if they don't do this, how do they make any money? (just asking)
Basically Mozilla is supposed to develop a browser that's faster than Chrome, more customizable than anything out there, doesn't allow even the vaguest conspiracy theory of something being privacy-infringing even if it's not, and do all of that without money.
Completely Impossible /s
500M will employ a lot of developers.
And well, Linux is not different at all, it really isn't, as there's just as well a shitton of money going into Linux. Canonical, Red Hat, SUSE, Google, Facebook, heck even Microsoft, they all put a lot of money into Linux.
Krita, GIMP, Blender, and the Linux desktops do not have anywhere close to the same need for development velocity, as there's much less competition in the space and as a result of that, but also just as a result of the things that they do, there not being as rapidly shifting requirements.
And Mozilla has a contract with Cliqz that requires them to deanonymize the data and with Google to not use the data for anything else. It's perfectly possible to cooperate with companies that otherwise disrespect privacy in a privacy-respecting way, believe it or not.
And just because Chromium doesn't have Google Analytics in it, doesn't mean it's not worse for privacy. Google for example uses your browsing history and bookmarks for profiling you, if you sign up to Chrome Sync.
Yes, and the Google Chrome versions for Enterprises and Education have the exact same contractual clause that Mozilla has w.r.t. Google Analytics.
So either you trust this clause, or you don’t – in both cases, you need to trust Google.
What relevance does Chrome for Enterprise/Education having this clause when neither Chrome for normal people nor Chromium have this clause?
I do mostly trust Google, if they're legally bound to not do the things that I don't want them to do.
The sanctions for privacy law violations being essentially nonexistent makes it often hard to, because those sanctions are then usually just yet another bullet point in their cost calculations, but contractual violations have much higher sanctions, so I don't see a particular problem there.
And when governments and universities switch to Chrome, people stick with what they're used to, and will use that at home, too.
In the last 2 months 15% of Firefox' German userbase left for Chrome.
They get money from Google, eBay, Yahoo to sponsor their search engines