No Firefox Without Google Search Deal, Says Mozilla’s CFO

The US Department of Justice’s (DOJ) sweeping antitrust case against Google aims to curb the tech giant’s dominance in the search engine market. The DOJ is pushing for a series of measures, including a possible forced sale of Google’s Chrome browser. This move, according to Google’s current CEO, would dismantle Google Search as we know it.

This development in the situation has made Mozilla’s Chief Financial Officer, Eric Mulheim, raise his concerns, stating that this move could drive them out of business. Mulheim explains that Firefox relies heavily on the revenue from its partnership with Google, which pays to be their default search engine on the browser.

In Mozilla’s total income, this search deal accounts for around 85 per cent of Mozilla’s income and roughly 90 per cent of the revenue for its for-profit subsidiary, in turn supporting the broader non-profit Mozilla Foundation. The loss of this revenue would only mean that Mozilla would have to make significant cuts across the company, which, according to Mulheim, could lead to a downward spiral and scaling back on product engineering investments in Firefox.

Ultimately, this could put them out of business. This could also mean less money for their non-profit projects, like open- source web tools and an assessment of how AI can help fight climate change.

While this scenario could break the hegemony in the market, Mulheim notes that it could open the path for Firefox’s underlying Gecko engine, which is “the only browser engine that is held not by Big Tech but by a non-profit.”

Gecko was initially created out of the concern that Microsoft might monopolise internet protocols. The development of Gecko has also played an essential role in keeping the web open and interoperable.

As other companies like Yahoo have shown interest in acquiring Chrome, Firefox has not. Mozilla instead shows concern over this unintended consequence of the crackdown.