Mozilla, Google Renew Firefox Default Search Agreement

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There has been worry that Mozilla will be unable to renew its search partnership with Google, from which it gets at least $100 million in revenue annually. But even with competition in the web browser market, Google and Mozilla have agreed to a new significant partnership, which can last at least three years more.

We earlier reported that Mozilla’s three-year partnership with Google has ended, and that Mozilla is trying to negotiate for an extension. This search partnership is crucial to Mozilla, given that a big share of its $123 million annual revenue comes from proceeds from Google search advertisements.

Re-negotiating the deal may not have been easy for Mozilla, given that Google now has its own Chrome browser, which has now surpasssed Mozilla Firefox as the #2 browser overall, and is now even more popular than Microsoft Internet Explorer 8.

Both Mozilla and Google have confirmed to arriving at a new Agreement, although no details have been disclosed, due to confidentiality requirements between the parties. “Under this multi-year agreement, Google Search will continue to be the default search provider for hundreds of millions of Firefox users around the world,” says Gary Kovacs, Mozilla CEO. Meanwhile, Google senior VP for search Alan Eustace says “Mozilla has been a valuable partner to Google over the years,” and the company looks forward to a long-term partnership.

Mozilla has just released Firefox 9, with Google as its default search engine. However, Mozilla likewise has official builds with other search engines as the default, which is likewise done in partnerships with other companies. For instance, Microsoft is also promoting Firefox with Bing as one of the download options, for users who are more fond of Bing than Google.