From the ‘Is Google Evil? What About Marissa?’ files:
Mozilla has just announced that it is breaking off with its primary sugar-daddy Google as the primary/default search provider in Firefox.
Yahoo will now be the default as the result of a new five-year partnership that has 
just been officially revealed.
To say this is an epic shift is an understatement.
The Mozilla Firefox / Google arrangement is what in my honest opinion, has allowed and enabled Mozilla to exist. Mozilla generated $311 million in revenue in 2012 of that $305 million came from “royalties”, which in effect is the Google deal.
It had been reported that Google and Mozilla were still negotiating on renewing their deal, but apparently that has failed (in the U.S) at least. No word (yet) on how much the Yahoo deal is worth to Mozilla, but it’s likely a good deal for Yahoo.
Google today has its’ own browser and I frankly did not understand why they continued to subsidize their primary competitor. It makes sense for Yahoo to support Firefox and Mozilla.
That said, Mozilla, even though they have lately made a number of choices that I disagree with, is an organization that believes in user choice. As such, users can always choose to change the default page or the default search engine.
Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist
