No financial terms were announced, but Mozilla’s blog post says the agreement extends the companies’ agreement “for at least three additional years.”

The renewal comes about three weeks after the previous contract expired. The two companies previously had another three-year deal that expired at the end of November. A couple quotes from the Mozilla announcement:

“Under this multi-year agreement, Google Search will continue to be the default search provider for hundreds of millions of Firefox users around the world,” said Gary Kovacs, CEO, Mozilla.

“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, Google.

The deal’s importance to Mozilla can hardly be understated. Earlier this year, the company revealed that 98% of its revenue comes from search royalties.

Postscript, December 22: As we’ve reported on Marketing Land, reports are circulating today that the Google-Mozilla is triple the amount that Google spent in 2010 to be the default search engine in Firefox.

As Mozilla’s blog post explains, the Twitter search option can be used to search Twitter usernames, hashtags and topics (without hashtags). It’s available in four languages: English, Portuguese, Slovenian and Japaneses. Mozilla says more languages will be enabled in future releases.

Twitter search was previously available as a separate add-on for the Firefox search bar. Today’s news means that Firefox users won’t have to go find the add-on if they want quick access to Twitter search.

Deals like this have historically involved payment of some kind. We asked Twitter for confirmation of any financial arrangements between it and Mozilla; our request was sent to Mozilla’s PR team and a spokesperson told us they have nothing to share about the business aspect of today’s announcement.

Mozilla recently revealed that 98% of its revenue comes from existing search deals with Google, Microsoft and Yahoo. The company’s deal with Google is due to expire this month.

Firefox With Bing

In a blog post today, Bing invites people to download a version of “Firefox With Bing” where Bing is used as the default search engine for the Firefox search box and for searches conducted from the “AwesomeBar” address window:

In most countries, Firefox uses Google as its default search engine, thanks to a deal between Google and Firefox. Until last year, Bing wasn’t even an alternative option offered within the browser.

Bing: Any Browser Is A Good Browser

A Bing-Firefox deal last year finally fixed that issue. But today’s news is something entirely in its own league, a Microsoft division encouraging people to download a rival product of another division.

But it’s that type of attitude that I wrote in 2008 Microsoft needed to take, if it wanted to really win in search:

For Microsoft to succeed in search, I want them to forget how search integrates with Windows or Internet Explorer (sidenote: after being integrated in various ways for a decade now, clearly that’s not going to be a Google-killing tactic). Forget how search might tie into Office. Use Macs. Use Firefox. Hell, use Google Chrome. I want search products that succeed on their own.

Defaults Aren’t What You Assume

By the way, Bing is not the default in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, as some people assume. To my understanding, it’s the default only where it has done deals with hardware manufacturers or in the rare case when Internet Explorer is installed on a “clean” computer with no prior operating system.

As for Google’s Chrome, Google has usually been the default there, unless you install Chrome on a computer where Google is not already the default in another browser. In those cases, it typically has asked if you want to change to Google search.

Recently, however, I’ve noticed that on Apple computers, installing Chrome causes it to deliberately ask if you want to use Google, Yahoo or Bing. This has happened to me twice in the past two weeks. Potentially, the same is now happening on Windows computers. I just haven’t done any installs on them, recently.

For related news on the topic, see Techmeme.

Mozilla said it earned $121.1 million in revenue in 2010, up 19.3% from 2009′s $101.5 million. Even with the growth of Google Chrome, Mozilla increased revenues through this model in 2010; will it in 2011?

Mozilla said:

The majority of Mozilla’s revenue continues to be generated from the search functionality included in our Mozilla’s Firefox product through all major search partners including Google, Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon, eBay and others.

Google and Mozilla’s search partnership deal is up for renewal this November, after extending their deal three years ago. We have to assume the deal will be renewed, despite some tension between the two organizations.

Related Articles:

• Google & Mozilla Extend Default Firefox Search Provider Deal
• Mozilla Folks Attack Google On Privacy; Will Bing Finally Be Admitted Into The Firefox Club?
• Firefox: Google’s Secret Weapon Against Microsoft?
• Hey Firefox – Let Us Pick Our Own Search Engine!

Google said the Google Toolbar works in versions of Firefox 4 or younger, but not the new version 5 of Firefox. Google explained, “many features that were once offered by Google Toolbar for Firefox are now already built right into the browser.” So Google has decided the toolbar doesn’t offer enough of a value-add on Firefox and thus is no longer supporting it.

The Google Toolbar was first introduced over years ago for Firefox. Then later came to Internet Explorer. As you know, Google has their own browser, Chrome, without support for the Google Toolbar – but like they said above, Google’s Chrome browser has many of the toolbar features built directly into the browser.

Alex Chitu said that you can still run the Google Toolbar on Firefox 5 if you install the add on compatibility reporter.

This makes for the third Google service closing in two days, we had Google Labs shutting down and the Google Directory closing.

Postscript From Danny Sullivan: It’s rather stunning to see this closure. For one, Google uses the toolbar to track user behavior. It’s one way that Google gets site speed data that in turn is used to influence its search results. Many suspect that that surfing behavior is also used. The article below has more:

• Turning The Tables On The Google Toolbar & Disclosure Claims

The argument that many features of the Google Toolbar are built into the browser doesn’t wash. Firefox doesn’t offer a native way to perform site-specific search, not to view cached pages, nor to perform specific vertical searches on Google, not to get PageRank data.

Firefox also doesn’t feed back into Google Web History. Only the Google Toolbar does that, which means Google has now permanently broken a part of personalized search for Firefox users going forward (and made no mention of this in its help pages). More about how the toolbar works with personalization is below:

• Google Search History Expands, Becomes Web History
• Google Now Personalizes Everyone’s Search Results

Why would Google do such a thing, cutting both users off from their personalized data and itself off from receiving that information? My guess is that Firefox users weren’t found to be using the PageRank meter much (which in turn enables Web History / personalization).

Google’s never had a Google Toolbar for Chrome, so it has likewise been blind to getting information about site speed or user behavior through it, at least if you believe what Google says about not monitoring what people do in Chrome.

This leaves Internet Explorer as the only browser with support, unless you want to stay with an older version of Firefox. However, I’d recommend Groowe as a solution for the toolbar-less on Firefox 5.  It’s a long-standing plug-in that mimic most of the major features of the Google Toolbar, plus other search engine toolbars. I’ve happily used it for years.

Related Stories:

• Google Instant Now On New Google Toolbar 7
• Google Toolbar For Firefox Adds Chrome-Like “Most Visited Sites” Tab
• Google Toolbar For IE Adds “Advanced” Translation
• Google Toolbar 6 For IE Adds Search To Windows Task Bar
• Google Toolbar For Firefox 3.0 Adds Great Features
• Disabling The Google Toolbar Doesn’t Stop Google From Tracking You
• Turning The Tables On The Google Toolbar & Disclosure Claims

There are lots of different ways to speed up searching. Google, Bing and Yahoo all offer browser toolbars — no need to visit their home pages, just search wherever you are. Google and Yahoo both have their own versions of “instant search,” where search results appear as you type. Google’s Chrome web browser lets you search right from the browser address bar.

And they all fall short of my new favorite search tool: Slashtag.it. If you’re really looking to search faster, this is the way to do it.

Slashtag.it isn’t a search engine; it’s an interface that lets you access several dozen search engines more quickly. It does this via simple slashtag commands – one for each of a couple dozen different search sites. (You might think Blekko coined the term “slashtag,” but the term was actually first used in relation to Twitter in late 2009.)

If you wanted to search for U2, for example, across several different sites, there’s no need to visit them all and type “u2″ into their search boxes. You can do it all via Slashtag.it, like this:

Amazon.com

YouTube:

Bing Images:

Facebook:

There are currently about 60 slashtags supported (including Search Engine Land) and a form to suggest new ones that you’d like added. Slashtag.it supports pretty much all of the main search sites and a few cool ones like Netflix, Evernote and Dropbox. (If you’re logged in to your Dropbox account, typing “somekeyword /db” searches your stored files; too cool.)

Perhaps best of all, you don’t have to visit Slashtag.it to use the service. You can make it the default search tool on your Firefox, Chrome, Internet Explorer or Opera browser; it can also be added as an extra toolbar on Safari, though it won’t function as part of the main search box there.

And, Slashtag.it doesn’t have to replace your primary search engine; if you use it without typing a slashtag, it’ll send your search term to your preferred search engine. (So, if I just type “u2″ with nothing else, it does that search on Google.)

Example: Searching for Maui, Hawaii Information

I’ve been using Slashtag.it to research a trip later this year to Maui. The first thing I did was install Slashtag.it as my default search engine in Firefox.

The Old Way

Before using Slashtag.it, my process for comparing Google and Bing Maps would’ve been something like this:

1. Type “maui snorkeling” in the search box and click to search Google.
2. Click the “Maps” link in the menu above Google’s search results, or click the big map graphic in the right column to reach Google Maps.
3. Change my search option in Firefox to Bing and repeat the search. (as shown above)
4. Click the “Maps” link in the menu above Bing’s results.

The New Way

After adding Slashtag.it as a search option in Firefox, that process became:

1. Type “maui snorkeling /m” to search directly on Google Maps.
2. Change the “m” to “bmaps” and search directly on Bing Maps.

That’s half the steps, less time using the mouse, and much faster overall.

Final Thoughts

The hardest thing about using Slashtag.it is remembering all the tags that are available, but they’re all pretty self-explanatory and several times I’ve guessed right (/flickr and /itunes, for example).

It’s such a simple and useful tool, I can’t help but wonder why one of the big search engines didn’t think of it first. If you only ever use Google, for example, wouldn’t it be nice to be able to type “maui snorkeling /maps” and Google would know you want to skip Google.com and search Google Maps?

Still, that would only work for Google properties. If you want a faster way to search several dozen different sites, Slashtag.it is the way to go.

Postscript From Danny Sullivan: You can, of course, do these things with Blekko, which debuted the “slashtag” concept back in October (see Blekko: New Search Engine Lets You “Spin” The Web and Blekko, The “Slashtag” Search Engine, Goes Live). For example, you can add the commands below to match any of the same searches above that Slashtag.it does:

• Amazon = /amazon
• YouTube = /youtube
• Bing Images = /images (Blekko image search is Bing Images)

Blekko lacks a /facebook option that I can see, which is very nice in how Slashtag.it provides it. But Blekko provides a huge number of of other slashtags plus provides the ability for anyone to create their own.

If you like the concept at Slashtag.it, then you should love it over at Blekko. As for Blekko, it doesn’t love the idea that Slashtag.it is using the “slashtag” name that it has trademarked. I’d expect that will likely be forced to change.

As for the concept itself, of adding a few things to search words to get focused results — those are generically referred to as search commands. Google offers a number of these itself, some that generate direct answers and some that let you narrow to a particular site (interesting, Google no longer lists some commands that work such as link: and allintitle:).

Search commands have been around for ages, but the idea of “command line” searches got attention back in 2005, when YubNub launched. The service, which still operates, allows people to enter searches preceded by commands to get back particular results. For example:

• am + word = Amazon search for that word

Another service that also came to light in 2005 is Ambedo, which also still operates. As with YubNub, you enter the “tag” of a particular search you want to do (searching Amazon = amazon) followed by the search term.

Postscript from Matt: You can do something similar with Blekko, but there’s a key difference. When you use a slashtag on Blekko, you’re searching the pages from the other site that Blekko has indexed; you’re not searching the actual site.

For example, if I do a search on Blekko for “u2 /amazon,” I get 16 results from Blekko. But Amazon has hundreds of U2 products on sale. If I do the same slashtagged search result on Slashtag.it, I get the full set of matches and I’m on Amazon.com already where I can begin shopping right away — no extra clicks.

Although the concept is similar, Slashtag.it is really a different experience than Blekko — one that I’d argue is much better.

Behavioral targeting are a form of ads that use your online behavior to target specific ads to you, as you browse the web. Google calls these interest based advertising but most of the web calls them behavioral targeting.

Google released a new Chrome extension named Keep My Opt-Outs. The extension helps block some of the personalized advertising and related data tracking performed by companies. I should note, Google has an older Chrome extension named IAB Opt Out that blocked Google’s interest based ads. This new extension works more broadly.

Firefox said they are working on a solution for a new version of Firefox. Alex Fowler from Firefox said:

As the first of many steps, we are proposing a feature that allows users to set a browser preference that will broadcast their desire to opt-out of third party, advertising-based tracking by transmitting a Do Not Track HTTP header with every click or page view in Firefox. When the feature is enabled and users turn it on, web sites will be told by Firefox that a user would like to opt-out of OBA. We believe the header-based approach has the potential to be better for the web in the long run because it is a clearer and more universal opt-out mechanism than cookies or blacklists.

As I said at the Search Engine Roundtable, I suspect adoption of such extensions or turning on blocking will be used at a very very limited basis. So advertisers and publishers really do not need to worry about reduced advertising or marketing. But if you are a person who is worried about this, you now have some tools to help protect your privacy.

Related Stories:

• Google Gets Into Behavioral Targeting, Launches “Interest-Based …
• How Many Google Privacy Policies Are You Violating?
• Yahoo Introduces “Ad Interest Manager”: Allows Opt-In And Out Of …
• Privacy Concerns, Online Ad Targeting On Apparent Collision Course
• Behavioral Targeting Is Easier Than You Think
• How Microsoft’s Behavioral Targeting Works
• Consumer Groups Trying To Preempt Behavioral Targeting For Mobile Ads

This will be on both the Mac and PC versions of Firefox 4. Bing said:

We’re very excited to be included in the search engine choices in the upcoming version of Firefox. Having Bing in the “out of the box” list makes it easier than ever for the Firefox community to experience the benefits of Bing.

Postscript From Danny Sullivan: The current default search engine in Firefox is Google, and that doesn’t seem to be changing. However, it’s a big boost for Bing to finally get included as an alternative choice, and one that’s long overdue, in my opinion. For some further background on Google’s relationship with Firefox and how Microsoft has been left out, see the posts below:

• Hey Firefox – Let Us Pick Our Own Search Engine!
• Mozilla Folks Attack Google On Privacy; Will Bing Finally Be Admitted Into The Firefox Club?

What’s The Referrer?

When you visit a web page, by default, every major browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome…) reports the last page that you viewed before clicking over to the current page you’re viewing. IE, what page “referred” you to the current page. This information is known as the “referrer URL.” (Technically it’s the “referer” string, because of a misspelling in the HTML technical specs years ago).

For example, let’s say that you did a search on Google for “google pac-man,” the game that Google debuted last week. You get a page of search results, and the URL for that page looks like this:

http://www.google.com/search?q=google+pac-man

See the part at the end? Embedded as part of the URL, the page’s address, are the search terms you used, “google pac-man.”

Now you click on one of the pages listed in the search results. When you leave Google and arrive at the page you selected, that page gets sent a copy of the URL above. Then, using web analytics software, the page’s owner can easily tell that you found their page by doing a search for “google pac-man” on Google.

Similarly, I have a personal blog called Daggle. From time-to-time, I link from that blog over to my work blog here at Search Engine Land. For example, I wrote a piece on my personal blog in April called Dear Facebook & Google: We Are Not Your Pawns – Enough With The Auto Opt-In!

The URL for that page looks like this:

http://daggle.com/dear-facebook-google-pawns-optin-1796

I linked from that article to a story here at Search Engine Land. If someone clicks from my personal blog to that story, the referring page (my page on my personal blog) is logged, and I know exactly where they came from.

FYI, when I’ve tested in the past, referrer data is only sent if you click on a link from one page to the next. If you visit a page, then type in a new URL directly into your browser to bring up a new page, the “old” address is not sent.

The Web’s Caller ID

Hopefully, you can see why I think of the referrer as the web’s caller ID. But it’s more caller ID for places, rather than individuals.

You know how Caller ID sometimes lists a business name, while other times an individual’s name is shown? It’s all down to how the telephone is registered.

For the most part, referrers do  NOT show the names of individuals. There is other information that web sites record, primarily IP addresses, that potentially can be used to identify who a particular person is. This only works in some special cases. See Google Anonymizing Search Records To Protect Privacy, which goes into more depth about that. Also see here and here about how browser fingerprinting, which is still not that common, can be done to better identify people.

Instead, referrer data is largely designed to show you the last business someone came from. And that information, for site owners, is marketing gold.

I Love The Referrer

When you understand the search terms someone used to reach your site,  you understand how successful your search marketing activities are. You can also better target those people with a message when they arrive.

Aside from search terms, understanding exactly how people are finding your web site tells you what marketing is working or not. You can measure if you’re getting good word of mouth on blogs. If you’ve been mentioned in Google News. If your URL is being passed around on Twitter. If some non-profit web site is linking to your information.

The referrer is what makes internet marketing so measurable, so performance-driver and so unlike traditional marketing, where so little is measured. You know  that quote widely attributed to advertising pioneer John Wanamaker?

Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.

If he were alive today, and had done his advertising on the internet, he’d never have been able to say that. Referrers would tell him exactly what’s wasted and what’s not.

Threats To The Referrer

Three things in the past week make me wonder if we’re seeing the beginning of the end for referrer data.

Google Launches Encrypted Web Search from last Friday covers how Google has launched a new way for people to do “secure” searches. In the way you do secure online banking, it means that the searches you do on Google can’t be “overheard” by anyone. Part of this means that no referrer information is passed along.

Protecting Privacy with Referrers out from Facebook yesterday covers how in some limited cases, Facebook referrers could be used to track a visit back to a particular user at Facebook. It’s an excellent look at what a referrer is, by the way. Facebook’s done some fixes, but more important tells us, “Facebook is one site where referrers don’t really belong.”

Google Lets Users Opt Out Of Analytics Tracking, But Doesn’t Expect Many Will from today covers how Google is allowing anyone to opt-out from being tracked by its Google Analytics code. This is code that web site owners install on their web sites to track and understand what people do their sites. Part of that tracking is logging the referrer information.

Love It / Hate It

I love choice. I love that users can have secure searching. It’s something I wanted to see come — though I have to say, I didn’t realize it would be at the cost of referrer information.

I’m also glad that those who want to opt-out of Google Analytics tracking can do so. They’ll still be tracked in plenty of other ways from other companies that don’t offer an opt-out, but people can be especially paranoid about Google. Offering an opt-out is a good PR move by Google, even though it’s individual web sites that use Google Analytics that get hurt the most.

As for Facebook, there’s an argument that Facebook is not the only site where “referrers don’t really belong.” And that leads to a worry about whether other sites will drop them. Plus, I already have a frustration with Facebook. The referrer data it sends, and that Google Analytics parses, is already so poor that it’s difficult to understand exactly how anyone found your content on Facebook.

That’s a big issue for the company. I’ve seen several prominent people suggest that Facebook doesn’t drive traffic. I know first hand that it does, something I’ll cover in a future post. But as a publisher, if you can’t measure Facebook’s impact, it’s easy to write it off. That’s not a position Facebook wants to be in.

Fair To Steal The Referrer?

So, I have mixed feelings about the current trend. Most reassuring on the Google front is that both options, secure search and Google Analytics opt-out, aren’t on by default. Practically no one, relatively speaking, will do a secure search. Practically no one will opt-out of Google Analytics. Taken individually, there’s no need to hit the panic button.

Taken collectively, I’ve got more worries. Add in the Facebook news, and you wonder what’s next. The real death blow would be if Internet Explorer or Firefox or Chrome decided to drop support for sending referral information. That would have a huge impact. Good PR, but terrible for site owners.

Keep in mind that site owners uses referral tracking for other reasons. For example, it can be used to prevent images on your site being loaded on another site without permission. It can be used to help fight spam, to detect if someone’s really on your site when they comment. It can be used to detect what people do within your own site — the paths they take, to determine how usable your site is. And, of course, there’s the marketing component.

I’m not a big fan of those who cry out that the web is full of net neanderthals who just want content for free. But then again, as someone who has published content online for 15 years, I know how difficult it can be to earn off the web. Ad rates are far below where they should be when you consider the time people spend on web sites. Subscription income can be done, but it’s a huge amount of work.

Having referrer data has been a crucial tool for the online publisher. It has felt like a fair trade-off that visitors would provide it. I don’t want to see it go. I don’t know what we’d do if it did go.

Oh, The Irony

My hope is that this all blows over. That blocking referrers remains something only the tech-savvy or the super paranoid do. That blocking referrers remains something that only happens if people jump through hoops with the opt-outs that Google provides. That it only comes to browsers if you use plug-ins like No Referer.

That’s a plug-in I know well, because I use it. Yes, my name is Danny, and I’m a referrer blocker.

I deal with a lot of embargoed information and sites that aren’t yet meant for public viewing. I block to ensure I don’t accidentally “leak” the locations of these sites. And I’m well aware of the irony of writing that I don’t want referrers to go away while at the same time, I personally actively block them.

I don’t have a good answer to that. Maybe I haven’t moved to the acceptance phase of loss. Heck, we haven’t even had the loss of referrers yet.

I can tell you that life in a referrerless world can be hard. I’ve discovered some bank web sites just don’t work. I can’t comment in some places. I can’t get some web sites to function as they should.

When I encounter these issues, I eventually think “Hmm, maybe they need a referrer?” Then I switch those on, for those sites, and things work again.

I suspect we’ll see more of this, if referrer data gets blocked more and more. Sites might not let you in, unless you provide a referrer, similar to how some sites will demand cookies.

We’ll see. Or maybe someone will come up with a clever way for referrer information to continue being provided but also while making things more private.

Hey Firefox – Let Us Pick Our Own Search Engine! from me last year covers how Firefox has consistently excluded Microsoft’s search engine as a built-in option for their users. The most current version that I run doesn’t include Bing. Heck, even Google’s competitor to Firefox — Chrome — includes Bing as a built-in option.

As a result, those who want to take Dotzler’s advice to “easily” switch to Bing have to not-so-easily manual find and install a Bing add-on for Firefox.

Personally, I hope Dotzler will make it a crusade within Firefox to add Bing as a built-in choice. That would really support his call for a Bing switch far more than pushing an add-on ever will. It will also correct an absurd exclusion that Firefox has merrily made, seemingly because it gets paid so much from Google for Google to be the default choice in most country versions of its browser.

Sure, keep Google as the default, if that’s what the deal requires. But make Bing a built-in alternative choice.

Meanwhile, CNET notes another Mozilla person firing at Google. Christopher Blizzard, director of developer relations at Mozilla tweeted:

Everyone knows that every site you visit and all address bar searches in Chrome go to Google, right?

Actually, that’s not the case, to my understanding. If you search from Chrome, yes, that goes to Google. It sort of has to send the search to get back results. That’s exactly what happens when you search from within Firefox, of course — whether you use the built-in search box or one of the preconfigured search keywords for the address bar (for example, type “google” followed by your search words in Firefox, and that will generate a Google search).

As for each site you visit going back to Google, no. Google was pretty specific when Chrome was released that it doesn’t send what you visit back to the mothership. Searching With Google Chrome & Omnibox has more about this. See also Preventing paranoia: when does Google Chrome talk to Google.com? from Google’s Matt Cutts for a more detailed look. Since those were written, I’ve seen nothing about this suddenly changing.

And how about those comments from Schmidt that started this all off. Yeah, not too terrific. He told CNBC in a documentary that aired last week:

If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place. But if you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines, including Google, do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act, and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.

I’ve bolded the key part which has many people upset. I think most people would agree that there’s an expectation that privacy isn’t an on/off switch. You may want to search for things that aren’t necessarily wrong but which still wish to remain private. Searches on medical conditions are a great example of this. You might not want people to know about a medical condition you have, and wish to research on Google, but that sure doesn’t make it something you shouldn’t do in the first place.

For more, see related discussion on Techmeme.

Postscript: Turns out, Dotzler mounted quite a defense of keeping Microsoft out of Firefox last year, when I called for the browser to include Bing (called Live Search at the time, and when the relevancy wasn’t that substantially different than it is now). Some of his comments about my post when it hit Digg:

Firefox users have their choice of several built-in and popular search services including Google’s number 1 competitor and the second most popular, Yahoo!. Google is the default for most Firefox locales because it’s the best search service available for the largest number of Firefox users (and was years before there was any revenue associated with default status).

Live search is still pretty awful. Last time I searched it for “firefox” the first result was a Microsoft Silverlight page. Seriously.

“Regular” users aren’t clamoring for Live search and those who are can get it from the “Manage Search Engines…” option right in the search services list. And if that’s not enough, head over to http://mycroft.mozdev.org where there are over 15,000 available alternative search services.

Mozilla was the first browser maker to incorporate multiple search services right into the browser and has been doing a pretty good job of exposing various search services to users for the better part of a decade. Mozilla’s decisions around defaults are driven by what’s best for the largest number of users and not what’s best for revenue.

And:

Google doesn’t control the Firefox search box. Firefox search is 100% controlled by Mozilla and the decisions about the feature are made with zero input from Google. Suggesting otherwise with innuendo rather than facts to back up your argument is just horse *****.

And:

It’s the 5th most popular optional search service for Firefox is your argument that regular users are clammoring for it? Most of the very most popular Firefox add-ons don’t satisfy enough users to warrant inclusion in Firefox but the 5th most popular of a not very popular sub-set of add-ons should be included by default?

Let’s just add all ~15,000 searches to the dropdown. That way “Regular users” will all be satisfied. We should go ahead and add all of the ~5,000 Firefox add-ons as default features too because “Regular users” who downloaded them must have them as part of the default install!

And:

“But then again, why is Yahoo the top choice in some countries? Did Mozilla undertake relevancy studies to know it should out Google? I highly doubt it.”

Actually, yes. Well, sort of. As Mozilla grew and built an actual organization in Japan and China, we came to realize that Google was dominant globally BUT not dominant in every single locale, and we started to adjust.

Our first experiment was to move CJKT to Yahoo (because, yes, we believed Yahoo was more popular in CJKT than Google.) We also moved to add other domestic search services into the menu of choices where it made sense. Yandex in Russia, Baidu in China, Naver in Korea, etc. For some of those changes, we entered into new financial arrangements. For others we didn’t.

After that experiment, users in CJKT made it pretty clear that regardless of Yahoo’s market share in the region, they didn’t prefer Yahoo and so we changed yet again.

It’s not about the money, Danny. You just don’t seem to want to accept that. It’s about what’s best for users. After that, sure we look for revenue relationships and many companies are amenable to entering into those relationships.

Another example is Ebay. Ebay is the dominant auction site globally but not in every locale. In Latin America, it’s Mercado Libre and we didn’t know that when we shipped Firefox 1. We learned that when JT and I took a trip to South America and talked with our community there and they explained a lot to us about the locales.

Another service in the browser example is the BBC news feed. Originally that was the default for all Firefox locales. It’s not any more because we’ve worked with our locale communities to adopt more locale-specific news feeds for the default feed in Firefox.

Did you know that Mercado Libre was rocking South America? Did you know that Yandex kicks everyone’s ass in Russia? We didn’t when Firefox 1 shipped but we do now. We change when we learn :-)

And:

So they’ve improved somewhat in the last few months. Good for them. It’s still far behind Google and Yahoo in popularity and usage.

And:

“Google is the default search choice in Firefox because it has a paid deal to be this way. For the same reason, Yahoo is the default in some Asian markets. The story had references to both these facts. But to make it easier for you:”

Danny, you’re quoting someone else that’s getting it wrong doesn’t make you right.

I’ll try to make this real simple for you:

Google is the default search choice in Firefox because Mozilla decided it is the best choice for Firefox users. AND (not because!) Mozilla derives revenue from it’s search relationship with Google.

The key that you seem to be missing that may help you understand this is that if search engine “Foopy” was the best search engine in the world, it would be the default EVEN IF THEY OFFERED MOZILLA NO REVENUE INCENTIVES. Likewise, if search engine “Noopy” was a poor search service, It would not be included in Firefox EVEN IF THEY OFFERED MOZILLA MASSIVE REVENUE INCENTIVES.

It’s not about the money. The money’s there and Mozilla isn’t going to turn it down, but it’s not about the money. It’s about providing users with the best possible experience.

And:

That’s just *****. Both Google and Yahoo were in Mozilla’s search feature years before there was any revenue associated with browser search. Maybe you should actually learn a bit about the subject before making those kinds of assertions.

The editorial decision for which search services to include come before the revenue. Which ever search engines we might include would happily pay us for that and we’re happy turning that down when we don’t believe it provides our users the best possible experience.

You can bet your little website that MS would pay whatever it took to get into the search box in Firefox but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that Mozilla provides the best possible experience for the largest number of users.

You don’t know what you’re talking about.

And:

“In Firefox, while Mozilla isn’t forcing you to use Google, it is deciding on your behalf to make it the default because Google pays it to do this.”

You’re just full of *****, Danny. Mozilla doesn’t pick its defaults based on money. If it did, you’d have seen a leapfrogging in that box with every release as the various companies with search outbid each other.

Mozilla picked Google as the default search engine long before there was any money associated with search in browsers and we continue to have Google as the default engine because it continues to be the best choice for our users — completely independent of revenue.

Suggesting otherwise without some evidence is total horse ***** and you should cut it out.

I’m not sure if I’m still full of ***** according to Dotzler or not. But he was pretty adamant, as you can see, that Firefox isn’t listing Google as a default in most of its installations because of a financial deal and that it would make the best choices for its users.

So skip the entire thing about adding Bing as a default option. That should happen, of course. But if Dotzler now believes that Google is so bad for users on the privacy front, shouldn’t he lobby for it to be the default in Firefox. And can’t Firefox make that happen?