IRS Looking at Google/Mozilla Relationship

ric482 writes "With the release of the Mozilla Foundation's 2007 financial report, questions have been raised by the IRS, who are due to perform an audit on the non-profit organization behind the massively popular Firefox browser. Last year, the Foundation received $66 million of its total $75 million revenue (88 percent) from search engine maestros Google, so the IRS are looking for blood over the organization's tax exempt status. Back in 2006, Mozilla got $59.5 million from Google — around 85 percent of the organization's revenue. Google and Mozilla are part of a 'you scratch my back, I'll pay your bills' sort of agreement, with the Google search bar firmly placed in the toolbar, and on the default homepage. Things were a bit rocky a couple of months back when Google unveiled the Beta-run of its Chrome browser, but Mozilla and Google hugged it out and sealed a deal that will last for another three years. That deal will expire in November 2011."

Comments

Perhaps they should look at MSN search on IE

[OurGodlivz]

Perhaps the IRS should look to see how much Microsoft is making off of having MSN be the default in Internet Explorer... After all something has to be default, why not get some money out of it. *Yes, I understand that IE is not a non-profit and thus it is not in the same boat*

Re:Soooo

[BlueParrot]

Microsoft DO do the same thing. Ever wondered why OEMs pay less for a windows license that does any other old customer? It's either a tax crime or a violation of antitrust law, and Microsoft gets away with it.

Re:nothing wrong with corp. support for OpenSource

[MrNaz]

Mozilla is no longer a friend to the open source community, and the sooner we realize that, the sooner these profiteering parasites will stop making megabucks riding on the back of their excellent developers, and those excellent developers can contribute to a project that actually makes a difference in the open source world. Mozilla (the organization) is no longer a benefit to the community, and has become dead weight.

Firefox should be forked. Better yet, it should be replaced with a browser that lives up to the lean and fast goal that Firefox initially had, but has since lost on its way to becoming the bloated mess that it is today.

There are many candidates out there that could be polished into a fully featured high performance browser. Being an Xfce user, my personal favorite is Epiphany.

Re:nothing wrong with corp. support for OpenSource

[MrNaz]

Isn't Epiphany using Gecko, Mozilla's HTML rendering engine?

Yes, but Gecko is "Mozilla's" in the same way that the Linux kernel is "Red Hat's". They contribute to it, but not a whole lot, they concentrate on building the browser. I.e., the bits that bring in their dollars.

It may be true that Firefox has kind of lost its way over the years, but you cannot deny it's popular success.

People use Firefox because mindshare has slightly expanded allowing for a second option. Very few FF users use it because they think it is the best browser, they use it because they think it's the only alternative.

it still is the less corporate-agenda-encumbered of all browsers.

Disagree. Epiphany, Konqueror, Shiira just to name a few, and let's not forget IceWeasel. These are all far less beholden to corporate interests and far more representative of the interests of the open source community.