The Precarious Fox

It seems that being a Firefox user means being in a constant state of trepidation about whether the app will last the year. For a long while now, it has been well known that the browser’s very survival depends on the largesse of its search partner, Google. The Mozilla Foundation, which develops Firefox, is a non-profit, but it gets 85% of its funding thanks to the commercial interests of the biggest beneficiary of ad revenue on the internet.

Once again, the threat of the infusion of cash from Google in exchange for placement as Firefox’s default search engine disappearing is imminent. The latest risk for Mozilla is thanks to the Department of Justice case against Google.

The DOJ wants to bar Google from paying to be the default search engine in third-party browsers including Firefox, among a long list of other proposals including a forced sale of Google’s own Chrome browser and requiring it to syndicate search results to rivals.

The sad irony is that the pursuit of the DOJ to expand user choice in the area of search would limit user choice in the browser space. I have some sympathy for the argument against doing that. For all the bluster from the DOJ over the last few decades about bundled browsers, it’s easy enough for a consumer to switch if that is what they want to do. The choice is free for the making.