Update: Crucial Firefox-Google deal in doubt

 

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By Nicole Kobie

Posted on 5 Dec 2011 at 10:43

Mozilla and Google are still negotiating a lucrative search deal that expired last month, which could leave the Firefox firm without the bulk of its revenue.

The open-source developer has had a deal with Google for five years, which saw the web giant pay for its search tool to have a prominent position in the Firefox browser.

The deal provided Mozilla with 85% of its royalty revenue over the past two years, which in turn makes up the vast majority of its total turnover.

The most recent three-year deal expired in November, according to ZDNet, and it's not clear whether it has or will be renewed. “We believe that search providers will remain a solid generator of revenue for Mozilla for the foreseeable future," a spokesman told ZDNet.

However, a spokesperson suggested to PC Pro that the deal with Google was still on. "We currently have partnerships with a number of search providers that differ by market, including major search partners including Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon, eBay and others," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson has since added that the two firms are in "active negotiations".

"Our search relationship with Google remains positive for both of us. We are in active negotiations and have nothing further to announce at this time," Mozilla said. "We have every confidence that search partnerships will continue to be a strong and growing generator of revenue for the foreseeable future."

Google has yet to return request for comment.

Firefox's share of the browser market has been slowly slipping, with Google's Chrome overtaking it to grab second place globally, according to StatCounter. Google released the Chrome browser days after signing its last search deal with Mozilla in 2008.