Google was found to have abused its dominant position in the online search market last summer. It now remains to determine what remedies will prevent the company from continuing its misdeeds. The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has put several proposals on the table that are currently being debated in a lawsuit; among them, the forced sale of Chrome and the end of payments to manufacturers and publishers to make Google the default search engine for their devices and browsers.
Firefox, collateral victim of the antitrust lawsuit
Google pays Apple more than $20 billion a year. But while the computer manufacturer will (probably) be able to recover from the disappearance of this monumental check, this is not necessarily the case for other organizations. Including Mozilla.
The foundation's chief financial officer, Eric Muhlheim, stated late last week during the trial that the DoJ's proposals to limit Google's dominance in online search could jeopardize the very existence of Firefox. In particular, prohibiting Google from paying to be the default search engine in third-party browsers like Firefox would eliminate a crucial source of revenue for Mozilla.
Today, approximately 85% of Mozilla's revenue comes from its agreement with Google, which represents 90% of its total income. If these payments were to abruptly cease, Mozilla would have to make drastic cuts, particularly in the development of Firefox. This would lead to a downward spiral, making the browser less attractive, and could ultimately spell the end of Firefox.
Eric Muhlheim highlighted the irony of the situation: by weakening Firefox, the US government risks strengthening the position of the big tech companies that the lawsuit seeks to limit. Indeed, Firefox's Gecko rendering engine is the only one not owned by one of these giants, unlike Chromium (Google) and WebKit (Apple).
The executive also explained that replacing it with another search engine, such as Microsoft's Bing, would be difficult: Bing generates less revenue per user and Mozilla would lose bargaining power if Google were excluded. A test conducted between 2021 and 2022 showed that quietly switching users to Bing led to a significant drop in revenue.
Mozilla, which has no plans to join Chrome's ranks, supports the idea of a browser selection screen, as in Europe. However, the foundation is more cautious about a default search engine selection screen within the browser itself. For Eric Muhlheim, the context of use is crucial to guaranteeing users a real choice.
Source: The Verge
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