Mozilla has extended its revenue agreement with Google, which will keep it as the default search provider for the Firefox web browser for the next three years.
The agreement is an extension of a deal the two web companies have had with each other since 2008. It came to an end in November of this year, but further negotiations have been resolved, meaning the relationship will continue. The financial terms of the agreement were not disclosed.
“Mozilla has been a valuable partner to Google over the years and we look forward to continuing this great partnership in the years to come,” said Alan Eustace, senior vice-president of Search at Google.
The deal is hugely important for Mozilla, which makes the majority of its revenue from search engines integrated into the Firefox browser, such as Google, Bing, Yahoo! and Yandex. It generated US$123m in revenue for 2010, with 84pc of that made up from its search agreement with Google alone.
The two companies have become web browser competitors in recent years. According to StatCounter, in November, Google’s Chrome browser slightly edged out over Firefox, with Chrome taking 25.69pc of the worldwide market compared to Firefox at 25.23pc.
