Mozilla Says It's Finally Done with Two-Faced Onerep
41 comments
·November 20, 2025netule
glenstein
>I really wish Mozilla would rely less on these shady backroom deals and open up to direct user funding.
I have nothing against this, but at best it would be a modest side hustle. The major comparables in online user fundraising are Wikipedia, which AFAIK is the largest annual online fundraising drive in the world and it raises less than 50% of what search licensing gets. Tor is another one, but off the top of my head, I think it's maybe 1/20th of what Wikipedia raises.
If Firefox stood up a donation drive for the first time I would guess Tor-level revenue and maybe it might crawl upward from there depending on how things go.
Also, my understanding is their organizational structure is what legally enables them to do the search licensing which is their biggest revenue stream. But it means that their browser development is done to generate commercial revenue. If they moved the core browser development under the Foundation, it would unravel the ability to do search licensing deals to support development, which are much stronger than whatever their prospect for user donations would be.
I'm a bit out of my depth here but I believe it's all about the search licensing.
dralley
>Good. I really wish Mozilla would rely less on these shady backroom deals and open up to direct user funding. The Mozilla Foundation accepts donations, but they don't go toward funding Firefox; instead, they fund advocacy campaigns.
Yes, charitable donations go to charitable causes, not development of a browser which produces profits for a for-profit entity. There's no legal way to channel charitable donations back into a business. To do otherwise would be tax fraud.
This is not a "gotcha", this is a persistent misunderstanding of what is and is not possible in tax law.
johannes1234321
There are however two options available:
* Make the browser development the charitable work, or
* accept funding to non-charitable company
However Mozilla earns "enough" from Google, so they don't have to try to make either work.
glenstein
>Make the browser development the charitable work
I don't think there's a legal way to fund development form the profitable venture and also accept charitable donations.
I'm sure if donations were more a better bet than search licensing they might go that way, but as I said in a different comment, the biggest annual donor drive in the world is probably Wikipedia, probably a best case scenario for that kind of drive, and it brings in less than half of what their search licensing gets.
pavon
> Make the browser development the charitable work
They probably cannot do this. The IRS generally does not consider writing open source software to meet the requirements of a 501c3, for example [1]. They aren't super consistent about it so some groups have gotten 501c3 exemption in the past, but for the most part there is a reason that 501c3 open source foundations focus on support activities, conferences, and not software development.
> accept funding to non-charitable company
They could do this, just like they did for Thunderbird, and I wish they would.
[1] https://www.mill.law/blog/more-501c3-rejections-open-source-...
alwa
Why isn’t the browser development organized as charitable work?
From the Corp’s Wikipedia page [0]:
> As a non-profit, the Mozilla Foundation is limited in terms of the types and amounts of revenue it can have.
Is this an oblique way of saying they couldn’t take Google bucks that way?
FuriouslyAdrift
Then they wouldn't be able to pay their CEO $7 million a year...
icepush
You can make donations to a for-profit business. You just can't deduct it from your taxable income.
spelk
I don't have any input on direct user funding for Firefox, but Thunderbird is also developed by a for-profit entity and accepts direct user funding with no charitable tax deductions as well. [0] https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/donate/
null
fhd2
Exactly, and to my knowledge the receiving party needs to pay profit tax on them. It's called a donation, but technically more of a pay-what-you-want model. Several businesses do that.
PunchyHamster
But then it would be possible to fund firefox development directly, just not get the tax break for it right ?
ehutch79
sell $50 keychains. done.
input_sh
The corporation already sells user-facing products: Mozilla VPN, MDN Plus, Firefox Relay, Pocket (previously).
Feel free to subscribe to them to give money directly to the Mozilla Corporation, the future you're looking for is already here.
kgwxd
Is there not a difference between a charity and a non-profit?
abawany
it's particularly strange to see Mozilla engage in these silly machinations when the Thunderbird team has moved on to the model of direct user funding.
mossTechnician
Mozilla says they have "high standards for vendors" in their latest statement, but why didn't those standards apply back when they were told about this in March 2024?
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/03/mozilla-drops-onerep-aft...
ovo101
Glad Mozilla finally ended the Onerep partnership—too much conflict of interest in the data broker world.
shellwizard
I wish they would let users fund Firefox development directly and not Mozilla's own agenda
drtgh
This sounds extremely necessary, but what warrants the funds reaching such a exclusive destination?
I think that Firefox needs an exclusive non-profit foundation, but I don't think Mozilla Corporation/Foundation would allow it, so a fork with a new name (marketing problem) sounds necessary (although splitting the forces may not be a good idea?), I wonder if the current Firefox's forked communities could join forces to create such non-profit foundation, and start from there, making grow the developers under such non-profit foundation, the new main tree.
null
SG-
how much have you funded?
phyzome
Can't speak for them, but I agree with the sentiment, and I've given them at least $1000.
I sure as hell wouldn't give them money these days. Pretty pissed at the direction they've been heading.
stronglikedan
Why would you think they have funded anything given that they clearly stated they are against funding Mozilla's agenda which is currently the only option?
jamespo
Would they otherwise? Unlikely, the internet is a moocher's paradise
starik36
Browser development is done by Mozilla Corporation which is a for-profit entity. It's illegal to donate to it. This is by design of the US tax code.
You can donate to Mozilla Foundation (parent entity of Mozilla Corporation), which is a non-profit. But you can't expressly state that the money go towards browser development.
jonas21
It's perfectly legal under US law to donate to a for-profit corporation. The donor just can't take a tax deduction for it.
alwa
Do I understand correctly that the parent nonprofit Foundation can decide to use some of its donor money to fund its for-profit Corporation (with the same tax treatment as any other investment, and of the corporation’s profits before they’re returned to the Foundation)? But donors can’t direct their gifts to that use if the donors still intend to deduct them as charitable donations?
And thus I guess Foundation has to do a good amount of conventional non-profitty stuff like “education and advocacy,” otherwise it would just be a flimsy facade for what’s substantially a for-profit endeavor?
Why is the browser arm organized as a for-profit at all?
starik36
Right. It is legal. But in the tax code it's called a "gift", rather than a "donation".
jokoon
There is an annoying bug in firefox where user/pass autofill doesn't work for some websites, like reddit or others.
Still not fixed
slabity
Damn, I apparently missed the memo that the backend service for Mozilla Monitor was shady while I used it.
Are there any actual services like this that work properly? I've noticed whenever it indicated that a service has removed my data, that same service would come back online as having my data a few weeks later.
blakesterz
Wondering the same thing, like is DeleteMe better? Or at least not like this thing?
ugh123
> Onerep’s founder had created dozens of people-search services
How in the world was this not considered fraud, or in the very least - breach of contract?
Steve-Tony
Mozilla ended its partnership with OneRep (used in its Monitor Plus service) after an investigation revealed OneRep’s CEO, Dimitri Shelest, ran multiple people-search and data broker companies. Ars Technica +1
Despite this, Mozilla says they haven’t found a values-aligned replacement yet, so OneRep continues to power the backend temporarily.
mossTechnician
Mozilla said[0] they would end their partnership with OneRep back in March 2024. In February 2025, Brian Krebs discovered[1] they were still using the service.
Maybe the relationship will end this time.
[0]: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2024/03/mozilla-drops-onerep-aft...
[1]: https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/02/nearly-a-year-later-mozi...
201984
"403 Forbidden" error unfortunately.
knowitnone3
typical of Mozilla to collude with data brokers. They've been selling their soul it for years. Google, Perplexity, Amazon, Bing, etc.
Good. I really wish Mozilla would rely less on these shady backroom deals and open up to direct user funding. The Mozilla Foundation accepts donations, but they don't go toward funding Firefox; instead, they fund advocacy campaigns.
> Firefox is maintained by the Mozilla Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. While Firefox does produce revenue — chiefly through search partnerships — this earned income is largely reinvested back into the Corporation. The Mozilla Foundation’s education and advocacy efforts, which span several continents and reach millions of people, are supported by philanthropic donations.[1]
[1]: https://www.mozillafoundation.org/en/donate/help/#frequently...