Mozilla and Google have extended their agreement to keep Google the default search engine in the Firefox browser until at least 2023, ZDNet report. The companies have not formally announced the deal, which ZDNet estimates are worth between $ 400 and $ 450 million a year, but are expected to announce it later this fall. The current regulation expired at the end of 2020.
The move comes as Mozilla just announced plans to lay off 250 employees, representing about a quarter of its workforce. Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker wrote in a blog post that the coronavirus pandemic “had a significant impact on our revenue.” In the blog post announcing the changes, Baker wrote that the company would focus on building new products “that people love and want to use”, renew its focus on community, and identify new revenue streams. Mozilla also fired about 70 people in January.
Most of Mozilla’s revenue comes from search engine companies such as Google – such as Yandex in Russia and Baidu in China – which pay for their search engine to be the default option in Firefox. In recent decades, Firefox’s share of the browser market has declined, and during that time several major products, such as a Firefox phone, and a Firefox OS, were never implemented.
Mozilla and Google did not immediately respond to requests for comment Saturday.
