Mozilla and Google Sign New Agreement for Default Search in Firefox

Re:Mozilla and Google Sign New Agreement for Default Search ... by cookiecaper on Tuesday December 20, 2011 @03:57PM (#3375118)

Bing probably wouldn't be averse now, but it should be obvious that Microsoft also has a major conflict of interest in regard to paying Mozilla money for the top spot in search. With Microsoft's history, nobody should be surprised if they drop Mozilla after they use its traffic to establish Bing (and other MS properties, like IE, Windows, and Office) more fully, and nobody should be surprised when Bing plays dirty and intentionally degrades the experience for Firefox users in an attempt to compel a switch to IE or another MS platform.

While I don't believe that selling the default search spot is problematic, I do believe it's risky and dangerous to make that the primary source of revenue, especially when the major potential bidders have serious conflicts of interest with supporting Mozilla (that is, they provide competing or incompatible services and products).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Mozilla and Google Sign New Agreement for Default Search ... by redthrowaway on Tuesday December 20, 2011 @05:52PM (#3375559)

>and other MS properties, like Firefox

I'm assuming you mean IE.

>nobody should be surprised when Bing plays dirty and intentionally degrades the experience for Firefox users in an attempt to compel a switch to IE

MS would never degrade performance on their own platform. Tying IE into Windows was different; they made the default work better than the alternative. They're not going to intentionally make Bing shitty for FF users; they'll just go elsewhere. They might integrate Bing and IE more fully, adding features and making it more difficult to use other engines, but they would never intentionally degrade their own product.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Mozilla and Google Sign New Agreement for Default Search ... by zobzu on Tuesday December 20, 2011 @11:34PM (#3376364)

Well nobody would have been surprised if Google dropped the Mozilla deal now. Have you seen the zillion articles thinking they actually would?

I dunno what make you think Google is "less evil" than Microsoft in that area. It's just business. Deal profits Google, Google makes deal. When the balance changes, Google will stop making the deal.

[ Parent | on HN ]