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Mozilla terminates its deal with Yahoo and makes Google the default in Firefox
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- shubhamjain 9y ago> As Recode reported last year, there was a clause in the Mozilla deal that would have the potential Yahoo acquirer pay $375 million per year through 2019 if Mozilla didn’t want to work with the buyer. This clause also allowed Mozilla to walk away at its sole discretion. We don’t know if Mozilla invoked this clause to terminate the agreement, but it seems likely. Am I understanding this correctly? Mozilla will get paid $374M by invoking a clause at their own discretion. Sounds like a horrible deal to ratify. Was Yahoo that desperate?
- jlgaddis 9y agoApparently. See the Recode article [0] from last year. [0]: https://www.recode.net/2016/7/7/12116296/marissa-mayer-deal-mozilla-yahoo-payment https://www.recode.net/2016/7/7/12116296/marissa-mayer-deal-...
- Vinnl 9y agoTo be fair, it wasn't like there was a whole lot of incentive for Mozilla to use Yahoo! as the default, given as many people prefer Google. And especially with Yahoo! not doing so well, they would certainly not risk being associated with the likes of Verizon, a company that appears to be almost antithetical to Mozilla's mission.
- kenhwang 9y agoIn 2014, Yahoo looked to be in much better shape than it it is today. Sweeten the deal with a scenario that you don't think will happen and at the same time drop off a poison pill to defend against takeovers. Only problem was that Yahoo had to be better than Google at search. I'd say it was hubris, not desperation.
- Manishearth 9y agoIIRC at the time there was a bidding war with Bing or something.
- azernik 9y agoNot so transparently awful, since it was contingent on Yahoo being acquired, back when that prospect introduced a lot of uncertainty into any deals with Yahoo.
- usrusr 9y agoDesperation, covered under a thick layer of the fake confidence derived from positive thinking at all cost. If the mission is to ensure survival as an independent entity and not maximising takeover value, then betting large amounts of post-takeover money would be logical, the obvious impact of such a bet on takeover bids would be "out of scope".
- angrygoat 9y agoApparently this caught Verizon by surprise: > "Yahoo and Mozilla have enjoyed a productive relationship together since 2014," said Charles Stewart, a spokesman for Verizon’s digital advertising business, Oath. "We are surprised that Mozilla has decided to take another path and we are in discussions with them regarding the terms of our agreement." (Source: https://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-OZF67R6VDKHT01-3Q1EL6333OH9NTHGDT8LPKMRI9 https://washpost.bloomberg.com/Story?docId=1376-OZF67R6VDKHT...)
- sambe 9y agoThat sounds a lot like "we are going to try not to pay".
- pdpi 9y agoNever mind "try not to pay", that's table stakes. Likelier than not, they'll seek some form of reparation.
- roselan 9y agoOr maybe Mozilla doesn't want to send search queries and user info to Verizon for analytics. Plus there might be a trust issue with search results.
- sambe 9y agoThat's not an "or". According to the article, Mozilla is very likely still entitled to payment after terminating. The statement from Yahoo in the grandparent comment makes it sound like Verizon didn't quite realise this possibility and are looking to avoid it.
- agjmills 9y agoSomewhat important to note that its only the default in the US, India and a few other countries - presumably not the EU because of the whole Internet Explorer setting Bing as the default debacle a couple of years ago
- jlgaddis 9y ago> Somewhat important to note ... Yep, important enough that they noted it twice in TFA, including in the first paragraph: > "... at least if you live in the U.S., Canada, Hong Kong and Taiwan."
- jwilk 9y agoHow and when they decide whether I'm in US etc. or not?
- robin_reala 9y agoWhen you download an en-US localisation of the browser.
- tjoff 9y agoNot sure what you meant, google is the default in at least northern EU. Yahoo has never had any presence here so we have never been burdened with it.
- azernik 9y ago"This move makes Google Mozilla’s default search engine in most of the world, with the exception of China, where the default is Baidu, and Russia, Turkey, Belarus and Kazakhstan, where Yandex is the default." That is, the deal with Yahoo only applied in the US, India, Hong Kong, et al.
- jlgaddis 9y agoA bit of related discussion a day or two ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696915 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15696915
- olivermarks 9y agoSeems to be the result of a competitiveness between Mayer and Google. This was very visible during Yahoo selloff so shouldn't be a surprise given Mozilla rely on income from search engines....and this is an easy payout... https://www.recode.net/2016/7/7/12116296/marissa-mayer-deal-mozilla-yahoo-payment https://www.recode.net/2016/7/7/12116296/marissa-mayer-deal-...
- jpatokal 9y agoMarissa Mayer resigned in July.
- eric_khun 9y agoI'm in Japan since 2 months now, and I see most of the people using in the metro/street using Yahoo than Google. Is Yahoo doing a better search in Japanese than Google? Or are they just better in marketing? Also, seeing lot of people (also many over 30!) browsing Twitter. What surprised me, I rarely saw it in other countries I've been.
- icebraining 9y agoYahoo Japan is a different beast from the rest of Yahoo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yahoo!_Japan
- cjsuk 9y agoOh wow. I really liked "old yahoo". This is a great thing.
- ekianjo 9y agoAnd they have a bunch of useful local services and since ebay does not exist in Japanese the next big thing in Japan is Yahoo auctions which is pretty, pretty big.
- azernik 9y agoHuh. Didn't realize that after the Verizon acquisition, it lost all ownership ties with Yahoo. So future readers don't have to click through: Yahoo Japan was always a separate company, a joint venture between Yahoo and SoftBank. When Verizon acquired Yahoo, the bits that Verizon didn't want - including Yahoo's share of Yahoo Japan - were spun off into a holding company, Altaba. And so now SoftBank and Altaba between them own most of Yahoo Japan.
- nindalf 9y agoTwitter is a more useful in Japan because they can express a lot more in 140 characters than people who use variants of the Latin/Cyrillic alphabet. You can actually communicate entire thoughts, rather than half-baked hot takes.
- Lxr 9y ago> Historically, search engine royalties have been the main revenue driver for Mozilla. Back in 2014, the last year of the Google deal, that agreement brought in $323 million of the foundation’s $330 million in total revenue. So basically Google was/is funding Firefox? Seems weird given the battle with Chrome for market share.
- xuki 9y agoYes, because normal people will use whatever default search engine that comes with the browser. That means more ads money for the search engine.
- jenscow 9y ago"normal" people use their default search engine to get to "google".
- richdougherty 9y agoGoogle has funded Firefox since before Chrome was created. At that time Firefox was an important way to protect against Microsoft, which is able to use Internet Explorer to funnel traffic to Bing. Now that Google has Chrome, I suppose the situation is a bit more nuanced. I imagine that for Google a Firefox install is still preferable to a Safari or Internet Explorer install. Also I suspect that Mozilla will often (although not always) be an ally to Google on web standards committees. Google (as the main web search engine) has a strong interest in growing the capabilities of web browsers and the web generally (vs other proprietary alternatives).
- ForHackernews 9y ago> Google (as the main web search engine) has a strong interest in growing the capabilities of web browsers and the web generally (vs other proprietary alternatives). Is that true? Google's AMP initiative seems like a precursor to building their own walled garden.
- 9y ago
- vim_wannabe 9y agoFirefox forwards people to Google, Google guides people to installing Chrome. Hmm... It's not like Mozilla had a choice but its still pretty funny when you think about it.
- ekianjo 9y agoMozilla is also trying to stand for privacy on the web and making Google the default search provider is a pretty bad idea for their brand.
- worldsayshi 9y agoSwitching to duckduckgo would've made sense but would've required some faith I guess.
- hdhzy 9y agoI think it's more about the money and this kind of faith does not bring any money. For the record I don't mind Mozilla's decision.
- macspoofing 9y agoNo. It would have required forgoing most of their current revenue.
- mrweasel 9y agoThe money from Yahoo, now Google, is also a huge source of revenue for Mozilla (if not the main source). DuckDuckGo can't afford to fund the development of Firefox and Google isn't going to throw money at Firefox, if their search isn't the default... Well maybe a little, just to keep a competitor around and avoid anti-trust legislation. Honestly I doubt the average user would notice if DuckDuckGo was the default, except perhaps for a few rephrasing of a few search queries.
- keypusher 9y agoIt's not just the main source, it's nearly the entire source. (~98%) > Back in 2014, the last year of the Google deal, that agreement brought in $323 million of the foundation’s $330 million in total revenue.
- JepZ 9y ago> (Disclaimer: TechCrunch is part of Oath, Verizon’s roll-up of AOL and Yahoo, though nobody at TechCrunch that I know has ever willingly used Yahoo Search). Just awesome :D
- CobrastanJorji 9y agoI guess it speaks well of Oath that TechCrunch writers feel so safe dissing other branches of their conglomerate.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Grollicus 9y agoI do believe money means influence, so I think this will mean a whole slew of new bad decisions by Mozilla. Very worrysome. It's 73% of used browsers under the control of Google. Also the best alternative to Google Chrome under their control.
- qwerty456127 9y agoWho needs Google when thee is DuckDuckGo anyway? Switched to DuckDuckGo (after getting mad of Google demanding me to solve captchas all the time) about a year ago... 100% satisfied.
- rnhmjoj 9y agoAre you using a proxy or tor? I have never been asked a CAPTCHA on Google even with auto-deleting cookies and no javascript.
- hydrox24 9y agoI was asked a CAPTCHA every couple of weeks during heavy bursts of search, but this was only when I used the https://encrypted.google.com https://encrypted.google.com along with similar privacy measures to you. I was also on a VPN sometimes.
- ploggingdev 9y agoNot OP, but captchas pop up when I use proxies and tor. If you're not logged into a google account, you usually need to solve more than one captcha and it gets frustrating quickly. Luckily DDG does not treat tor and proxy traffic suspiciously.
- kome 9y agoAlso Qwant is very good (https://www.qwant.com/ https://www.qwant.com/)
- margorczynski 9y agoI've tried using it but at least for technical-related searches it doesn't event approach the quality of results I get from Google
- YorickPeterse 9y agoProbably the answer is quite simple: Google has more money to offer.
- throw2016 9y agoYou can't stand for privacy and promote Google at the same time. That's disingenuous and the 'explanations' are transparently self serving. If Mozilla needs that money from Google then they should own up to it and get off the privacy bandwagon rather than trivialize it.
- tryingagainbro 9y agoHeadline: Mozilla terminate$ its deal with Yahoo... if we had a functioning government a company with 70+% market share would not be able to buy even more market-share. Monopoly and all...
- margorczynski 9y agoRelated to this - I've always wondered why Mozilla doesn't just build-in an ad-blocker directly into the browser. The speed/security bump is significant. Probably because they want/need the deals with the search engine companies?
- porfirium 9y agoThey are so big on net neutrality and whatever, they can't do that.
- zach43 9y agoThey already have a pretty decent tracking protection app built-into the browser, and if I remember correctly it can also be enabled outside private browsing mode I’m guessing that they are slowly moving towards implementing a full ad blocker in the browser
- dep_b 9y agoWhat happened with Bing? They weren't interested?
- k__ 9y agoI liked the idea of Mozilla not being paid by Google. Sad, but not surprising when looking at Yahoos "success" in the last years :/
- gamla 9y agoOne thing Mozilla should consider is shifting to a non-commercial operational model entirely. Assume a Patreon-like campaign that attracts 500k patrons paying $10 / month each. That results in a $60M annual revenue, enough to sustain a meaningful company. It's still only 10% of their current annual revenue (which is closer to half a billion USD), but I would argue that becoming completely independent from any commercial incentives might be worth this sacrifice.
- jldugger 9y agoThat is... a very ambitious assumption.
- sctb 9y agoPreviously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15695114 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15695114