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The Google antitrust ruling could be an existential threat to the future of Firefox | Financials show 86% of Mozilla's revenue came from the agreement keeping Google as Firefox's default search engine (www.techspot.com)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

173 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Mozilla has a close relationship with Google, as most of Firefox's revenue comes from the agreement keeping Google as the browser's default search engine. However, the search giant is now officially a monopoly, and a future court decision could have an unprecedented impact on Mozilla's ability to keep things "business as usual."

United States District Judge Amit Mehta found Google guilty of building a monopolistic position in web search. The Mountain View corporation spent billions of dollars becoming the leading search provider for computing platforms and web browsers on PC and mobile devices.

Most of the $21 billion spent went to Apple in exchange for setting Google as the default search engine on iPhone, iPad, and Mac systems. The judge will now need to decide on a penalty for the company's actions, including the potential of forcing Google to stop payments to its search "partners completely," which could have dire consequences for smaller companies like Mozilla.

Its most recent financials show Mozilla gets $510 million out of its $593 million in total revenue from its Google partnership. This precarious financial position is a side effect of its deal with Alphabet, which made Google the search engine default for newer Firefox installations.

The open-source web browser has experienced a steady market share decline over the past few years. Meanwhile, Mozilla management was paid millions to develop a new "vision" of a theoretical future with AI chatbots. Mozilla Corporation, the wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation managing Firefox development, could find itself in a severe struggle for revenue if Google's money suddenly dried up.

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[–] [email protected] 80 points 4 months ago (2 children)

While I do want competition in the web space, its a good thing that Google could get told to stop doing stuff like this.

I dont want Mozilla to die of course but companies need to be held responsible for all the shit they pull. I'd imagine if Mozilla wasnt able to maintain firefox anymore it would fall to the open source community like they said in the article and I'd probably still use it.

No one company should own the internet.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Who in the open-source community would pay what it costs to develop Firefox? I hope some organization would, but it's a huge and expensive project to run.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Great question that I dont have an answer for. Maybe one of the foundations that supports Linux development? This is just my hope though. No idea what it would really take to maintain Firefox at this point. Maybe if it was scaled down or something it'd be ok in the hands of just the open source community as a whole but I'm not well versed in programming or development so i dont know.

I gotta try and be optimistic about this kinda stuff because i forsee a future where Google just ruins more and more of the internet and i hate the thought of that.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

Servo is now being looked after by the Linux Foundation in Europe, but is only maintained by volunteers. But another project has arrived that is not based on Chromium, Webkit or Firefox, which may be a hope in this somewhat confusing situation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

I'm thinking of governments using it and helping. They could have their computers running without Google sticking its nose.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

In before Meta buys Mozilla, lol.

Zuckerberg is on a "spoiling other tech giants with Facebook money" streak.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 months ago

Oh hey, you managed to think up the one scenario that would make me abandon Firefox

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Not all their revenues come from Google and other sources are enough to cover Firefox development... But that would mean giving up on all the useless shit no one asked for they're working on...

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

Mozilla's next largest source of revenue is subscriptions and advertising (source 2021 financial report), by a wide margin. That "useless shit" is their other revenue, and they're investing in it because they know they need to diversify revenue to fund Firefox. You're suggesting they kill it because it's not their core (unprofitable) business?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

I wonder if this ruling over search engines could spook them with browser development as well considering they nearly have a monopoly with chromium too. Perhaps they'll release control of it and stop pushing anti-consumer updates like removing your ability to block ads.