That's the crux of this situation. Mozilla needs money. Unless they find another way to finance themselves, they will continue selling user data, directly or indirectly. This will not change however we cry out.
> Mozilla needs money. Unless they find another way to finance themselves,
Firefox Hello and Pocket are not attempts to "sell user data". In the case of the latter, Mozilla isn't even getting paid by Pocket, as they have said numerous times.
But yes, Mozilla is dependent on money, like all corporations. If you want to ensure that their funding sources are never in conflict with what users want, there's a very easy solution to that: https://sendto.mozilla.org/page/contribute/givenow-seq
(If every Firefox user gave $2, they wouldn't need their partnerships with Yahoo/Google for search integration, which has been their primary funding source for years).
They are selling the information what you are searching for to Yahoo, not directly but indirectly by configuring their software in a way such that Yahoo can collect your data easily. That information is incredible personal. This is the reason why Yahoo pays for it. There is no stretch at all in what I've said.
You have to use some search engine. Whatever search engine you choose is going to get that incredibly personal information.
Mozilla sold the default choice position to Yahoo. Any user who considers Yahoo to be more nefarious than some other choice can switch with about 10 seconds of effort.
Users use search engines. In fact it's pretty much a required feature to display a search bar proudly in the UI of a browser.
Users therefore give their search data to search engines. You can quibble about which corps are good corps and which corps are bad corps, but users cannot use search engines without giving search engines their search queries. Obviously.
Mozilla does no concomitant damage to users' privacy by allowing them to use their browser to use search engines. Mozilla, therefore, is not complicit in any wrongdoing which you ascribe to them.
If Mozilla made a deal with a manifestly worse option than the popular ones, measured either by results quality or by user abuse, the yes -- Mozilla would be reprehensible.
DDG is better, but it's not what users want.
> You know what would be nonsensical? If Yahoo didn't collect data about you.
Sure. Cool. That'd be neat.
> If Mozilla did not need to sell our data ...
Repeating that doesn't make it true. Mozilla does not sell your data. They sell placement of choice. We can agree that most users won't change the default choice, but we must also agree that almost no users will choose !google !yahoo !bing !ddg. In that order.
> ... it could ask which provider we want to use or integrate technology like YaCy.
The choice exists and is highly accessible. Are you suggesting a first-run dialog to ask the user to pick a search engine, a la Internet Explorer post-DOJ judgement? That's usability insanity.
YaCy doesn't even exist in Mozilla's user population's awareness. What's better? A good browser option or a dead browser?
