Mozilla could be “biggest loser” if DOJ wins Google trial, ex-Google exec says.

Baker’s testimony shows that Mozilla depends so much on its deal with Google for revenue that “the biggest loser of a DOJ win in the Google case would be Mozilla.”

  • dinckel@lemmy.worldEnglish
    30·
    1 year ago

    People who use Firefox probably also have some gripes against Google’s work, but I sure as fuck don’t want anything to do with Yahoo

  • evanuggetpi@lemmy.nzOPEnglish
    14·
    1 year ago

    Another interesting comment Mozilla’s takeaway from the experiment was that Firefox "users made it clear that they look for and want and expect Google.”

    • sir_reginald@lemmy.worldEnglish
      192·
      1 year ago

      that’s not really Mozilla’s fault, user’s are too locked into Google and that’s ultimately Google’s fault.

      Although I don’t like at all that Mozilla is funded by Google and testified in their favor.

      • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
        8·
        1 year ago

        I saw it more as testifying about why they did what they did

        Ultimately the message is still ‘we had to use Google to survive, they have that much control over the space’

    • Sigma_@lemmy.worldEnglish
      131·
      1 year ago

      I’m surpsied (but obviously shouldn’t be) that that many potential users would instantly bounce off Firefox instead of changing the default search engine.

      • UnspecificGravity@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Honestly, the association with Yahoo just makes the platform look like a joke. Like, the first time you do a search and it pops up as Yahoo your first instinct is thinking you’re using the wrong thing.

    • HipPriest@kbin.social
      5·
      1 year ago

      It’s not really that surprising that the average user wants the most popular search engine instead of yahoo (of all things) baked in, whatever your views on Google.

    • PlexSheep@feddit.deEnglish
      31·
      1 year ago

      Im also not convinced. If it were a DDG default it would just make the browser better.

      To be clear, I’m not even using DDG as my main search.

        • smallaubergine@kbin.social
          2·
          1 year ago

          I was under the impression that DDG is pretty private and while underlying search is Bing, bing can’t track the searches to individuals

  • Paradox@lemdro.idEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    Is this the same CEO who fired the entire documentation team and then gave herself a raise?

  • sexy_peach@feddit.deEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    As a FF user: Mozilla has such a small market share now, they should experiment with search. Maybe don’t make another “deal” with another ad based search engine, but invent your own decentralized search or mozilla search or whatever.

    • w3dd1e@lemm.eeEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      While I’d prefer the do that also, I think the issue is that Google pays them so much, they couldn’t afford to exist without it.

      • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        I mean, they could. They have been cutting costs in the wrong areas, though - those harder to replace if exgoogled. There’s plenty of unnecessary fat in Mozilla as an organization. They have been doing lots of expensive (in terms of developer and testing resources) unneeded crap (apparently to support the appearance of relevancy, which is different from relevancy itself), they also don’t need that many management people.

        Let’s please remember how Mozilla started. Yes, a browser back then and a browser now are two completely different things, but the imbalance in resources has always been there. It’s just that now they are spreading resources where they shouldn’t, to imitate Chrome in things secondary to a browser itself. They don’t have the resources for that even with Google, and of course they won’t otherwise.

        Also supporting something like XULRunner or in general olden times Gecko would help, so that people could use FF’s engine like they still do with Chromium and Webkit. That would increase the amount of people contributing in various ways.

        That’s how I see it, my humble opinion and all that.

    • shastaxc@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      The only reason that would work is if they used user search data to sell to advertisers or show ads themselves. That’s how Google search makes money, but it’s antithetical to everything Mozilla is trying to market themselves as: a privacy oriented browser.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    21·
    1 year ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Terms of that deal required that if it were nullified, Verizon had to pay either “the full length of the contract, or alternately, just the difference between Yahoo’s $375 million and whatever Mozilla got out of a new partner,” ComputerWorld reported.

    On top of revenue-sharing with Google, that payment drove up Mozilla’s revenue, which in 2019 reflected “an 84 percent year-over-year increase” that was “easily the most the open source developer has booked in a single year, beating the existing record by more than a quarter of billion dollars,” ComputerWorld reported.

    Perhaps that bonus payment made switching back to Google even more attractive at a time when Baker told the court she “felt strongly that Yahoo was not delivering the search experience we needed and had contracted for.”

    This user decline wasn’t entirely due to the Yahoo deal, Baker said, but Mozilla’s takeaway from the experiment was that Firefox "users made it clear that they look for and want and expect Google.” Meanwhile, Google was motivated to renew its Mozilla partnership, as court documents show that Google lost search ad revenue while Yahoo’s deal with Firefox was in place.

    Baker did not clarify how much Google pays for that deal today, only vaguely estimating that it’s “hundreds of millions of dollars” annually, Bloomberg reported.

    According to Dyall’s thread, Baker also testified that she thought Mozilla might be forced into a “death spiral” if it is stuck partnering with Microsoft for search as an outcome of the trial.

    The original article contains 1,008 words, the summary contains 247 words. Saved 75%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

  • speaker_hat@lemmy.oneEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    The CEO short-term logic makes sense: Yahoo search = Lower cost = Higher profit margin = Happy shareholders = Happy CEO

    But she forgot that: Yahoo search = Shit

    And then it happened