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Over the past 20 years, I’ve focused on consumer-driven businesses. From factories making jeans (at Levi’s) to the largest retailer/company (Walmart) to early years of social-driven commerce (at ModCloth), getting to what drives consumer behavior is where I love to spend my time.

When I joined Choose Energy as an early employee and CEO, I hoped if we could consumerize electricity, we could change the grid. If I told you it was the cost difference of a latte a month to change to green power, it’d be a no-brainer. I was wrong. People don’t understand their bills (what’s a kWh?), what drives their bills (hint, it’s not the kids leaving the lights on), nor how to understand the cost (is 18¢/kWh a lot?). When you build a marketplace based on those things, it’s a challenge. Consumers know they *could* change their provider (for half of the US where you have the choice), but it’s probably item 8 on their to-do list, right behind rebalancing their 401k. It was my first exposure to what consumers say vs. what they do. Joining Rothy’s was a similar question. Was the brand about a sustainable shoe — 3D knit from recycled plastic water bottles — or comfort or a beautiful shoe? Short answer is it has to be a beautiful shoe first that consumers want to wear and then the sustainability aspect of it is a ‘nice to have’ and a reason to tell your friends about it. 

Kerry W. Cooper

This is a long beginning as to why Mozilla. When I was first approached about joining the Mozilla board, the recruiter asked me what I was looking for in new boards. My answer was short: something that matters and a board and management team where I could make a difference. Mozilla’s mission matters. And the time is now. In an era where Big Tech is less trusted and under intense scrutiny, Mozilla has a massive opportunity to have an impact on the future of an open, accessible internet. 

This team is fantastic. From the MoCo board to the MoFo board to the long-time, authentic leadership from Mitchell Baker and the new(ish) voice of Steve Teixeira on where our products can go, this is a great team. Changing consumer behavior is hard. But critical. In the land of misinformation and content proliferation, social media, and the growth of AI, tech is changing our lives quickly. How we continue to build Mozilla’s voice in this changing landscape is an awesome challenge and one I’m excited to lend a voice to.

The post Why I joined Mozilla’s Board of Directors appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

We’re committing $30M to build Mozilla.ai: A startup — and a community — building a trustworthy, independent, and open-source AI ecosystem.

We’re only three months into 2023, and it’s already clear what one of the biggest stories of the year is: AI. AI has seized the public’s attention like Netscape did in 1994, and the iPhone did in 2007. 

New tools like Stable Diffusion and the just-released GPT-4 are reshaping not just how we think about the internet, but also communication and creativity and society at large. Meanwhile, relatively older AI tools like the recommendation engines that power YouTube, TikTok and other social apps are growing even more powerful — and continuing to influence billions of lives. 

This new wave of AI has generated excitement, but also significant apprehension. We aren’t just wondering What’s possible? and How can people benefit? We’re also wondering What could go wrong? and How can we address it? Two decades of social media, smartphones and their consequences have made us leery.    

Mozilla has been asking these questions about AI for a while now — sketching out a vision for trustworthy AI, mobilizing our community to document what’s broken and investing in startups that are trying to create more responsible AI. 

We’ve learned that this coming wave of AI (and also the last one) has tremendous potential to enrich people’s lives. But it will only do so if we design the technology very differently — if we put human agency and the interests of users at the core, and if we prioritize transparency and accountability. The AI inflection point that we’re in right now offers a real opportunity to build technology with different values, new incentives and a better ownership model. 

The good news: We’ve met literally thousands of founders, engineers, scientists, designers, artists and activists who are taking this approach to AI. Smart, dedicated people are building open-source AI technology, testing out new approaches to auditing and figuring out how to build ‘trust’ into AI in the real world. 

The less good news: We don’t see this happening amongst the big tech and cloud companies with the most power and influence. Meanwhile, these incumbents continue to consolidate their control over the market.

In short: Some people are starting to do things differently, but the most significant work (and investment) is happening the same old way. We want to change this. 

So, today we are announcing Mozilla.ai: A startup — and a community — that will build a trustworthy and independent open-source AI ecosystem. Mozilla will make an initial $30M investment in the company.

The vision for Mozilla.ai is to make it easy to develop trustworthy AI products. We will build things and hire / collaborate with people that share our vision: AI that has agency, accountability, transparency and openness at its core. Mozilla.ai will be a space outside big tech and academia for like-minded founders, developers, scientists, product managers and builders to gather. We believe that this group of people, working collectively, can turn the tide to create an independent, decentralized and trustworthy AI ecosystem — a real counterweight to the status quo. 

Mozilla.ai’s initial focus? Tools that make generative AI safer and more transparent. And, people-centric recommendation systems that don’t misinform or undermine our well-being. We’ll share more on these — and what we’re building — in the coming months. 

This new company will be led by Managing Director Moez Draief. Moez has spent over a decade working on the practical applications of cutting-edge AI as an academic at Imperial College and LSE, and as a chief scientist in industry. Harvard’s Karim Lakhani, Credo’s Navrina Singh and myself will serve as the initial Board of Mozilla.ai. 

Later this year, we will announce additional initiatives, partners and events where people can get involved. If you are interested in collaborating, reach out at hello@mozilla.ai.

The post Introducing Mozilla.ai: Investing in trustworthy AI appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

The last few months it has become clear that AI is no longer our future, but our present. Some of the most exciting ideas for the future of both the internet and the world involve AI solutions. This didn’t happen overnight, decades of work have gone into this moment. Mozilla has been working to make sure that the future of AI benefits humanity in the right ways by investing in the creation of trustworthy AI.

We want entrepreneurs and builders to join us in creating a future where AI is developed through this responsible lens. That’s why we are relaunching our Mozilla Builders program with the Responsible AI Challenge.

At Mozilla, we believe in AI: in its power, its commercial opportunity, and its potential to solve the world’s most challenging problems. But now is the moment to make sure that it is developed responsibly to serve society. 

If you want to build (or are already building) AI solutions that are ambitious but also ethical and holistic, the Mozilla Builder’s Responsible AI Challenge is for you. We will be inviting the top nominees to join a gathering of the brightest technologists, business leaders and ethicists working on trustworthy AI to help get your ideas off the ground. Participants will also have access to mentorship from some of the best minds in the industry, the ability to meet key contributors in this community, and an opportunity to win some funding for their project.

Mozilla will be investing $50,000 into the top applications and projects, with a grand prize of $25,000 for the first place winner. 

For more information, please visit here. Applications open up March 30, 2023.

The post Mozilla Launches Responsible AI Challenge appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

If you’re already one of the many people who use Firefox Relay to save your real email address from trackers and spammers, then we’ve got a timesaver for you. We are testing a new way for Firefox Relay users to access their email masks directly from Firefox on numerous sites.

Since its launch, Firefox Relay has blocked more than 2.1 million unwanted emails from people’s inboxes while keeping real email addresses safe from trackers across the web. We’re always listening to our users, and one of the most-requested features is having Firefox Relay directly within the Firefox browser. And if you don’t already use Firefox Relay, you can always sign up.

How to use your Firefox Relay email masks in Firefox 

In the physical world, we limit sharing our home address. Yet, in the online world, we’re constantly asked for our email address and we freely share it with almost every site we come across. It’s our Firefox Relay users who think twice before sharing their email address, using email masks instead of their real email address to keep their personal information safe.

So, when a Firefox Relay user visits some sites in the Firefox browser and is prompted to sign up and share their email address, they can use one of their Firefox Relay email masks or create a new one. See how it works:

Use a Firefox Relay email mask or create a new one

We hope to expand to more sites and to all Firefox users later this year. 

Additionally, Firefox Relay users can also opt out of this new feature so that they’re no longer prompted to use an email mask when they come across the pop-up. If they want to manage their Firefox Relay email address masks, they can visit their dashboard on the Firefox Relay site.

Thousands of users have signed up for our smart, easy solution that hides their real email address to help protect their identity. Wherever you go online, Mozilla’s trusted products and services can help you feel safer knowing that you have privacy protection for your everyday online life. 

If you don’t have Firefox Relay, you can subscribe today from the Firefox Relay site.

Start protecting your email inbox today Sign up for Firefox Relay

The post Email protection just got easier in Firefox appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.

In case you haven’t heard, there’s an ongoing conversation happening about your personal data. 

Earlier this year, United States President Biden said in his State of the Union address that there needs to be stricter limits on the personal data that companies collect. Additionally, a recent survey found that most people said they’d like to control the data that companies collect about them, yet they don’t understand how online tracking works nor do they know what they can do about it. Companies are now trying and testing ways to anonymize the third-party cookies that track people on the web or get consent for each site or app that wants to track people’s behavior across the web. 

These days, who can you trust with your personal data? Mozilla. We have over a decade of anti-tracking work with products and features that protect people, their privacy and their online activity. Today, we’re announcing the official rollout of one of our strongest privacy features, Total Cookie Protection, to automatically block cross-site tracking on Firefox Android. 

Yes, companies gather your data when you go from site to site

Before we talk about Total Cookie Protection, let’s talk about cross-site tracking. These days our in-person transactions like shopping for groceries or buying gifts for friends have now become commonplace online. What people may not be aware of are the other transactions happening behind the scenes. 

For example, as you’re shopping for a gift and going from site to site looking for the right one, your activity is being tracked without your consent. Companies use a specific cookie known as the third-party cookie, which gathers information about you and your browsing behavior and tracks you when you go from site to site. Companies use the information to build profiles and help them make ads targeted at convincing you to purchase, like resurfacing an item you were shopping for. So Mozilla created the feature Total Cookie Protection to block companies from gathering information about you and your browsing behavior.

Total Cookie Protection stops cookies from tracking you around the web Your freedom from cross-site tracking now available on Firefox Android 

Meet Firefox’s Total Cookie Protection, which stops cookies from tracking you around the web and is now available on Firefox Android. Last year, Firefox rolled out our strongest privacy feature, Total Cookie Protection across Windows, Mac and Linux. Total Cookie Protection works by maintaining a separate “cookie jar” for each website you visit. Any time a website, or third-party content embedded in a website, deposits a cookie in your browser, Firefox Android confines that cookie to the cookie jar assigned to that website. This way, no other websites can reach into the cookie jars that don’t belong to them and find out what the other websites’ cookies know about you. Now, you can say goodbye to those annoying ads following you and reduce the amount of information that companies gather about you whenever you go online.

Firefox’s Total Cookie Protection covers you across all your devices

Whether you’re browsing at your desk or your phone, now you’ll get Firefox’s strongest privacy protection to date. Firefox will confine cookies to the site where they were created, thus preventing tracking companies from using these cookies to track your browsing from site to site. To seamlessly work across your devices, sign up for a free Firefox Account. You’ll be able to easily pick up your last open tab between your devices. Bonus: You can also access your saved passwords from your other devices by signing up for a free Firefox Account.

Get your most secure and private Firefox Android today! Download Firefox Android

For more on Firefox:

• Don’t “accept all cookies” until you’ve seen this video
• Mozilla Explains: Cookies and supercookies
• How Firefox’s Total Cookie Protection and container extensions work together
• Firefox rolls out Total Cookie Protection by default to all users worldwide

The post Firefox Android’s new privacy feature, Total Cookie Protection, stops companies from keeping tabs on your moves appeared first on The Mozilla Blog.