of mozilla to apple, microsoft and google: "stop being evil"

why do they think this is OK?: Mozilla's Asa Dotzler blogs about Apple, Microsoft and Google installing software plug-ins, without permission, into the Firefox Web browser. He calls the action of installing these plug-ins without consent 'sneaky, underhanded, and wrong'.

He cautioned 'Microsoft, stop being evil. Apple, stop being evil. Google, stop being evil.'



Extracted from Asa Dotzler's post titled 'why do they think this is OK?',

Why do Microsoft, Google, Apple, and others think that it is an OK practice to add plug-ins to Firefox when I'm installing their software packages. When I installed iTunes, in order to manage my music collection and sync to my iPod, why did Apple think it was OK to add the iTunes Application Detector plug-in to my Firefox web browser without asking me? Why did Microsoft think it was OK to sneak their Windows Live Photo Gallery or Office Live Plug-in for Firefox into my browser (presumably) when I installed Microsoft Office? What makes Google think it's reasonable behavior for them to slip a Google Update plug-in into Firefox when I installed Google Earth or Google Chrome (not sure which one caused this) without asking me first?

This is not OK behavior....In my book, that fits the definition of a trojan horse. Yes, that is precisely how a trojan horse operates. These additional pieces of software installed without my consent may not be malicious but the means by which they were installed was sneaky, underhanded, and wrong.

I repeat: this is not OK.

......Microsoft, stop being evil. Apple, stop being evil. Google, stop being evil. And you upstarts like RockMelt, don't follow in those evil footsteps. It's not worth it.

It's really simple. ASK first!

Read the full post here.

"Don't be Evil" is the informal corporate motto (or slogan) of Google, originally suggested by Google employees Paul Buchheit and Amit Patel at a meeting.