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Re:Firefox on the Brink? by riversflow on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @05:18PM (#38537707)
> No browser deserves special treatment here.

Completely disagree. Privacy is a 4th ammendment right, so the government has a duty to support privacy first browsers. How am I "secure in my ... papers and effects" if I must use a privacy destroying browser to interact with the Government? If anything, chrome support is what should be questionable.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by insanitybit on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @07:27PM (#38538908)
Maybe you can make this argument - that the government should support technologies that emphasize privacy. That could possibly lead to some funding. Creating a policy to support a single vendor, however, is something that I think would be a bit odd for the government. Government spending is supposed to be devoid of bias where possible - you can't just give a contract to someone you like or think is cool, you need to show that it's in the taxpayer's interest (ie: they are cheaper, usually).

To say "we are going to support a browser with 2% market share because we like it more" would therefor be a really big deal. I think a far better avenue would be for the government to provide funding for privacy technologies directly, in an effort to increase their marketshare, and thereby making support of those technologies trivial to justify without any potential issues of bias.

The thing is, the government already does this. The majority of TOR's funding comes from the USG, for example. I'd suggest that maybe the government could fund Mozilla's non profit, to a degree.

This is all based on a premise that Mozilla is worthy of that funding. Is Mozilla really the privacy champion that it touts itself as? Would funding be contingent on anything else? If the government is so determined to prioritize privacy, why not Brave? Or some other entity? Or a new entity?

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by gafage on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @05:26PM (#38537778)
That's the mother of all reaches.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by riversflow on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @05:52PM (#38538072)
How?
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by hedora on Tuesday December 05, 2023 @09:35PM (#38539880)
The supreme court ruled there is no right to privacy in the same ruling that overturned roe v wade.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by andsoitis on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @12:49AM (#38540831)
> The supreme court ruled there is no right to privacy in the same ruling that overturned roe v wade.

My understanding is that the consequence is denial of the right to privacy is limited to women while they are pregnant. Not a categorical denial of the right to privacy.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by insanitybit on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @03:16AM (#38541581)
I don't think that's true. They just ruled that the constitutional right to privacy is not sufficient for the Roe v Wade ruling.
Re:Firefox on the Brink? by hedora on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @01:40PM (#38547856)
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/roe-...

> The final decision was little changed from the leaked draft. Writing for the five-justice majority (with Chief Justice Roberts concurring only in the judgment), Justice Samuel Alito argued that the right to privacy is not specifically guaranteed anywhere in the Constitution. When unenumerated liberty rights exist — the right to raise your child as you see fit, for example — those rights must be “deeply rooted in the Nation’s history and tradition.” Reviewing the history of abortion restrictions in the early United States, Alito concluded that the right to abortion is not.

> The opinion ignited a firestorm of controversy. Predictably so: Dobbs is arguably the first case to formally rescind a fundamental constitutional right. The opinion also failed to explain how its logic would not also result in the overturning of Griswold’s right to contraception or a series of other cases that rely on the same logic as Roe. These include Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which invalidated laws criminalizing same-sex intimate sexual conduct, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which recognized the right to marriage for same-sex couples.

Re:Firefox on the Brink? by insanitybit on Wednesday December 06, 2023 @02:07PM (#38548160)
Thank you.