Andre Yoskowitz
25 Dec 2011 13:07
Earlier this week it was revealed that Google had paid again to be the default search engine in Firefox, the web browser which has about 25 percent of global market share.
Last year, Mozilla noted that Google practically kept the company in business in 2010, contributing 84 percent of their $123 million revenue.
The new deal, according to Kara Swisher, is apparently a lot more expensive for Google. If accurate, the deal now costs $300 million per year, for the next three years, meaning Mozilla will have made $1 billion revenue from Google, alone, for this year and the next three years.
It appears the payment was boosted so significantly because Microsoft and Yahoo were in the bidding, as well. Google was willing to pay up to block out the other companies, who are trying to take market share through a joint initiative and large marketing campaigns for Microsoft's Bing engine. Additionally, it has been speculated that Google is anticipating antitrust issues in the future, and is building a defense. For that to come true, however, Google's Chrome OS and Chrome browsers will need to get significantly more popular, to the point that they can be compared to Microsoft's Windows and Internet Explorer.
Regardless, Google is paying out $1 billion to a competitor who is losing market share quickly to its own Chrome browser so they must have something planned.