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Mozilla Could Walk Away and Still Get More Than $1 Billion If It Doesn't Like Yahoo's Buyer (recode.net)
Kara Swisher, reporting for Recode: Under terms of a contract that has been seen by Recode, whoever acquires Yahoo might have to pay Mozilla annual payments of $375 million through 2019 if it does not think the buyer is one it wants to work with and walks away. That's according to a clause in the Silicon Valley giant's official agreement with the browser maker that CEO Marissa Mayer struck in late 2014 to become the default search engine on the well-known Firefox browser in the U.S. Mozilla switched to Yahoo from Google after Mayer offered a much more lucrative deal that included what potential buyers of Yahoo say is an unprecedented term to protect Mozilla in a change-of-control scenario. It was a scenario that Mayer never thought would happen, which is why she apparently pushed through the possibly problematic deal point. According to the change-of-control term, 9.1 in the agreement, Mozilla has the right to leave the partnership if -- under its sole discretion and in a certain time period -- it did not deem the new partner acceptable. And if it did that, even if it struck another search deal, Yahoo is still obligated to pay out annual revenue guarantees of $375 million.
if Google buys Yahoo, please change everything from Google to Yahoo. Probably 50% of zombie nets will break LOL XD
I get that people aren't the smartest, but it's trivial to change the default search engine. Never understood why anyone would pay that kind of money to be the default.
What does Mozilla do with all of that money?!?!
with a deal like this, well mozilla, you guys have to build a new, better/secure and faster browser. oh and by the way keep working on thunderbird also...
and i am a user who never left for chromium/chrome family...in fact i really don't like google's browser for several reasons....privacy being one of them.
They really ought to just exercise the option unless the buyer is someone they really really want to work with. Its a lot of money and it would be very good for the foundation to get that money.
Yahoo investors were fools.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
That's a billion FUs.
No one should be stupid enough to buy Yahoo under conditions like that.
It's over, Yahoo is completely finished.
By the brilliant Marissa Meyer. Good for you Mozilla.
... Mayer didn't think in late 2014 that Yahoo might be sold to an entity that Mozilla doesn't approve of? While by Dec. 1, 2015 CNN picked up the idea that Yahoo was looking for buyers?
Will somebody who doesn't mind RTA clue me in to the missing link in that picture? Or is it like I suspected, Mayer is an incompetent who should have been fired not later than January 1st, 2014, if not sooner?
Does anybody from a business background know if that sort of clause is standard? To a layman, that seems to be incompetent negotiating skills on the part of that CEO. Who in the world would buy Yahoo with that type of liability?
Given that after 2019 that $375m/yr will likely disappear, they had better be looking for their white knight search partner for the future. If (in a year or so) they do not find a future search partner, they likely should take the remaining years funding and gracefully wind down the business to whatever essential core that they can fund. If there is not a clear partner in the wings, the best and brightest at Mozilla are going to start looking elsewhere, which turns into a vicious cycle.
A Trojan horse at least has an outward appearance of acceptability. Bringing in the CEO of a competing search engine was transparent sabotage right from the start. Is there any way to spin off Flickr and return it to its former glory?
$997 million of it will go into a program to get more lesbian Eskimo Little Person left-handed albinos into programming, and $5 million will go into studying ways to make Firefox more like Chrome, then they'll have emergency fundraising to keep from defaulting on the $2 million they're in debt.
So Recode saw this contract? Why didn't it post the exact language used? Because it sounds plenty fishy for me ... what court would enforce a contract that says that if I walk away from a mutually agreed-upon deal, you have to still hold up your end of the deal? You still have to pay even though you get nothing in return? A concept called "consideration" comes to mind...
Breakfast served all day!
Specifically for Marissa Mayer, the Peter Principle.
She is a clueless moron, that is for sure. She is the queen of telling investors what they want to hear and making assurances nobody in their right mind could make.
Marrissa Mayer knew what she was doing. If this agreement actually exists, it was intentionally engineered to help resist a hostile takeover or shareholders forcing a liquidation of assets. Mayer took this job knowing that if either of those scenarios played out, she would be dumped without the track record to get another job of similar scale. Setting up this contract with Mozilla is one way she has been able to retain her control thus far.
Poison Pill
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
$375 million a year??
For that much per year maybe they could create a browser that have memory leaks that render it unusable after a day or two.
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
I would make it a condition that the money would only be released if they make builds of Firefox without hello, pocket and australis.
Deals like that is the reason Yahoo is in trouble. Mozilla doesn't care, it found another sugar daddy after Google dumped them. Yahoo can't afford to be a sugar daddy.
Depending on the state whose law governs the contract, Mozilla might have a legal obligation to act in good faith, in which case they are not allowed to pretend that they aren't willing to work with the new owners just because they'd rather take the money. They might end up losing a lawsuit and their reputation, it might even be construed as fraud. So you'd definitely want to consult your lawyer, maybe even bring in a legal specialist before you "pull the trigger". And if I were on the board and the thought that I'd rather have the money crossed my mind, you would certainly not hear that notion pass my lips, and anybody who worked with or for me would get a stern lecture if they said so. At this level of money you have to expect everything you say will be examined then twisted to use against you if that is at all possible.
Also, I'd like to add one odd-ball angle, which is as a non-profit, charitable institution Mozilla really ought to do the right thing.
Which is not to say they aren't in a position to be picky. Very picky. Really irritatingly picky. But not to the point of making-ridiculous-shit-up picky.
Then we all can finally yell,
Wait for it, wait for it,
Yahoo!
Well this thread has proven who understands big business and who doesn't. Kara Swisher and Recode certainly do not.
The reason for a deal like this is called a "Poison Pill." From Investopedia:
What is a 'Poison Pill'?
A poison pill is a tactic utilized by companies to prevent or discourage hostile takeovers. A company targeted for a takeover uses a poison pill strategy to make shares of the companys stock look unattractive or less desirable to the acquiring firm.
A Ton of info about Poison Pills
So as one would imagine a deal with Firefox like the one described would make it very hard for a company to buy Yahoo. Just like Ms. Mayer wants it. She needs to suck it totally dry before she'll move on I suspect. ~
Companies have lawyers whose job in part is to review and draft agreements such as this. How did the Yahoo lawyers ever think this was a good idea for the company?
...after all of the users and developers it shed when Yahoo became the default search engine for their browser.
It almost seems it's deliberate! *gasp*
Of course you do.
The C-suite's actions are only responsible when it improves.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
if you choose chorme to search this web. you can see the speed and display visual is quite good. it better than the others.
That is all.
These people have so much money yet they cannot get multi-proc and sandbox to work. Tottally and utterly negligent. Really security features like this need to come first to protect the users. You would think they could also keep XUL for backward compatability, with more security and user control for security purposes
Simple solution: Switch your default search engine to DuckDuckGo https://duckduckgo.com/
"... the mind-set of the upper management at Yahoo."
The mind-set of the previous upper management at Microsoft: Monkey Boy.
Good question: How does Mozilla Foundation spend $300,000,000 each year?
I understand that Mozilla Foundation now gets most of its money from Microsoft: Microsoft pays Yahoo. Yahoo pays Mozilla Foundation to make "Yahoo search" (actually mostly Microsoft Bing search) the default search engine in Firefox. That means Microsoft gets more money from advertisers when Firefox users do a search.
Firefox is now, apparently, mostly controlled by Microsoft, who is apparently trying to destroy it. In the past, Google paid Mozilla Foundation $300 million each year to make Google search the default search engine in Firefox. Google apparently didn't cause problems in the design of Firefox, even though it paid a shocking amount.
The Thunderbird and SeaMonkey Composer GUIs have been damaged, apparently deliberately. File saves in the newer versions of both ask for a new file name, and don't suggest the last one chosen. The damage was reported several months ago, but has not been fixed. Is that another example of Microsoft's Embrace, Extend, Extinguish? People who feel forced away from Thunderbird may choose Microsoft software to replace it. Is that something Microsoft is trying to accomplish?
In my opinion, dishonest people should not be employed in management. In my opinion, the managers and members of the board of directors of both Microsoft and Mozilla Foundation who approved the dishonesty of sneakily re-configuring Mozilla Foundation products should be immediately fired, and not allowed to have management positions in the future.
The browser situation is very, very ugly.
Google is becoming more and more abusive, and more and more incompetent. Want to download the Google Chrome Browser? The download file name does not give the version number. Even the badly managed Mozilla Foundation puts the Firefox version number into the file name. (But the file names for the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Firefox are the same.)
An earlier version of the Google Chrome browser installs 3 system services. Google has more control over computers than limited rights users. Is Google paid by the U.S. government to include software to control computers?
I would like Slashdot stories about:
1) The fact that most people aren't technically involved enough to know that their Firefox browser search was hijacked by Microsoft, or how to change back to Google search.
2) Bad and sneaky management. One of the many examples: Microsoft will make more money if it arranges that people are discouraged from using the Firefox browser. Another example: Why was this pastebin script removed?
3) Counteracting abuse. We need stories about web sites like this:
Remove spyware in Windows 10.
Disabling Windows 10 Tracking.
Destroy Windows Spying - Windows spying removal tool.
4) How do download a Windows 10 ISO file: Windows 10 Tech Bench Upgrade Program.