Firefox would be out of business without Google Search deal, CFO says

If the court implements all the proposals by the US Department of Justice to end Google’s monopoly in the search engine market, Firefox would have a hard time surviving, Mozilla’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Eric Muhlheim says.

In August 2024, US Federal District Judge Amit Metha ruled that Google acted as a monopolist by abusing its dominant position in the search engine market.

Google paid billions of dollars to tech developers, carriers, and smartphone makers to be the default search engine on iPhones and Android smartphones.

Mozilla is one of the businesses Google paid to be the default search engine in its web browser Firefox. Firefox is competing with Google directly with its web browser Chrome, but if Mozilla were to lose its lucrative deal with Google, it could threaten Firefox’ existence.

According to The Verge, Mozilla CFO Eric Muhlheim testified that Firefox makes up about 90% of Mozilla’s revenue. About 85% of that revenue comes from its deal with Google. Losing this money would mean Mozilla has to make “significant cuts across the company” and could cause a “downward spiral.” This could put Firefox out of business.

On top of that, cutting Google’s revenue would enforce the company’s dominance. Firefox’ underlying Gecko browser engine is the only one held not by Big Tech but by a nonprofit. The other two are Google’s Chromium and Apple’s WebKit. Mozilla created Firefox so that access to the web wouldn’t be controlled by a handful of parties.

Muhlheim added that replacing Google’s revenue would not be as easy as making a deal with another search engine provider or a non-exclusive agreement with Google. Mozilla tried talking with Microsoft about Bing taking over Google’s place, but such an arrangement would be less lucrative for Mozilla.

If the Department of Justice demands that Google terminate all contracts with businesses to set Google Search as their default search engine, it would likely take such a long time that Mozilla would have to make significant cost cuts and strategy changes, all while “waiting on a hypothetical future,” Muhlheim testified.

Mozilla is okay with offering users a choice screen to pick the web browser of their liking. However, the company doesn’t support a choice screen for users to select a default search engine in a browser. “Choice is a core value for us, but context matters. The best way to get to choice is not always a choice screen,” Muhlheim said during the cross-examination of the Department of Justice.