Found this notification this morning on my pixel 6.
Even if this isn’t entirely true, you know Google wouldn’t pass up the opportunity to reduce Firefox market share to scare everyone back to Chrome.
That’s not the point they’re trying to make I think. It’s more of an attack on perfection. Like “the alternative is not perfect either so why not just stay with Chrome”. It’s not a very strong argument in general but it might be enough to keep people from switching.
It integrates into the Google ecosystem well, and if that has value to a person it may just be enough to bring them back to chrome.
There’s no need to reduce Firefox marketshare. Most people don’t even consider using anything else than whatever is default in their device.
Also, it’s not a Google scare tactic or a flex. Every application on the Play Store must disclose the general outlines of their data policy, including the sharing of data. Lying with those checkbox is not a good idea but they are completely informative and put there by the publishing party, so the people responsible for publishing Firefox on mobile just updated these, and this is what is shown when an app publisher say their app is sharing data with third parties.
tl;dr: it’s very likely that not a single soul at Google even looked at this, as this is just the regular behavior of the Play Store with apps that changes their data policy or indicate sharing user data with third parties.
No idea, I’m not that obsessed with it. But do note that “The developers of these apps provided info about their data sharing practices to an app store. They may update it over time.” and “Data sharing practices may vary based on your app version, use, region, and age.”
The recent changes to Firefox terms of use (well, their introduction really) was supposedly meant to appease some regional lawmakers. Maybe it is a regional thing. Maybe they changed it again. Maybe it’s, as often with store page update, rolled out progressively to people (in either direction, whether it’s adding or removing these terms).
The point is, that’s neither a “Google” operation to put Firefox in a bad light, nor a Mozilla operation to… do whatever it is they’re doing these days. It’s just a regular message. Which, reading a lot of the replies here, is something that have to be said.
Firefox? You mean the company they give several hundred million dollars/year? Yeah I don’t think they’re too worried. They need some number of users on Firefox to prevent anti-trust issues. Which they’re on the brink of right now.
you’re right Google’s not worried.
as for anti-trust, they’re already in sentencing phase.
So you’re advocating that Google shouldn’t broadcast that firefox is broadcasting your current location? Even though they do this for every other app available on Android, you’re saying they shouldn’t do this for firefox?
Why?
They want to scare people to stay on Chrome now that they discontinued support of uBlock (not that it was ever supported on Chrome for Android anyway)
The story I heard was that by of California’s definition of selling data, doing anything with user data that could benefit the company was considered selling data. So they updated their FAQ to be in line with that definition. But I could be wrong, if someone could point me to a good article I’d appreciate it.
Here’s Louis Rossmann’s wiki where he details it. I hope that helps.
Google warning you about Mozilla is just peak fucking irony
God damn why’s the world so shit
God damn why’s the world so shit
Society empowers and encourages shitty people that only care about their own kind/tribe, is why.
My understanding is this is due to regions broadening the definition of “sell” to include any form of personal data transfer. So Mozilla giving location info (with consent if you enable “ask every time” in the permissions) to websites to look up local store hours or whatever is “selling data.”
AFAIK, nothing has changed in Firefox.
“Quick! Jump to chrome instead!” - Google spokesperson
FWIW I’m not seeing this on the Play Store for Firefox 136.0.1 on my Pixel 8a, and I’m not seeing any warnings on Beta or Nightly either:
