[samspenc]

100% looks like money laundering. They paid six figure amounts to businesses that don't even have a website and are impossible to find any information on:

  - "What, exactly, is “Action Research Collaborative”? That is a surprisingly difficult question to find an answer to, as they have no website whatsoever. One of the few references to it is in a Cornell newsletter from earlier this year..."
  - "$30,000 to “MC Technical Inc.” in 2021. Who are they? Well, they don’t have a website, that’s for sure. The business registry listing is about the only thing of the company that seems to exist. The listed address is someone’s house."
  - "Why do some of the recipients of Mozilla money appear to be nothing more than empty shells of companies — not even having a simple website?"
  - "Why does Mozilla continue to take donations if it doesn’t need them?"
  - "Where does Mozilla spend those donated dollars?"
  - "Why is Mozilla decreasing software development funding when development of Firefox is the cash cow?"

And the author adds this update at the end of the article: "August 5th, 2023 Update: To date, no request for clarification or additional details has been answered."

This is extremely suspicious on Mozilla's part. I hope there is further investigation into all this wild spending they are doing using public donations without any accountability.

[st3fan]

"$30,000 to “MC Technical Inc.” in 2021. Who are they? Well, they don’t have a website, that’s for sure. The business registry listing is about the only thing of the company that seems to exist. The listed address is someone’s house."

It is a nice round number so it is probably someone who did some work for them and sent them an invoice. There is nothing special about that. Unless you have an agenda to make it sound like something bad. Which I think the author does.

Many hacker news readers have their own incorporated with weird names that are registered to their home addresses. Because when you provide services to a company you ideally need a legal entity. Having an address is a legal requirement. And having a website is not.

It is that simple. The Mozilla Foundation probably has many contractors that do work for them.

Similar to "Why do some of the recipients of Mozilla money appear to be nothing more than empty shells of companies — not even having a simple website?" - it just shows the author has no idea how small non-profit / 501(c) world works. It is easy to make it sound like a headline but in reality it is probably just small non profits struggling to get funding to do interesting things.

[st3fan]

"Why do some of the recipients of Mozilla money appear to be nothing more than empty shells of companies — not even having a simple website?"

This is exactly how many readers here at hacker news also run their business: you need an official entity to receive money.

And if you are doing something interesting that the Mozilla Foundation would like to support with a grand for example then you will need to have that "empty shell" because if you receive funding for a project personally you will be taxed the shit out of it and lose many benefits. There is literally nothing special about this.

[st3fan]

"Where does Mozilla spend those donated dollars?"

should really read

"Where does the Mozilla Foundation spend those donated dollars?"

Because although the author conflates Foundation and Corporation they are in fact separate entities and money does not go into a single bank account.

If you want to know where the Mozilla Foundation spends your donated dollars then you can read their financial report. There are many dozens of line items that list where money goes.

[st3fan]

"Why does Mozilla continue to take donations if it doesn’t need them?"

Because raising money is literally what non profits do as their primary means of income. They cannot just "take" money from the "cash cow", the Corporation which is a separate entity.