Great news for Mozilla, terrible news for the future of the internet
So paying in order to prevent search engine competition is ok as long as you are rich enough that your payments become essential for those receiving them.
Per the ruling, Google will no longer be able to strike “exclusive contracts” with companies to default or preload its products, but it may continue to pay or compensate companies to prefer its services in non-exclusive revenue sharing deals.
So Firefox can't force to use google, I guess similar to Windows having a browser selection instead of just forcing Internet Explorer or Edge.
Wait... that contradicts other parts of the article...
They are actually saying Google can't pay to be the default, but they can strike deals to share revenue.
What does "prefer its services" mean? is Mozilla still able to set them as default even if they are not being paid for it?
If they use a selection window like you imply: would they be allowed to set a pre-selected "default" there? would it just affect the order/placement of the available options? a "preferred/recommended" underline? would Google be willing to pay the same amount for that kind of deal?
I feel this is very unclear, and it's hard to tell whether it's actually a perfectly valid punitive approach that effectively would fix the issue or just a slap in the wrist.
Similarly, it's unclear whether this is really something that won't affect Mozilla or not. "Revenue sharing" implies that they will get less money than they would otherwise when users don't choose Google (which I bet would be a higher percentage than those who go with a chrome based browser, like say.. Opera)
I understand "exclusive" to mean you can only use or set as search engine google. Essentially the default with the install can be google but Firefox can't block users from setting another search engine as the new default
Oh, the way I understood "exclusive deal" was that the deal is exclusively with Google alone, not that Google is the only option for the user (which has never been the case, you were always able to change the default).
This would mean the new non-exclusive deal for revenue sharing implies Mozilla can have deals with other search engines or services (eg. Bing, ddg, etc) and get paid for featuring their search in the selection, joining the group of "recommended" options alongside Google. Google cant contractually tie Mozilla to exclusively recommend/prefer/set-as-default Google alone.
but again, depending on what is interpreted by "prefer" and whether the browsers are actually forced to not set a default (even when they are not getting paid for it) this can be an important change or no change at all.
The harm done by disallowing it in this case is greater than the damage by allowing it to continue. Pretty simple.
Dont like it? Help find was to make mozilla independent.
How do you know this? how are you calculating the damage? we are dealing with opportunities that are lost, opportunities with a value that can't even be known/understood since they aren't being explored. I'm not sure you can easily measure this arithmetically, or predict exactly what would be the counter-reaction to the alleged harm of acting upon it.
Sometimes it's actually a good thing long term to let things burn down naturally and build something better with a stronger foundation.
Making exceptions for the powerful and justifying actions for the sake of maintaining the status Quo does not sound like a good strategy to me, personally.
Making an exception for mozilla is hardly making an exception for the powerful.
As for how i know this, its pretty basic ecosystem analysis and understanding around how monocultures cause massive issues. Basically every attempt at solving these types problems identifies it as an issue. From capitalism, socialism, ecological studies, medical studies, to social dynamics.
Killing the only non google controlled broswer implementation will cause massive harm, massive harm that this legal case is literally about.
I am a Firefox user but I see a different reality.
Nearly 40% of Mozilla's budget goes to management and administration costs. It is unclear how much actually goes into improving Firefox vs how much goes into surfing over whatever new trend eg. AI, VPN, VR, ...
If Firefox is killed it is 100% the fault of Mozilla, not Google.
How it spends has nothing to do with pulling from google would cause it to collapse removing the only competition chrome really has. Pretty simple.
On the other hand, there will never be another way if Mozilla doesn't need the other way.
Cant prove that and attempting via a legal ruling isnt a sound idea repurcussions are too immediate
what about google and reddit's exclusivity deal?
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