Mozilla denies US government to ban Firefox add-on

Mozilla refused the request of US regulators to ban a Firefox add-on that allows users to access sites which have domain names confiscated earlier this year.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agency under the Department of Homeland Security that in February took the unprecedented step of seizing domain names accused of streaming live pay-per-view sporting events, requested the open source company to ban MafiaaFire add-on.

This add-on available from Mozilla.org enabled Internet subscribers to go to the sites that used some of the confiscated addresses. It did this by redirecting them to substitute domain names that were out of the reach of US courts.

According to a blog post published on Thursday by Mozilla General Counsel Harvey Anderson, ICE officials alleged MafiaaFire circumvented their seizure order and asked Mozilla to remove it.

“Our approach is to comply with valid court orders, warrants, and legal mandates, but in this case there was no such court order,” Anderson explained.

He continued: “The problem stems from the use of these government powers in service of private content holders when it can have unintended and harmful consequences. Longterm, the challenge is to find better mechanisms that provide both real due process and transparency without infringing upon developer and user freedoms traditionally associated with the internet.”