• BigDiction
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    15 days ago

    Okay well Google’s search priority is reportedly 85% of Mozilla’s revenue. How do you think that influenced the product development conversation?

    I imagine that ads rendered directly in HTML were off limits from the beginning.

    • XLE@piefed.social
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      15 days ago

      It’s not just Google who gets preferential treatment. They also promise to provide special exceptions to:

      Ads shown on search engine results pages, including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and other search providers

      These under-the-table deals obviously contribute far, far less (15%÷4 is much smaller than 85%, and that’s assuming they provide all the remaining revenue).

      How do you think [Google money] influenced the product development conversation?

      Well… There’s definitely a nonzero chance that Google is capable of manipulating the development of Firefox behind the scenes, and I consider that possibility to be disconcerting. That suggests Firefox is controlled opposition, either in practice or in effect .