The US justice system is taking aim at Google's monopoly on the search engine market. It is considering preventing Google from imposing itself as the default search engine on browsers. But ironically, this wouldn't suit Firefox and Mozilla at all.
Google is in the middle of a lawsuit against the US Department of Justice, which accuses the tech giant of its monopoly on web search. Google could be forced to sell Chrome as a result of this affair (OpenAI and Yahoo are particularly interested), which also informed us that the AI assistant Gemini will soon be arriving on iPhones. The revelations continue, and this time it's Mozilla, owner of Firefox, who has spoken out.
Eric Muhlheim, Mozilla's CFO, is blunt: if Google is forced to end its contracts allowing it to impose its default search engine on browsers, Firefox could simply disappear. This may seem counterintuitive, since the goal is precisely to weaken Google to encourage competition, but Mozilla is far from seeing the situation from this perspective and has even had to defend its rival in court.
Mozilla's future is tied to Google's
As a reminder, Mozilla has its for-profit arm on the one hand, and its foundation on the other, which is non-profit. This foundation is partly funded by the Mozilla entity that generates money. 90% of Mozilla's revenue comes from a single product: its Firefox web browser. The problem is that its business model is almost entirely dependent on an agreement with Google to make it its default search engine. 85% of revenue comes directly from the Alphabet subsidiary.
Eric Muhlheim explains that if the contract with Google is lost, the future of Firefox, and of Mozilla, will be in doubt. Quoted by The Verge, he mentions “significant budget cuts within the company” which would then lead to a “downward spiral”. Mozilla would then have to reduce its investments in research and development, making Firefox much less attractive to users. Ultimately, preventing Google from paying Mozilla to ensure its search engine dominance could "bankrupt Firefox,", he asserts.
The executive adds that Mozilla likely wouldn't be able to fund non-profit initiatives in this case either. The foundation is involved in the development of open source web tools and a program to assess the role of AI in climate change, access to energy and food, and environmental degradation.
Firefox, the last survivor outside "Big Tech"
Mozilla therefore implies that fighting Google's monopoly by prohibiting it from paying browsers to make its search engine the default solution would prove counterproductive. Eric Muhlheim points out that if Firefox is forced to shut down, we will also see the end of Gecko, its in-house web rendering engine, the only technology of its kind not owned by a tech giant. There aren't many alternatives. Google's Chromium has cannibalized the market, with even Microsoft deciding to adopt it for Edge. The other option is Apple's WebKit, which isn't known for opening up its technologies.
In his testimony, Eric Muhlheim reflects on the important role played by Firefox and Gecko. He sees them as safeguards that prevented Microsoft from controlling all internet protocols during the era of Internet Explorer and helped ensure interoperability between different browsers. Mozilla's actions ensured that the web isn't controlled by a single company today, even though Google is largely dominant.
Losing the contract with Google would pose a "significant threat to Mozilla's viability, with limited ability to mitigate it," the company believes. Seeking another partner, such as Bing, would necessarily be less profitable. Microsoft would not be inclined to pay the same amount as Google. And according to a study conducted by Mozilla, a user on Bing earns it less money than one on Google. Mozilla has already tried in the past to remove Google as its default search engine, but has seen a significant loss of users, who then prefer to switch browsers.
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