>>Moz://a is paid millions by Google so that they're the default search engine in Firefox
That has not been the case for a few years(2012? or 2013 I believe), Yahoo is currently the Default Search and pays the bulk of Mozilla budget, With the Verizon Deal Mozilla is likely worried that will change when the contract is up for renewal
Yes Verizon must honor the Contract, all contracts, Yahoo committed to, that is standard
That contract however I believe was for 5 years, I am talking about what happens after the 5 years is over, which I believe will be in 2019 or 2020. After which Verizon has no contractual obligation to continue paying Mozilla for anything and likely will cease the partnership
That's not the point. There's a poison pill in the contract. Mozilla can walk out of the existing contract, get all of the money in lump sum, and sign with another search partner (while still being paid by Verizon). There are other search engines waiting in line, Mozilla's not married to Verizon.
>>There are other search engines waiting in line, Mozilla's not married to Verizon.
Who?? I know of none
MS will never support Firefox, They want people to use Edge.
DuckDuckGo do not have the cash to do it.
Google has the market share and does not need FF anymore that is why they dropped them
So Who....
>>That's not the point.
Actually it is the point, by 2020 Mozilla's IMO mozilla revenue stream will dry up, they need to find a way to survive with out the Search money. This is why they are taking these risky moves which IMO are doomed to fail.
Search competition is different from browser competition that mainstream media likes to hype up. A few hundred million for 10-15% of the search market is nothing, Bing and Google would gladly offer a bit of money. There are also partners around with world (Yandex, Baidu).
2. Firefox just became a little bit more like Chrome, at least as far as some of its users here are concerned
Google has been slowly consuming Firefox, so don't be surprised if any phoning home is happening.