Re:Google Will Pay Mozilla Almost $300M Per Year in Search Deal
by robryan on Thursday December 22, 2011 @07:21PM
(#3383979)
Your right that for Google whether a user is using Chrome or using Firefox with Google Search it shouldn't matter much on the bottom line and they don't have to worry too much about feature support from Firefox as they are quick to propose/ adopt standards.
- Mozilla isn't a company, it's a non-profit (this deal was done by Mozilla Corp, yes, but that's a wholly owned branch of the foundation). Reducing their reliance on Google for cash is never going to be Mozilla's aim as a whole.
- Three years is a hell of a long time. When the last deal was negotiated, there was no Bing, and no Chrome. The world was a very different place. No matter how good their strategy is, it's going to be a terrible one for the world in 3 years time.
- The interests of the Mozilla foundation and Google are broadly aligned - they both care about an open, free web. That's a rare thing to find in large industry players these days.