The government makes no secret of its desire to break up Google, and in particular to push the Alphabet Group subsidiary to sell its Chrome browser. This decision could help break the American giant's monopoly, but it could accelerate the demise of Firefox. This was the warning given by Eric Muhlheim, Mozilla's chief financial officer, during his highly anticipated testimony in the antitrust lawsuit brought by the US Department of Justice (DOJ) against the search giant.
Antitrust action against Google threatens Firefox's existence: a disturbing paradox
The threat is all the more serious given that Firefox's very existence depends heavily on revenue generated by its partnership with Google. According to Eric Muhlheim, Firefox represents approximately 90% of Mozilla's revenue, and nearly 85% of this revenue comes directly from the contract with Google. This contract appears simple: Google pays Mozilla several hundred million euros each year in exchange for being the default search engine in Firefox. This financial flow not only funds the browser's development, but also open source projects and the Mozilla Foundation's activities.
The Justice Department, however, wants to prohibit Google from paying for this privileged position in third-party browsers, a measure included in its proposals to restrict Google's search monopoly. The court has already ruled that Google holds an illegal monopoly in search, in part thanks to these exclusivity agreements. The DOJ's intention is laudable: to restore competition by preventing Google from buying its dominant position and depriving its rivals of distribution opportunities.
But for Firefox, the consequence could be devastating. Suddenly losing revenue from the contract with Google would force Mozilla to make "significant budget cuts", says Eric Muhlheim. He warns of a "downward spiral" that could occur if the company were to reduce its investment in Firefox development, making it less attractive to users. Such a spiral, he said, could "bankrupt Firefox" and lead to its complete disappearance. It would also reduce funding for Mozilla's non-profit initiatives, such as open source web tools. This is, in his words, "extremely worrisome" and "very scary".
Mozilla has never really been good at diversifying its revenue streams
Replacing Google's revenue is no easy feat. Mozilla has held talks with Microsoft about making Bing the default search engine, but Eric Muhlheim pointed out that the negotiable revenue share would likely shrink without Google's competition for the contract. Additionally, Mozilla found that Bing doesn't monetize traffic as effectively as Google. A study conducted between 2021 and 2022 showed that users switching to Bing generated less revenue for Mozilla.
Mozilla's past experience is also not encouraging. Between 2014 and 2017, Mozilla made Yahoo the default search engine, but users were so dissatisfied with the experience that they simply switched to another browser. Despite genuine efforts and various initiatives, Mozilla has never managed to diversify its revenue streams enough to significantly reduce its dependence on Google.
While the US Department of Justice hopes that its other proposals will eventually encourage the emergence of search engine competitors to Google that can compete for Firefox's default contract, Eric Muhlheim believes that this process would take too long. During this period of waiting for a "hypothetical future", Mozilla would "really struggle to survive" and would have to make significant cost cuts.
During his cross-examination, Eric Muhlheim acknowledged that it would be better for Mozilla not to rely on a single client for the majority of its revenue. He also noted that Opera, another browser maker, has managed to generate more revenue from browser ads than from search contracts. However, developing a similar advertising business at Firefox might be different, particularly because of Firefox's privacy-friendly approach.
The end of Firefox would also mean the end of Gecko
The current situation reveals a major dilemma concerning the articulation of anti-monopoly action and the sustainability of alternatives which, paradoxically, are economically linked to these same monopolies. The loss of Firefox would also mean the disappearance of the Gecko rendering engine, "the only browser engine that does not belong to a Big Tech multinational", as Mozilla reminds us. Indeed, the other main engines are Chromium (Google) and WebKit (Apple). Mozilla developed Gecko to prevent control of internet protocols from being monopolized, says Eric Muhlheim.
A December 2024 presentation to Mozilla's board, presented in court, confirmed that the loss of Google payments posed a "significant threat to Mozilla's viability with limited ability to mitigate it." Losing ground since the rise of smartphone browsing and the meteoric rise of Google Chrome, Firefox has lost millions of users in recent years and appears more threatened than ever.
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