Mozilla: DOJ's Plan for Chrome Risks Hurting Smaller Browsers
Mozilla: DOJ's Plan for Chrome Risks Hurting Smaller Browsers
The DOJ wants to level the playing field for browser makers, but the Firefox developer says the plan will take crucial revenue away from smaller companies with lucrative Google search deals.
The Justice Department's proposal to force Google to rein in and even sell off its Chrome browser business may seem like a win for competitors such as Mozilla’s Firefox browser. But the company says the plan risks hurting smaller browsers.
In their recommendations, federal prosecutors urged the court to ban Google from offering "something of value" to third-party companies to make Google the default search engine over their software or devices.
The problem is that Mozilla earns most of its revenue from royalty deals—nearly 86% in 2022—making Google the default Firefox browser search engine.
"If implemented, the prohibition on search agreements with all browsers regardless of size and business model will negatively impact independent browsers like Firefox and have knock-on effects for an open and accessible internet,” Mozilla says. “As written, the remedies will harm independent browsers without material benefit to search competition.”
May I be frank? I suspect that, in the long run, Mozilla not getting this money will actually benefit Firefox. Sure, so exec will get pissed as they won't get 5.6 million dollars a year, and Firefox won't get some weird nobody-asked-for feature that'll be ditched some time later; but I think that they'll focus better on the browser this way. Specially because whoever is paying the dinner is the one picking the dish, and with a higher proportion of their effective income coming from donations, what users want will stop being so neglected.
Just my two cents.
WTF‽
"The head of Mozilla earned roughly $5.6 Million during 2021."
Excuse me, where do I fill out the form to have the first $30,696 of my salary processed as non taxable benefit? Please and thank you
I totally agree.
Frankly, Mozilla should be embarrassed to have released this statement.
It's basically 'Please don't harm our competitor for corruptly bribing rivals! We like those bribes very much!'
Firefox won’t get some weird nobody-asked-for feature that’ll be ditched some time later
Nah, the features nobody asked for will just be limited to ones that will provide a revenue stream.
Yeah but in the short term the company will literally go out of business
Not likely. Mozilla had $1,321,539,000 in total assets -- roughly half a billion dollars of which was in "cash and cash equivalents" -- in their last (2022) audited financial statement: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2022/mozilla-fdn-2022-fs-final-0908.pdf
Hopefully, yes.
what Mozilla is really afraid of is losing the over inflated bonus the execs get paid.
Mozilla needs to ditch their CEO and maybe even their board. They’ve lost their way all because the leadership is greedy
That’s mistaking a structural problem for a personal one. Zeynep Tufekci has a great argument about why that wouldn’t work:
It’s reasonable, for example, for a corporation to ponder who would be the best CEO or COO, but it’s not reasonable for us to expect that we could take any one of those actors and replace them with another person and get dramatically different results without changing the structures, incentives and forces that shape how they and their companies act in this world.
That's unfortunate, but it still needs to happen. Mozilla will adapt.
They haven't launched a successful product in a decade. Pretty sure they'll get more desperate and have even more misses. Probably AI.
mozilla ai sold to antrophic?
"Listen, making the entire market dependent on one corporate benefactor just sothey aren't a 100% monopoly and only a 99% one is important"
Jesus Christ Mozilla, do you hear yourself?
Remember, Mozilla spends more on executives and their “outreach” programs than they spend on Firefox developers.
What smaller browsers?
I understand why Mozilla would want to keep the money coming from Google, but it might also be good for them to be less dependent from Google.
Nothing is preventing them from cutting deals with other search engines if they want to keep doing that.
I feel like Mozilla is a big money laundering scheme at this point. It only exist so chrome isn't a monopoly, and I pretty sure the CEO and several other workers are getting paid an obscene amount to do nothing all day while only 20% of the money actually goes toward working on the browser.
tldr: but muh paycheck!
Yeah, I don't care. Just do it.
Oh my fucking god Servo cannot get here soon enough.
There are other search engines. Maybe Firefox can partner with them.
I'm guessing that once Google is prohibited from providing incentives, the bottom will fall out of that particular market and those other search engines will likely pay less, if anything, for the privilege.
Mozilla should partner with Kagi and bundle the browser with that search engine and share revenue
It's certainly better than the status quo. Sure, Mozilla will hurt at first because they've put their revenue source in the same basket, but it's an opportunity to grow back.
Mozilla will be fine. I'll literally pay them annually if worst comes to worst and I bet others would too.
Give them money so they can pay their CEO 83 times my salary ? Fuck no, never.
Not sure I would. Though I probably would for some high quality fork. At this point I don't have much faith in Mozilla.
Fair enough. They have been up to some wacky stuff lately. I just love the browser so much and don’t want to see it go .
Before or after they fire 90% of their staff?
Preferably after they fire the “Feminist AI Alliance for Climate Justice” people.
