Recently, the Mozilla Foundation announced they would be introducing a corporate version of Mozilla, which some feel is designed to capitalize off Firefox’s exploding popularity. However, one pundit believes this is a move that puts them in a position of being potential Google fodder and therefore, he can longer recommend using Mozilla’s browser.
The pundit I am speaking of is none other than Daniel Brandt, someone who is noted for his dislike of Google’s method of operations (particularly, the method in which they store everything that comes across any of their services). In a recent post on his Scroogle.org site, Daniel issued a post detailing his feelings toward Firefox and why he can’t recommend using the browser anymore.
Daniel feels by launched the corporate version to facilitate a Google takeover, or as Daniel says, Mozilla is “selling their soul” to Google. To bolster his point, Daniel features some financial information about Google’s past contributions to the Mozilla Foundation:
The Foundation tells us that they have filing extensions that give them until November 2005 to file this form, and no information is currently available. Various officers have declined to comment on their Google income to reporters over the past several months. Their 2003 form shows total revenue of $2.4 million from donations that helped Mozilla Foundation get started, and that seems reasonable. But if [they’re] talking tens of millions from Google in 2004, this changes the character of their operation considerably.
On August 3, 2005, the Foundation announced that they are restructuring by spinning off the Mozilla Corporation, a for-profit subsidiary. This tends to confirm the rumors about tens of millions of dollars from Google.
Daniel goes on to say that the bulk of these donations comes from Mozilla agreeing to make Google the default search engine for Firefox’s search box. Not only is the search box brought into question, but the ability to do the same in Firefox’s address bar is also addressed. If you type a keyword (and not a site address) into either box, you are taken to the top position web site for that keyword (according to a Google query).
Because novice web users may not know the difference the two locations, Daniel feels this little feature is a major concession to Google. Because this differs from the way Internet Explorer interacts with the Google Toolbar, Daniel feels :
Google and Firefox are behaving the way that Microsoft used to behave in the days when it forced manufacturers to bundle certain software. This behavior is unacceptable.
Read more of Daniel’s position here.
Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for Murdok. Visit Murdok for the latest search news.
