So only bookmarks of porn sites if you have Sync active, sending porn tabs to a Firefox instance on another device, browsing porn while on the Mozilla VPN, or using Firefox Relay to sign up to a porn website with an anonymous email address

Fine by me since I don't use a Mozilla account, but sounds to me like I shouldn't get a Mozilla account either

Bookmarks and tab URLs don’t contain porn, generally? References are not typically considered explicit, though certainly their language isn’t clear enough about that.

If you bookmark a collection of data: / blob: links then that would be the outlier scenario where you shouldn’t use any third-party server-involved bookmark syncing service, as presumably they’ll all either break or ban you once they find you using their bookmark table space for data storage.

Good point about Relay.

It seems like they might be "use[d]...to...[u]pload, download, transmit, display, or grant access to content that includes graphic depictions of sexuality"

Bookmarks and tabs hinge on how you interpret "grant access". Do URLs to publicly available websites grant you access, or does the phrase only apply to cookies, passwords, login-urls, etc.? I'm pretty certain it would apply to login-urls, email-confirmation emails, password-reset emails, etc, but for normal URLs I could see it either way

> Bookmarks and tab URLs don’t contain porn, generally?

Do URL stubs of porn titles count as explicitly sexual? They can get pretty raunchy

Back in the Wild West of geocities days, I seem to recall animated pornographic favicons.

Favicons are not contained within bookmarks under normal circumstances, but I don’t know if Sync syncs those or if the browser fetches them on each endpoint.

I think this is the most damning point: their terms extend to cover the text in URLs, and so by definition all text including titles and URLs — as well as any pages visited, due to tab syncing — would need to be in compliance with policy. If it’s as clearcut as presented here, anyways. Do the other browser profile syncing services have similar language? Is such overreach unique to Mozilla Corporation?

Though, considering how few people are likely to care about the legal exposure risk of continuing to use Firefox Sync, I don’t imagine this will end up being particularly enforceable in practice.

Blob URL is also just a reference to a (local) resource. I guess another valid example would be something like javascript:document.write(<data>)

Do you know any other?

Then you haven't seen my browser

I think Mozilla VPN is a Mozilla service?

It's pretty odd if you aren't allowed to use their VPN to watch or share porn

- send unsolicited communications (for example cold emailing an employer about a job) - Deceive or mislead (for example inviting your brother over for a surprise party under false pretenses) - Purchase legal controlled products (for example sending the pharmacy a refill for your Xanax) - Collect email addresses without permission (for example putting together a list of emails to contact public officials)

"If you're doing it you have to give us the data, and btw you can't do it either"

look, i'd have similar clauses if I ran such a service. Porn gets very messy very quickly. Revenge porn, porn of generally unconsenting parties etc. are all to common and people who share know it is wrong and so try to use things like vpns to hide. The problem for you as a vpn provider is proving they're doing the wrong thing with your service, so it is much easier to simply say there is a blanket ban and then selectivly enforce.

The upside for users in general is such a vpn service tends not to be associated with underbelly behaviour and so isn't blocked from 90% of the web.

Do hammer manufacturers required you to sign an agreement at the hardware store with a bunch of legalese so they aren't held liable if you use the hammer to beat someone to death?

Do alcohol companies get shut down when people drink and kill someone with their car?

Did you know that a nonzero percentage of child molesters wear Nike sneakers when they kidnap children? Why doesn't Nike actively try to prevent this?!

So why should a VPN provider need to explicitly dissuade its customers from breaking the law with their service? Why should a web browser be afraid of being on the hook when someone breaks the law via the web?

Bars certainly get in huge trouble if they let someone drink too much, and they leave and drive and kill somebody.

but bars are aiding these drunks. a hammer is a tool specifically for hitting and removing nails. If you put that burden on a hammer, you'll have to put that in a pencil and every object in the world.

Minor objection...

I have and continue to use my hammer, which is none but an Estwing, for demolition work. Often there are no nails directly involved and when there are, I use a prybar. I have also used it to open beers, 'fix' computers, as well as procure therapy to various things that plead for it. On several occasions I've even used it tied to a rope to throw over an unreachable tree limb.

That this may be used as evidence in court against me, well, has me almost welcoming a firing squad. What a silly silly planet.

Is there any hope for Midori?

I honestly doubt that this is true for the country I live in. How would a bar keeper know your intention to drive? And your ability to drive might be impaired before showing obvious symptoms of intoxication

I don’t think this is really true at all, at any decently busy establishment there’s no way the bartender could possibly be responsible for what their patrons do after leaving when they barely have time to take their orders

I am unsure you know how a VPN works, because non of your comparisons work in anyway shape or form as representing the same thing.

A more appropriate comparison is a real-estate company which manages corporate offices, leasing out a corporate office space. That space is being offered under the proviso that NO brothel is opened there, underage or otherwise. Now, they won't ask you what you're doing and generally won't look but if there is a single complaint of you running an underage brothel, they look, and see any brothel activity, instead of wasting time they'll simply evict you and avoid the entire mess and waste of resources spent investigating. Easy.

The alternative is having to painstakingly prove the wrong thing was done, which is notoriously difficult, and ties up a lot of resources.

"Graphic depictions of violence" also covers every 18+ movie or TV show. So I guess streaming Underbelly would also be against such a policy.

That's a bad idea, and a badly formed policy. The legal team and the marketing team need to talk things over here, a wee bit more.

All of that should be covered by not allowing illegal content ?

> Firefox isn't a Mozilla service.

They might clarify that in the agreement. I doubt many people are intimately familiar with Mozilla, Firefox, 'services', etc. to distinguish. I am and I didn't think of it in a brief reading (which is all I have time for).

Then they shouldn't explicitly say “Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.”

And yet these terms of service—for Firefox—specifically apply the AUP to “your use of Firefox,” no?

The entire AUP is prefixed “You may not use any of Mozilla’s services to:”. There’s nothing in the AUP that doesn’t refer to “Mozilla’s services.” When the Firefox TOS explicitly includes this AUP, how could it make sense unless they think of Firefox as one of their services?

At the risk of restating the gp’s quote:

> Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy, and you agree that you will not use Firefox to infringe anyone’s rights or violate any applicable laws or regulations.

Mozilla VPN is a service Mozilla provides though. White-labelled Mullvad or not, it a contract between Mozilla and the user and therefore presumably covered by this terms of use.

I would say porn is probably in the top 3 if not number 1 use for VPNs

It's against ToS to watch R rated movies.

Its against the ToS to watch most PG rated movies. It objects to graphic depictions of violence as well, and has no exception for brief graphic depictions of sexuality.

But python-rated movies are ok I guess? :)

I C what you did there.

You're #

I'm going to need another cup of Java to get through these.

Well you may Go do that.

These TOS really are a complete brainfuck.

No doubt. Just thinking about it turns my brain to rust.

No more genius lines from you, Shakespeare?

[Enter TomK32] [Enter Downvote] [Enter Downvote]

TomK32: You treacherous cowards! Is thy mind void of any knowledge or are you driven by a devil that you deny the existence of this programming language?

[Exit TomK32]

PS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_Programming_Langua...

It's time we get clojure on this topic

This thread has more dependencies than an npm package with left-pad

It has been quite the bash.

This conversation is a total Racket

Enough with the smalltalk.

Let's see if I can cobol together another reply

It worked, but this reply is pretty Basic

This series of puns has really been a gem so far, but it's going off the rails at this point

That's some perl clutching. :)

So what about synced bookmarks?

I wouldn’t expect the bookmark to run afoul of this clause, since the bookmark isn’t the content. Now it’d be a curious case if the bookmark contained a base64-encoded pornographic image.

You seem to be assuming competence on the part of the author. But, as is common with documents that lawyers generate, they probably don't care if it's reasonable or if practically every one of their users violates it. Like when you get an employee contract that claims your new company owns every idea you ever had. Some people will claim it's just "lawyer stuff" and is somehow okay. It's really not okay.

And synced history.

If you're syncing a bookmark that is somehow illegal content, it would come to rest on their servers and they'd potentially be liable for it. (IIRC they encrypt everything at rest, so this is a speculative risk)

Depictions of sexuality or violence are legal in most places, even if said depictions are graphic

Porn is not illegal, either are the Rambo movies.

> Your use of Firefox must follow Mozilla’s Acceptable Use Policy

The fact that Firefox isn't a "Mozilla Service" seems irrelevant.

Imagine using Mozilla Sync to ensure you have the same horse porn on your phone as your laptop out of spite.

with this new TOS, Firefox became Mozilla "service"

The French translation of the Terms of Use says they apply both to services and products:

> Vous ne pouvez pas utiliser les services et produits de Mozilla dans les buts suivants :

But it says "Your use of Firefox must follow [the terms of use for Mozilla services]"