They're a nonprofit; they're not allowed to just "make money". And, they already take donations.
I merely challenge the notion that a nonprofit -- which proudly tumpets its benevolence and non-profitness -- should get a free pass for covertly installing advertising arrangements, just because they need to "make money".
Their charter and marketing is all about defending the internet from the companies doing shady things to make money, so they can't have their cake and eat it.
Firefox gets most of its donations from corporate sponsors. That's why the default search and switched back and fourth between Yahoo and Google; it's all about the amount of money they contribute for that. I'm not sure, but Pocket might be another example.
User contributions are actually pretty low. They don't go out and request them though like NPR or Wikipedia.
The addon itself does not advertise for Mr. Robot, Mr. Robot advertises for this addon.
Tax-exempt non-profit (especially charity) status is very much about both how money is made and how it is distributed/spent.
That's not a misconception I share. I understand Mozilla can and should make money to further its mission.
But unlike a for-profit, making money isn't the mission of Mozilla. So needing to make money can't be used as a justification for doing naughty things against the public good.
And money it makes, in the hundred of millions, for serving its users to the worst known worldwide privacy offender, collecting and profiling user to sell advertising.
The "good" non profit charity foundation is governing the "evil" for profit corporation giving away users to the worst opponent of the mission of the charity. Quite a contradiction in this.
Some people cry "free speech violation" but they can endorse a candidate, they just need to give up their tax privileges. This is why the ACLU is split into two parts. One you can donate to and get tax dedications for, but the other is their lobbying arm, and therefore cannot allow tax deductions for their donors.
