Website Visitors
Except as described below, Mozilla does not collect or require visitors to its websites to furnish personally identifying information such as names, email addresses, and phone numbers. Like most website operators, Mozilla does collect non-personally identifying information of the sort that web browsers and servers typically make available, such as the browser type, operating system, language preference, referring site and date and time of each visitor request. Mozilla also collects potentially-personally identifying information like Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, which are non-personally identifying in and of themselves but could be used in conjunction with other information to personally identify users.
Mozilla's purpose in collecting this information is to better understand how Mozilla's visitors use its websites. To that end, Mozilla may share potentially-personally identifying information with its employees, contractors, service providers, and subsidiaries and related organizations. Mozilla may also release its results of such analyses of non-personally identifying information about visitors by publishing a report on website usage trends. Otherwise, Mozilla will not publicly release potentially-personally identifying information except under the same circumstances as Mozilla releases personally identifying information. Those circumstances are explained below.
Community Members
Certain members of the Mozilla community (contributors, customers, etc.) choose to interact with Mozilla in ways that require Mozilla and others to know more about them. The amount and type of information that Mozilla gathers from those members depends on the nature of the interaction. For example, members who wish to post content to certain portions of Mozilla's websites or participate in live chat session(s) are asked to provide usernames that are used to identify content as having been posted by a particular member (who is identified by the username).
Developers, by comparison, are asked to provide contact information, up to and sometimes including telephone or fax numbers, so that they can be contacted as necessary. Typically, developers will be contacted by email, IRC (internet relay chat), or IM (instant messaging services). However, in the event of a time-sensitive question relating to the work the developer is doing in connection with Mozilla and where other means of contact have failed, a developer’s phone number or fax number may be used to contact the developer. This information is available to Mozilla employees, contractors, subsidiaries, and potentially to other members of the community. A developer can choose not to provide a phone number or fax number. On occasion, developers and other community members are contacted by email and asked for a physical address or geographic location so that they may be sent Mozilla-related t-shirts and other schwag or invited to a meetup or other Mozilla-related gathering. In such cases, the purpose for which their physical address is sought will be made explicit.
Customers of the Mozilla stores (which sell merchandise and other items on behalf of Mozilla) are asked to provide even more information, including billing and shipping addresses and credit card or similar information to third party vendors so that their transactions can be processed and fulfilled by Mozilla or a third-party fulfillment vendor. For a list of the vendors that we use to operate the stores, check here. However, we cannot guarantee that this list is always up to date.
We also permit community members to provide their names and email addresses so that they can have a more direct engagement with Mozilla and so that Mozilla can send them information related to Mozilla, such as educational material, promotional and cross-promotional material, surveys to be completed, messages about the Mozilla Foundation, events information, and other such information and materials. These are opt-in interactions where community members affirmatively sign-up for inclusion in a direct communication with Mozilla (and with an ability to unsubscribe/opt-out on any email received). These campaigns may be conducted with the help of a third-party customer relationship manager to help us manage the database of information and its analysis and use, in each case such third party’s involvement with all the data collected will be solely on Mozilla’s behalf. As part of these marketing campaigns, we might also ask you to provide demographic information such as gender, age, job or role, country, geographic location, and areas of interest. If we ask you for this information, we will use it to customize our communication with you and to better understand those interested in Mozilla and its products. As part of these marketing campaigns, we may collect a campaign source ID, marketing campaign ID, and a campaign referrer ID. These types of information are used so that we may better understand your interests and the effectiveness of particular marketing campaigns. We may also use this information to customize our communications with you. For example, if a community member plans to host a Mozilla-themed party to promote a product launch or other event and would like to receive Mozilla promotional items like t-shirts, buttons, and stickers for her guests (which we call “schwag”), the community member may submit her name, mailing address, and details about the event (such as date and number of anticipated guests) through Bugzilla so that we (or our service providers) can process this request. In each case, Mozilla collects personally identifying information only insofar as is necessary to fulfill the purpose of the community member's interaction with Mozilla. And in the case of a schwag request, those bugs allow you to select restricted access so that only Mozilla contractors and employees and the individuals listed in the bug can access your information via Bugzilla itself.
Our websites also may provide a means for candidates to apply on-line for employment with Mozilla. Applicants for employment with Mozilla are required to provide contact information, including name, street address, telephone number, and email address, as well as resume information. We use this information to process and evaluate the application for employment, and to communicate with the applicant about employment opportunities. If we elect to make an offer of employment, this information may become part of the employee file and may be used for other employment and work-related purposes. Mozilla uses an outside service provider to assist us with online job applications and the application process generally. You can view a list of the service provider(s) here. It is our policy to require any such service providers to contractually commit to Mozilla to (a) only use applicant data for the purpose of fulfilling obligations to Mozilla in providing the services and (b) not disclose the information to third parties.
Mozilla is an open organization that believes in sharing as much information as possible about its products, its operations and its associations. Accordingly, community members should assume - as should most folks who interact with Mozilla - that any personally identifying information provided to Mozilla will be made available to the public. There are four broad exceptions to that rule:
- Mozilla does not publicly release information gathered in connection with commercial transactions (i.e., transactions involving money), including transactions conducted through the Mozilla Foundation Store or donations to the Mozilla Foundation.
- Mozilla does not publicly release personally identifying information collected in connection with an application for employment with Mozilla.
- Mozilla does not make publicly available information that is used to authenticate users the publication of which would compromise the security of Mozilla's websites (e.g., passwords).
- Mozilla does not make publicly available information that it specifically promises at the time of collection to maintain in confidence.
Outside those four contexts, users should assume that personally identifying information provided through Mozilla's websites will be made available to the public.
Children
Mozilla's websites are not directed to individuals under the age of thirteen (13), and we request that such individuals do not provide personally identifying information through our websites.
Interactive Product Features
Certain Mozilla products contain features that report, or that permit users to report, the user's usage patterns and problems - whether caused by Mozilla's software, third-party software, or third-party websites - to Mozilla. The reports generated by these features typically include non-personally identifying information such as the configuration of the user's computer and the code running at the time the problem occurred. You can view the reports at https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/.
Some of these features give users the option of providing personally identifying information, though none of these features require it. Some Mozilla software features that do permit users to provide personally identifying information advise, in advance, that such information will not be made publicly available. Mozilla analyzes the information provided by these interactive product features to develop a better understanding of how its products are performing and being used. It does not use the information to track the usage of its products by identifiable individuals. For Firefox, Mozilla only makes non-personally identifying information (i.e., generic information about your computer, the stack trace, and any comment given by the user) available in the public reports available online at https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/. For more details on the crash-reporting feature in Firefox, click here.
Protection of Certain Personally-Identifying Information
Where Mozilla has collected personally identifying information subject to one of the four exceptions described in the Community Members section, above, it discloses that information only to those of its employees, contractors, service providers, and subsidiaries and related organizations that need to know that information in order to process it on Mozilla's behalf and that have agreed not to disclose it to others. Mozilla endeavors to maintain an up-to-date list of its subsidiaries and related organizations at https://www.mozilla.org/about/governance/organizations/, however we don’t guarantee this list to be complete. As of the date of this update, Mozilla Foundation’s subsidiaries are Mozilla Corporation, MZ Denmark, Mozilla Online (based in China), MZCanada, and Moz 2008 (based in New Zealand). Its related organizations are Mozilla Japan and Mozilla Europe. Some of these employees, contractors, service providers, and subsidiaries and related organizations may be located outside of your home country; by using Mozilla's websites, you consent to the transfer of your information to them, which may involve the transfer of your information to countries that may provide a lesser level of data protection than your country of residence. Additionally, Mozilla may need to transfer personally identifying information to an affiliate or successor in the event of a change of our corporate structure or status, such as in the event of a restructuring, sale, or bankruptcy. We will retain any personally identifying information for the period necessary to fulfill the purposes outlined in this privacy policy. Mozilla does not rent or sell personally identifying information to anyone.
Security
Mozilla undertakes a range of security measures including physical access restraints, technical security monitoring, and internal security reviews of the environment to help to protect your personal information from unauthorized access, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. We also have policies in place to prohibit employees from viewing personal information without business justification.
Updating of Personally-Identifying Information
You may request access, correction, or deletion of your personally identifiable information or potentially personally identifiable information, as permitted by law. Mozilla will seek to comply with such requests, provided that we have sufficient information to identify the personally identifiable information or potentially personally identifiable information related to you. To do so, users should look for links or contact information available on whichever Mozilla websites store the relevant information (e.g., Bugzilla users should go to Account Settings) or contact Mozilla by using one of the email addresses listed below.
Cookies and Clear GIFs
What Are Cookies? A cookie is a string of information that a website stores on a visitor's computer, and that the visitor's browser provides to the website each time the visitor returns. Most major websites use cookies. Because the browser provides this cookie information to the website at each visit, cookies serve as a sort of label that allows a website to "recognize" a browser when it returns to the site. The domain name in Mozilla cookies will clearly identify their affiliation with Mozilla and, where applicable, its third-party service provider.
What Are Clear GIFs? Clear gifs (also known as web beacons) are used in combination with cookies to help website operators understand how visitors interact with their websites. A clear gif is typically a transparent graphic image (usually 1 pixel x 1 pixel) that is placed on a site. The use of a clear gif allows the site to measure the actions of the visitor opening the page that contains the clear gif. It makes it easier to follow and record the activities of a recognized browser, such as the path of pages visited at a website.
How We Use Cookies and Clear GIFs. Mozilla's websites use cookies to help Mozilla identify and track visitors, their usage of Mozilla websites, and their website access preferences across multiple requests and visits to Mozilla's websites. Our websites, and advertisements that Mozilla may run occasionally on thirdparty advertising networks, also may use clear gifs for these purposes. The basic idea is to gather aggregate data about how people use the Mozilla websites. The term usually used to describe this is "web analytics" and the cookies and clear gifs are the tools by which a website owner collects this web analytics data.
Mozilla will use the web analytics data only to determine aggregate usage patterns for our websites as described above. Mozilla websites do this by using either our own internal analytics software or by sending this information to a third-party service provider to help Mozilla analyze this data. Mozilla has agreements with its third-party service providers that they will not share this information with others or use the information for purposes other than to maintain the services they provide to Mozilla. It is possible to link cookies and clear gifs to personally identifying information, thereby permitting website operators, including our third-party analytics providers, to track the online movements of particular individuals. Mozilla does not do so and its third-party service providers are not allowed to correlate Mozilla data with any other data.
Mozilla uses the information provided by cookies and clear gifs to develop a better understanding of how Mozilla's visitors use Mozilla's websites, and to facilitate those visitors' interactions with Mozilla's websites. Mozilla may make the aggregate data obtained from web analytics (including from our third-party analytics providers, if applicable) publicly available. If this data is made available, none of the information will be personally identifying information or potentially-personally identifying information.
Other Third Party Cookies. Content from other sources that is hosted on Mozilla websites may sometimes contain cookies that send information to those third parties. In certain cases, often associated with embedded content such as YouTube videos and other site linking buttons, a third party cookie may be set by the 3rd party content or provider. In these cases, the privacy policy of the 3rd party governs with respect to information that may be collected by and sent to the respective 3rd party. If you are concerned about these third party cookies, please see the information below on how to decline cookies.
How to Control the Use of Cookies. You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Mozilla visitors who do not wish to have cookies placed on their computers by Mozilla, its contractors, or third-party service providers should set their browsers to refuse cookies before linking to Mozilla's websites. Certain features of Mozilla's websites may not function properly without the aid of cookies.
Opt-out Procedures
If you do not want data about your visits to Mozilla websites to be collected by Google Analytics, you can install the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. The add-on keeps your visits anonymous and prohibits any data from being sent to Google Analytics. Additionally, if you signed up to receive but no longer wish to receive electronic marketing communications from Mozilla, you can opt-out from receiving these communications by following the “unsubscribe” instructions in any such communication you receive.
Mozilla Ads
Mozilla places advertisements on third party websites to introduce people to our products and services, to encourage people to contribute to our community-based activities, and to sign up to receive communications from Mozilla. We stand by our online advertising practices and aim to provide full transparency and control over how our ads appear and function.
We use a vendor - TruEffect - to power our advertisements via the website media.mozilla.com. Some advertisements associated with this site may use cookies. Cookies are text files that your web browser places on your computer when you visit a website and can be used to store information about your activity. When you view Mozilla's advertisements on third party sites where we advertise, cookies from these campaigns provide information to us that is used to help measure and improve performance of our advertising. We do not use cookies to save data that identifies you personally such as your name, address, credit card number or other confidential information, nor do we capture behavioral data to personalize future ads or create targeting profiles about you.
Most browsers accept cookies automatically, but they can be configured not to accept them or to indicate when a cookie is being set (see http://www.allaboutcookies.org/manage-cookies/).
SMS Text Messages
Mozilla provides an easy way to request an SMS text message with a link to download Firefox for Android. The mobile phone number you provide will be used and stored only for the purpose of sending requested communications and providing abuse blocking.
Social Networking Services
Mozilla may interact with you through social networks to further our mission. When you interact with us at a third-party social network, such as Facebook, Twitter, or Google +, the network gives us the ability to access and store certain information from your profile for that social network.
The categories of information we can access will depend, in part, on the permissions you grant us and the privacy settings you have established on that social network. In general, we try to minimize the amount of data we receive about you on social services. We will handle any information we receive from these services in accordance with this privacy policy.
Legal Process and Other Disclosures
Consistent with our privacy commitments, we will scrutinize third party requests for information about you for compliance with the law, including those coming from governmental agencies or civil litigants. We may access, use, preserve or disclose information about you only when we have a good faith belief that it is reasonably necessary to do so to satisfy the applicable law, regulation, legal process or lawful governmental request of any country, or to protect the rights, property or safety of Mozilla, its users or the public. We will provide notice of legal process or governmental requests unless prohibited to do so by law or the circumstances warrant otherwise.
Privacy Policy Changes
By using the websites, you agree to the terms and conditions of this privacy policy. If you do not agree to the terms and conditions of this privacy policy, please do not use the websites. Mozilla may change its Privacy Policy from time to time. Any and all changes will be reflected on this page. Substantive changes will also be announced through the standard mechanisms through which Mozilla communicates with the Mozilla community, including Mozilla's “announce” mailing list and newsgroup.
For More Information
If you have questions about this privacy policy, please contact the Mozilla Foundation at privacy@mozilla.org or the Mozilla Corporation at privacy@mozilla.com.