Officials of the open-source Mozilla project have turned down a US government request to withdraw a Firefox add-on, Mafiaa Fire, that makes websites of confiscated internet domain names accessible to public.
Mozilla said it will not comply with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) request as it did not come with a court order.
Users cannot reach a website after being seized by DHS’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) division. The Mafiaa Fire add-on redirects such users to a functioning site set up to replace the seized domain.
Mozilla vice-president and general counsel Harvey Anderson said, "The ICE Homeland Security Investigations unit alleged that the add-on circumvented a seizure order DHS had already obtained against a number of domains."
However, he added that the DHS request did not come with a court order.
"To date we’ve received no response from Homeland Security nor any court order," Anderson said.
"Our approach is to comply with valid court orders, warrants, and legal mandates, but in this case there was no such court order."
Anderson added that complying to informal requests may "threaten the open Internet."
Mozilla has also demanded the government explain why the government considers the add-on unlawful and whether Mozilla is "legally obligated" to remove it.
Mozilla said that ICE has not answered the questions so far.
The MafiaaFire add-on continues to be downloaded from Mozilla. It has been downloaded more than 6,000 times so far.
