Is Mozilla the one to suffer the consequences of Google's antitrust defeat?
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United States District Judge Amit Mehta found Google guilty of building a monopolistic position in web search. The Mountain View corporation spent billions of dollars becoming the...

Mozilla has a close relationship with Google, as most of Firefox’s revenue comes from the agreement keeping Google as the browser’s default search engine. However, the search giant is now officially a monopoly, and a future court decision could have an unprecedented impact on Mozilla’s ability to keep things “business as usual.”

United States District Judge Amit Mehta found Google guilty of building a monopolistic position in web search. The Mountain View corporation spent billions of dollars becoming the leading search provider for computing platforms and web browsers on PC and mobile devices.

Most of the $21 billion spent went to Apple in exchange for setting Google as the default search engine on iPhone, iPad, and Mac systems. The judge will now need to decide on a penalty for the company’s actions, including the potential of forcing Google to stop payments to its search “partners completely,” which could have dire consequences for smaller companies like Mozilla.

Its most recent financials show Mozilla gets $510 million out of its $593 million in total revenue from its Google partnership. This precarious financial position is a side effect of its deal with Alphabet, which made Google the search engine default for newer Firefox installations.

The open-source web browser has experienced a steady market share decline over the past few years. Meanwhile, Mozilla management was paid millions to develop a new “vision” of a theoretical future with AI chatbots. Mozilla Corporation, the wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation managing Firefox development, could find itself in a severe struggle for revenue if Google’s money suddenly dried up.

  • ssm@lemmy.sdf.org
    4·
    1 month ago

    So instead of fucking over google with an antitrust ruling like they very much deserve, we’re going to fearmonger about how much it might hurt the ✨ sole saviors of the web ✨ Mozilla, who’s finances are apparently entirely dependent on the company primarily responsible for ruining the web. Looks like a narrative, smells like narrative, to get the public to turn against the antitrust ruling.

  • timestatic@feddit.org
    3·
    1 month ago

    Honestly, I’d like if the browser could become truly independent from google ad money. Then mozilla devs would have to focus on the browser and come up with a donation program like thunderbird for example instead. I’d prefer to pay and know how the money is used. I absolutely hate the google dependence

  • okwhateverdude@lemmy.worldEnglish
    2·
    1 month ago

    Mozilla corp is trash and deserves to fail. The non-profit Mozilla however, can remain and steward Firefox and friends just fine.

    • LWD@lemm.ee
      1·
      1 month ago

      I support the things that the Mozilla Foundation puts on its website, even their manifesto. Even, begrudgingly, the insistence that we must balance the needs of human beings against the needs of corporations.

      Even if those things contradict what Mozilla Corporation is doing with their browser.

      But the Foundation is just a thin wrapper for the Corporation, so I’m not sure how that would work.

      • YeetPics@mander.xyz
        1·
        1 month ago

        balance the needs of human beings against the needs of corporations.

        I support this if it is a 1:1 scale.

        Corporation can be human, but each corporation only counts as 1.

        We can balance 9,000,000,000 people against a few thousand corps no big deal.

      • tetris11@lemmy.ml
        1·
        1 month ago

        Open source existed before money. Corporate backers came in because the product was successful, not because they thought it was a sinking ship.

          • tetris11@lemmy.ml
            1·
            1 month ago

            so the worldwide open source community can actually take over the project, in the full knowledge that their pull requests will actually be merged.

      • okwhateverdude@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 month ago

        Not all software needs to be backed by money. Money helps, of course, and I would support a non-profit financially that is focused purely on browser development. Right now, the only game in town doing that is Ladybird. But honestly, I think building upon a firefox fork makes more sense than starting from scratch.

      • SailorMoss@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        1 month ago

        Perhaps it could be state funded? It worked for PBS for a time and it still mostly works for the BBC. Why not a browser? A truly independent steward for the open web is important and it doesn’t seem like Google is capable of that.

        • MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml
          1·
          1 month ago

          Seems like a good idea except for how often these states already force their own spyware and backdoors onto projects. Ideally, the state would fund it, but given their history, I’d prefer costs were covered by user donations as the interests of the users are the only interests I trust. We are the only group that is truly independent of competing interests.

          Crowd funding and donations obviously have their own drawbacks. Maybe we can find a work around to avoid the privacy violations of states in the future, but I don’t have a simple answer for how to accomplish this. The way the FOSS community operates is currently the best alternative I’ve seen, but I’m sure it’s not always lucrative for developers. People need to be compensated for their labor and our current systems tend to put development interests at odds with user interests.

        • Vincent@feddit.nl
          0·
          1 month ago

          I’d absolutely be in favour of that, preferably funding from several states. But I’d prefer getting that in place before losing the main source of income.

  • ampersandcastles@lemmy.mlEnglish
    1·
    1 month ago

    I have one of those anti-capitalist takes where if taking down one company takes down another company, then the system is probably broken.

    Which we know it is, but not enough know it is.

    • Possibly linux@lemmy.zipEnglish
      1·
      1 month ago

      That isn’t really a anticapitalist take. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that the tech industry isn’t super healthy.

      In fact we probably need more competition

      • firewood010@lemmy.zip
        1·
        1 month ago

        We need much more competition on every front. The VPN market is the only place where competition exists, even though it is narrowed with fake competitions.

        Things could change if Linux distro becomes the majority system in PC, notebook and mobile markets. The PC market is shifting thanks to Windows 11 system requirements. The mobile market tho.