Mozilla in Talks with Google to Renew Lucrative Search Deal

[[Coi] Mr.CLuBBeR]

Existing agreement expires later this month

They may be competitors in the browser market, but that hasn’t stopped Google from being directly responsible for almost all of Mozilla’s revenues — over 90 percent as of 2012 — for almost the entirety of the latter’s existence. Mozilla lassoed this cash cow back in 2004 and has been busy milking it for tens to hundreds of millions of dollars annually in exchange for a wholesome feed of search engine-bound traffic originating from within Firefox. But with the all-important deal that makes Google the default search engine in Firefox and guarantees Mozilla steady stream of revenue set to expire later this month, the browser outfit must be a tad nervous.
However, this is definitely no time for jangly nerves as there is a new search deal to negotiate. According to The Register, the browser vendor is currently negotiating a fresh extension of the longstanding search relationship between the two companies, which they last renewed in 2011 with a three-year agreement worth $300 million annually. While a Mozilla spokesperson did confirm the negotiations, they refused to give the site any details, citing “confidentiality requirements.”
Meanwhile, Mozilla chief technology officer Andreas Gal underlined the fact that this is just a business transaction. “This [search deal] doesn’t couple us very closely to Google,” Gal said. “Even though we have a business relationship with Google and friendly relationships on standards with Microsoft and Apple etc, you have to work with competitors and then compete with them. There’s no conflict in our mind.”
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