Yesterday, the United States Department of Justice filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, accusing the search giant of monopolistic practices to maintain its dominant position in the search market. Among the practices brought up in the case is the fact that Google pays to be in the default search engine on some devices and web browsers, such as Mozilla Firefox.
In response to the lawsuit, Mozilla has issued a statement regarding the accusations. The blog post opens by saying that Mozilla believes that scrutiny of these practices is important in order to "build a better internet".
However, the organization follows up by bringing up the search agreement between Google and Mozilla, which allows Google to be the default search engine in Firefox. Mozilla says it's one of the organizations that's best positioned to drive competition on the web, and that the lawsuit shouldn't cause collateral damage to smaller and independent companies like Mozilla.
Back in August, Mozilla and Google reportedly renewed their search agreement deal, which ZDNet estimated to be worth between $400 million and $450 million. This was shortly after Mozilla announced it would be laying off 250 employees as part of corporate restructuring, so it's apparent that Mozilla heavily relies on funding from this search agreement.
Mozilla says it's still looking into the details of the lawsuit, and it will share updates on the case as more information comes. It'll be interesting to see if and how the lawsuit will be able to protect the interests of smaller organizations like Mozilla while putting a stop to Google's practices.
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