you're deliberately ignoring the crux of the issue: a web browser's job does not require anything remotely resembling a copyright license from the user to the browser vendor.
Yes, Mozilla has been developing and acquiring a host of other services, many of which do involve Mozilla taking possession of user data and processing it. Those services need legal policies that cover Mozilla doing stuff with your data. A web browser does not, because the vendor of the web browser does not need to know what you're doing with your copy of the browser.
Mozilla the legal entity that can be the recipient of a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license is not the same as Firefox with PID 3808 on my machine. PID 3808 does not need, and cannot need, and cannot receive a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to anything. PID 3808 is not a legal person. This fundamental distinction between code I'm running on my machine and services provided by Mozilla is why the legal terms of use for Firefox should not be lumped in to the same document as the terms of use for Mozilla's various services.
Mozilla the legal entity does not need a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to the comments I post to HN using my copy of Firefox, any more than Netgear the legal entity needs a license to those comments because a Netgear box is transmitting those packets.
> a web browser's job does not require anything remotely resembling a copyright license from the user to the browser vendor.
Yes, I know that, you know that, we all know that. This has always been our implicit agreements between us and the softwares. The thing is, are you sure your argument would help Firefox and Mozilla in the court? Can you be Firefox' lawyers when other legal entities approach them nowadays? I don't see any laws that specifically allow those implicit agreements automatically in browsers. Like Epic founder said:
> The license says that when you type stuff, the program can use the stuff you typed to do the thing you asked it to do. This is what programs ordinarily do, but nowadays lawyers tend to advise companies to say it explicitly.
Firefox is made by Mozilla Corporation (https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/faq/), the codes that run the browser are made by Mozilla Corporation, a taxable subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation. It integrates other services like Password Manager (which includes "Alerts for breached websites" feature), Autofill payment method, Deceptive Content and Dangerous Software Protection, Query OCSP for certificates validation, DoH, DRM, their up-coming AI Chats... All of these would potentially be targeted in legal confrontations. And where would those legal disputes be sent to? Mozilla Corporation, even when those activities are in your Firefox PID 3808. The activities do not limit in just sending data.
If I just make a program for myself or for others but without any big entities behind, I won't need to think about anything. But if my program is backed by a taxable company, any implicit agreements between my program and other users would leave legal concerns for me and my company for sure.
why can't they let you opt into those services and agreements at the opt in part? There's a middle ground they are completely ignoring. The only way around it is to install a fork of firefox that doesn't have any of it.
That's why they use these words, which actually can include more activities inside browser
> for the purpose of doing as you request with the content you input in Firefox.
There's a reason I won't interpret serious things by myself if I face legal entities without a proper lawyer.