Mozilla Puts New Money To Use Fighting For 'Internet Health' (cnet.com)

Stephen Shankland, writing for CNET: Mozilla is marshaling public support for political positions, like backing net neutrality, defending encryption and keeping government surveillance from getting out of hand, says Denelle Dixon-Thayer, Mozilla's chief legal and business officer. The organization is funding the efforts with revenue from Firefox searches, which has jumped since 2014 when it switched from a global deal with Google to a set of regional deals. Mozilla brought in $421 million in revenue last year largely through partnerships with Yahoo in the US, Yandex in Russia and Baidu in China, according to tax documents released alongside Mozilla's 2015 annual report on Thursday. Pushing policy work brings new challenges well beyond traditional Mozilla work competing against Google's Chrome browser and Microsoft's Internet Explorer. They include squaring off against the incoming administration of Donald Trump.

Comments

Slashdot to use fighting for website better

[Anonymous Coward]

English. Do you speak it?

Re:Slashdot to use fighting for website better

[Desler]

Apparently you don't. There's nothing wrong with the title.

Re:Slashdot to use fighting for website better

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Ain't no garden path like a CSS Zen Garden path.

Re:Slashdot to use fighting for website better

[Hognoxious]

It is. But "Mozilla Uses New Money To Fight For 'Internet Health'" conveys the same meaning without being shit.

Less politics

[geek]

More code.

Re:Less politics

[Bruce Perens]

At first, less politics more code might sound productive. But in actuality, it's "keep your nose to the grindstone and don't stick your nose in the policies made by those above your pay grade". Of course, those policies will have tremendous effects on us, and we should have a say. All the code we can make won't necessarily change them.

The classical Greek definition of "idiot" is someone who declines to take part in democratic government. It is no less so today.

Re:Less politics

[geek]

The classical Greek definition of "idiot" is someone who declines to take part in democratic government. It is no less so today.

So where does forcing out a CEO who actively took part in democratic government fall?

Re:Less politics

[webnut77]

I wish Firefox would update the window title after closing a tab or switching tabs.

Re: Less politics

[Bruce Perens]

It falls under participation in politics. Forcing out CEOs who publicly support policies repugnant to the organizations own membership and supporters is good politics. You have freedom of speech, but we have freedom to decline to be associated with you and your speech.

Re: Less politics

[narcc]

The trouble here is that you don't personally find Eich's politics repugnant. If, instead, he was actively supporting white supremacists, you wouldn't see anything wrong with either the criticism Mozilla received, nor would you so vocally object to Eich's resignation at every opportunity. (This is not to imply that one hate group is less repugnant than the other.)

There's no hypocrisy there, except in your own imagination. I can't even begin to guess how you came that that particular conclusion.

Re: Less politics

[Bruce Perens]

It's not hypocrisy, nor is it either a safe space nor an echo chamber. That's silly rhetoric.

A CEO is the public face of your company. He or she has to represent your brand. Obviously Mozilla's brand was not to prevent Gay couples from having the right to marry.

Re: Less politics

[Mashiki]

The trouble here is that you don't personally find Eich's politics repugnant.

The actual trouble here is that people want to attack a person who's done something on their own time, without using the company as a mouthpiece to promote their own private views. If he was supporting white supremacists I wouldn't have a problem with it either, because as a private citizen, he has the right to do whatever they please. Now on the other hand if he turned around and started using Mozilla as a mouthpiece to promote those views, I'd have a problem with it.

What continues to surprise me is the number of people that believe that a person should be shamed/punished/etc for what they do as a private citizen. But then stand up and clap their hands when a company turns around and starts pushing political propaganda.

Re: Less politics

[narcc]

When you're the public face of an organization, you don't have that luxury.

Jared Fogle, for example, wasn't using Subway to promote child molestation, but Subway gave him the ax anyway. They dropped him even before there was any trial! Where they wrong to disassociate themselves from Fogle? Would you still say:

I wouldn't have a problem with it either, because as a private citizen, he has the right to do whatever they please.

What if your kid's school teacher openly supported NAMBLA?

Of course, Eich resigned on his own because he believed that was in the best interest of the organization. Mozilla didn't "force him out" like you seem to believe. It was the users who shouted, en masse, that they don't want a hatemonger leading Mozilla.

What continues to surprise me is the number of people that believe that a person should be shamed/punished/etc for what they do as a private citizen.

How, exactly, do you think societies work? Do you think free speech guarantees you freedom from the consequences of that speech?

Re: Less politics

[Bruce Perens]

Usually in this sort of argument, if people start to curse you out that means you've beaten them. But who are you anyway? Should I care that you don't like my opinion?

Re: Less politics

[Bruce Perens]

If he was supporting white supremacists I wouldn't have a problem with it either ...

Well, all of the Nazis, the Klu Klux Klan, and oppressors of various sorts can count on you, then.

I'm going to keep standing up for my values, and I support the Mozilla users for standing up for theirs.

Re: Less politics

[Mashiki]

Jared Fogle, for example, wasn't using Subway to promote child molestation, but Subway gave him the ax anyway. They dropped him even before there was any trial! Where they wrong to disassociate themselves from Fogle? Would you still say:

So he was the CEO of subway? Oooh right. Thought we were talking about that, I guess not. You miss the part where he was engaging in *illegal* behavior, and that was the reason that he was dropped? I guess so. Then again, if it had turned out hew as innocent, subway would be on the hook right?

What if your kid's school teacher openly supported NAMBLA?

You mean the impossibility of it? Or don't you know that in-depth background checks are a requirement, and that there are codes of conduct relating to things like that for individuals in such positions. Or would you like to try the and teachers(male and female) have been known to screw kids route?

How, exactly, do you think societies work? Do you think free speech guarantees you freedom from the consequences of that speech?

And there's that part where you believe that because a person has a right, and isn't breaking the law you should attack them. Instead of trying to understand the reasons for their positions instead.

Re: Less politics

[Mashiki]

Well, all of the Nazis, the Klu Klux Klan, and oppressors of various sorts can count on you, then.

I'm going to keep standing up for my values, and I support the Mozilla users for standing up for theirs.

You forgot the people who support social justice in there, BLM, Black Panthers, various student unions and a smattering of environmental groups. Just a FYI.

Your values seem to be: "Free speech is only permitted when it doesn't hurt my feelings." Mine just happens to be, a persons speech should be permitted as long as it's legal.

Re: Less politics

[Mashiki]

A CEO is the public face of your company. He or she has to represent your brand. Obviously Mozilla's brand was not to prevent Gay couples from having the right to marry.

CEO's haven't been like that for nearly 25 years, it's different for the "sole ownership" of a company however. They don't represent the brand, they're the guide behind the scenes that makes the brand profitable. Mozilla is Mozilla's brand, nothing more and nothing less.

Re:Less politics

[vel-ex-tech]

Came here looking for this comment. Left satisfied.

Re: Less politics

[Bruce Perens]

So he was the CEO of subway?

He was paid spokesperson. Usually this goes to a celebrity, they tried an "everyman" who followed their plan for weight loss. Too bad he had a yen for kids.

Yes, public spokespersons have to represent the brand. That's their only job. You might have noticed how fast the celebrity ones get dropped if they are in the news for drugs, deplorable sexual stuff, and violence. Brandon Marshall in the NFL lost two sponsorship deals for following Kapernick in his national anthem protest.

Re: Less politics

[Bruce Perens]

they're the guide behind the scenes that makes the brand profitable.

I used to work for Steve Jobs. Never for one second was that guy anything behind the scenes. I worked at Pixar, but I hear that Apple did a ton of work to keep people from thinking that the company would founder* with his death (and IMO, it has).

I just can't think of many "behind the scenes" CEOs, whatever size the company is.

* Sometimes, you've gotta love the English language.

Re: Less politics

[Bruce Perens]

Your values seem to be: "Free speech is only permitted when it doesn't hurt my feelings."

No. You're simply not recognizing that our actions can be free speech as well. When we do our very best to cut off all associations with a person, and to deplore their speech and actions, that is our free speech.

Re: Less politics

[narcc]

Let's put this as simply as possible: When the public face of your company actively supports a hate group, it reflects poorly on your organization.

Had Mozilla forced Eich out, they'd have been justified. Neither the organization, it's employees, or their users want to be associated with hate groups. Of course, they did NOT force Eich out, he resigned on his own.

Mozilla didn't do what you claim they did. I'm saying that they'd have been justified, had that actually been the case.

This isn't complicated.

Re: Less politics

[Anonymous Coward]

I honestly don't care about gay marriage one way or another. If gay people want to get married let them its inconsequential to our society as a whole (so is legally recognized heterosexual marriage for that matter). Cue the people screaming about the tax incentives which you don't necessarily get in every situation and the emotional feels you get in marriage which you could have without the government recognizing that union.

What is a drain on our society is advertisers owning all the major forms of communication in our society. If he was better qualified to lead Mozilla into being the best open web platform then I think he should have continued to lead Mozilla even if he was a white supremacist. If he was supporting white supremacy somehow with the platform then he would not be making the best open platform and would cease to be the most qualified. But if he believed that though he didn't like a particular group they still deserved an equal voice in our society (unlike the people who wanted his resignation) then that ceases to be an issue.

Engaging with people with differing opinions than yours is important and that means people with different opinions than you can have roles like CEOs of companies.

Re: Less politics

[Bruce Perens]

Off the top of your head, can you name the CEOs of Coca Cola

The CEO of Coke has not become as well known as Elon Musk, but I went on their web site and clicked on press releases, and he's generally quoted in the releases that discuss any significant financial event in the business. They have "brand ambassadors" for lesser things, but the CEO is definitely representing the brand, and particularly when the brand is marketed to stockholders and investors.

You will find similar things about the CEOs of the other companies you mentioned.

Re: Less politics

[Gavagai80]

When the CEO takes a political position that alienates a significant fraction of employees, that's bad for business. If Mozilla was afraid of losing GLBT workers, it had to act to ensure no employees would think that the company was trying to break up their marriages.

Re: Less politics

[Mashiki]

He was paid spokesperson. Usually this goes to a celebrity, they tried an "everyman" who followed their plan for weight loss. Too bad he had a yen for kids.

And he was engaging in illegal behavior. Eich's on the other hand wasn't. You're going pretty gun-ho for the whole "if it doesn't reflect my views, they need to be punished" authoritarianism.

Yes, public spokespersons have to represent the brand. That's their only job.

Sure, and in the case of Eich's he wasn't the public spokesman for that brand, it wasn't even his job. So how does that translate again? Right it doesn't.

Re: Less politics

[Mashiki]

Let's put this as simply as possible: When the public face of your company actively supports a hate group, it reflects poorly on your organization. ... Of course, they did NOT force Eich out, he resigned on his own.

So Fogle was a spokesman, but Eich's wan't. Neither were supporting a hate group. The first was engaging in illegal behavior, the second had opinions that you don't like. Good job on the authoritarianism, you opening reeducation camps for wrong think next?

Really? You should go read up on that a bit more, he was forced out. And it cost mozilla a chunk of the marketshare because of their actions, which still hasn't rebounded. Oh you're right, this isn't complicated. It's far more difficult to defend speech when it's speech you disagree with, and you don't appear to have the want or desire to.

Re: Less politics

[Bruce Perens]

Fogle was a company spokesperson, who got fired before the trial started because whether or not he had actually committed any crime, the appearance of his behavior made him unsuitable as a spokesperson.

Was Eich similarly a company spokesperson? You need only look at Mozilla's press releases. He's quoted in them while he's CTO, and if you go on Youtube, you can see that he makes a number of conference keynotes representing the Foundation. Once he's CEO, he writes this piece on inclusiveness which is linked to in this Mozilla Foundation press release. So, there's Eich representing the Mozilla brand on exactly the issue they already know he has a problem with. He doesn't get a chance to represent the foundation again, as they know they have a problem.

Re: Less politics

[Mashiki]

When the CEO takes a political position that alienates a significant fraction of employees, that's bad for business.

Except in his case he didn't take a political position on something. He took a person position. Unless you have actual proof, statements, his words that show this as something else. Then all you have at the end of the day is Mozilla forcing someone out because "reasons they don't like." Which is really no different then the witch hunts for wrong think.

Re: Less politics

[Mashiki]

... So, there's Eich representing the Mozilla brand on exactly the issue they already know he has a problem with. He doesn't get a chance to represent the foundation again, as they know they have a problem.

Thanks for proving my point. He supported Mozilla's corporate culture, and was forced out for a private opinion. In other words, Mozilla acted in a shitty way, and you support going after people who do things privately and on their own time if they don't align with your views.

Re: Less politics

[Mashiki]

You're basically talking "outside the norm" Steve Jobs is one of those. Can you name the CEO of AMD? FYI they're female. How about for GM? The last two GM CEO's? Last 3? Yeah, thought not(FYI out of those last 3, one was also female and was responsible for nearly bankrupting them). That's why a CEO isn't the public face of a company, and why companies promote their brand as the face of the company.

Re: Less politics

[Bruce Perens]

Because you are an end-user and not an investor in these companies, you might actually think the public face of the companies is a logo or a trademark rather than a human being. Perhaps you think the public face of McDonalds is Ronald McDonald! Or that Sprint's used to be that actor who portrayed a technician. But this naiveté is not shared by the people who are the target audience for the public face that the CEO's appearances and quotations produce. AMD has people to handle the guy who once plugged one of their CPUs into a motherboard. The public face nurtured by the CEO is reserved for investors and business relationships, government, and corporate citizenship. These are all areas in which a decision made outside of the company can have great impact on the company. And so, if you go on the company site, you will see the CEO quoted in the press releases related to those items. At trade shows, you will see these CEOs as keynotes. I am heading for CES in January, where many CEOs you've never heard of who run large tech companies will be speaking, and there will be full halls of their eager target audiences.

Don't you think it might be self-centered to assume someone's not the public face of the company because you don't know who they are?

Re: Less politics

[Bruce Perens]

It was only 1967 when the United States Supreme Court decided Loving v. Virginia, a miscegenation case. Preventing blacks and whites from marrying, as the State of Virginia (and many others) did with laws on its books until it was forced to remove them in 1967, is an issue of racism, nothing else. One doesn't have to be thin skinned to be disgusted by racism.

Why should I feel any different about gender discrminiation? Texas had a law on the book making homosexual relations illegal in 1998, and two men were arrested for it and similarly to Loving, helped to strike it down in the courts. Marriage discrimination is yet another legal wall erected by the prejudiced. Doesn't take a thin skin at all to oppose it and its supporters.

Re: Less politics

[Bruce Perens]

Eich resigned because of external pressure on the Mozilla organization. I hear that one of the lobbying activities against him was when the dating site "OK Cupid" started informing Firefox users who accessed the site of Eich's activities and that they should download a browser made by people who don't nominate someone with gender discrimination issues to be their CEO. At the time, 8% of OK Cupid customers were there to arrange same-gender meetings.

They felt he was the public face of the company.

Russ Nelson published a piece on what he theorized was the economic motivation of Blacks to be lazy, and was booted off of the Open Source Initiative board. He wasn't thinking about how it would be perceived. A modified version of the piece is still online, but not the version that got him in trouble. In general, executives are seen as the public faces of their organizations even in the case of Nelson, who was not the chairman of the board, but was simply a member of the executive board. In Nelson's case, it wasn't that he made publicity appearances and press releases, it was that he was one of the people with the power to direct the company (and thus a more real face of the company than soneone who just does PR), and folks did not trust that someone who wrote what he did would behave as they would like in that position.

user rights turned into the 'manifesto'

[nimbius]

conveniently the users bill of rights morphed into this corporate-jargon manifesto. its all vague enough that enforcement is almost impossible, but there are some points of hilarity to debate

Individualsâ(TM) security and privacy on the Internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional.

then give us back cookie control, let us completely disable tiles, and work for a real and meaningful way to thwart intrusive advertising and user tracking.

Individuals must have the ability to shape the Internet and their own experiences on it.

okay. my experience is emphatically not social. Get rid of the video/voice chat feature. sync is pointless to me, so make it an optional add-on. microsummaries are a waste of cpu cycles. the star button is pointless.

Transparent community-based processes promote participation, accountability and trust.

then start fixing the bugs. no more of this closed/cantfix or closed/wontfix shit. take the time to explain to users why Firefox is a RAM hog, why performance is miserable, and why stability suffers.

Sounds like a good idea

[Hognoxious]

Every dollar wasted on this is a dollar they can't waste on wrecking the UI, adding features nobody wants, and removing ones everybody likes.

Sounds like a good idea

Re:Sounds like a good idea

[rtb61]

Realistically they should be involved these are core issues of the digital age, a citizens digital rights, the right to privacy, the right to digital security, the right to equal access to the shared global societal digital network and the right to be 'Anonymous' ;D.

seems rather politically biased

[ooloorie]

They include squaring off against the incoming administration of Donald Trump.

Why didn't they "square off" against the Obama administration? Why aren't they "squaring off" against Pelosi? It looks to me like their "squaring off" is not so much based on an interest in free speech and a free Internet, but other political priorities that they have that are unrelated to the Internet.

Re:seems rather politically biased

[Anonymous Coward]

Because mass surveillance and censorship are like war.

They're good things if the guy in the White House has a "D" after his name.

Re:seems rather politically biased

[webnut77]

Because mass surveillance and censorship are like war.

They're good things if the guy in the White House has a "D" after his name.

Trump, D. ?

Put it to a good use.

[raymorris]

If you speak English, I hope you put that skill to some good use.

Re:Trump hasn't even taken office yet

[narcc]

What on earth are you talking about?

Re:Trump hasn't even taken office yet

[110010001000]

He doesn't like Obama because of his "policies".

Mozilla's 990 Form

[Anonymous Coward]

https://static.mozilla.com/moco/en-US/pdf/2015_Mozilla_Foundation_Forms_990_Public_Disclosure.pdf
Curious about these items:
Balance Sheet
Investments - publicly traded securities 15,741,855 15,232,060

Reconciliation of Net Assets
Net unrealized gains (losses) on investments -631,871

Investments - Other Securities.
OTHER SECURITIES AND HEDGE FUNDS 4,960,717

General Information on Activities Outside the United States.
CENTRAL AMERICA & THE CARIBBEAN 0 0 INVESTMENTS 4,960,717.

Transactions With Related Organizations
MOZILLA CORPORATION 6,466,566.TRADEMARK LICENSE AGREEMENT

1. What securities does Mozilla have investments in?
2. What Central American/Caribbean securities or hedge funds does Mozilla invest in?
3. Why does the Foundation license its trademarks to Mozilla Corporation, its wholly-own subsidiary? Is that normal?

These were the items that caught my eye.

Re:Mozilla's 990 Form

[Bruce Perens]

What securities does Mozilla have investments in?

I only have the answer to why they have investments. Because they have a significant amount of money on hand, and are holding it in the way that makes the most money for a project. When you put money in a bank, they invest it too. This way generally makes more money than interest from the bank.

What Central American/Caribbean securities or hedge funds does Mozilla invest in?

Don't know that either, but I can say why they do it. Diversification of your financial holdings over multiple currencies and over multiple national economies protects you from a crash in a single economy. The reliability of the US economy is no sure thing at the moment.

Why does the Foundation license its trademarks to Mozilla Corporation, its wholly-own subsidiary? Is that normal?

Yes. In this case I think it's a difference in tax status between the non-profit and the operating company. Sometimes it's done to keep the trademarks from being assets that could be placed in peril in a lawsuit. For-profit entities sometimes offshore the intellectual property rights as a tax shield, but I don't think that's happening here.

Re:Mozilla's 990 Form

[Bruce Perens]

Did Mozilla Foundation get fair market value for licensing it trademarks to Mozilla Corporation, a how was this valuation arrived at?

Mozilla Foundation, as a 501(c)3 non-profit, would not base their decisions solely on valuation or profit, nor would they be required to, and indeed they could get in trouble with the IRS if they did. The decision to license to their own operating corporation was so that they could achieve the purposes in their constitution, which have to do with net freedom.

Don't like my answers? Do your own research.

Re:Mozilla's 990 Form

[Bruce Perens]

MoCo could have paid as little as $1 for the license, along with an agreement to return profits, and that would be fair value. There's no question that the profits were returned.

However, there was never any possibility that any other entity would have been offered the license regardless of what they offered, and IMO had they considered that transaction based on the amount returned rather than achieving their purpose of a free internet, they would have disqualified themselves as a 501(c)3.

Re:Trump hasn't even taken office yet

[Mashiki]

Seems to me, they're talking about why the elites(political/academia/tech/etc) don't understand why they lost. So instead of being introspective and asking "Am I out of touch?" and saying "maybe" they're responding with "No, no. Everyone else is out of touch." This is simply an extension of the "everyone who doesn't follow what I do is a racist/sexist/homophobic/is literally Hitler" and so on. In other words, these people who are pushing that stuff live in such an insular political and social bubble, they don't understand why they actually are wrong. And instead of learning from that, they're doubling down. Just a FYI to people who think that doubling down is a great idea. It doesn't work.

I hope they don't waste it in the US

[jenningsthecat]

For at least the duration of Trump's presidency, it seems almost certain that 'net neutrality is done like dinner, government surveillance will increase unchecked, and attempts to cripple encryption will continue unabated. It might be best to spend the money in countries where they have a better chance of getting some traction, at least until some sanity returns to Washington. Or should I have said "New York"? It's so hard to tell these days.

Re:How about for their browser?

[mrclevesque]

They have, I use both and the difference is pretty much negligible on recent computers

Re:Trump hasn't even taken office yet

[Bruce Perens]

Mozilla gets ad revenue?

They actually get their revenue from directing searches to their partner search engine company, Yahoo for now. The search engine company runs the ads. But it looks like Yahoo might credit part of their revenue from the ads on a Mozilla-originated search to Mozilla.

Re:How about for their browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

ELWOOD: What kind of music do you usually have here?
CLAIRE: Oh, we have both kinds -- country and western.

Re:How about for their browser?

[mrclevesque]

:)

it just slipped out, chrome and firefox I mean

Re:How about for their browser?

[Spazmania]

Really? Your other web browsers lock up and become unresponsive for 5 minutes while pegging 100% of a CPU core? 'Cause Firefox does. Several times a day for me.

Politics is for the user

[AHuxley]

Keep the browser ahead of any emerging security issues.
Offer really great encryption that is not just another US brand with a trapdoor or backdoor for the NSA, GCHQ.
Get the browser fully supporting modern computer hardware.
No need to fund SJW to correct spelling or suggest new words.
Just code and compile a fast, secure browser. The users can then enjoy the web.
The user will then have a really great secure browser for their own politics and commenting global issues if they want.

They can't even get a decent popup blocker working

[thesjaakspoiler]

so how much can we expect from this? Are they just gonna hire a bunch of lobbyists?

Re:How about for their browser?

[mrclevesque]

Sorry to hear that, mine was like that before too