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World|business|November 20, 2014 / 09:29 AM
Yahoo to become U.S. default search engine for Firefox

AKIPRESS.COM - yahoo Yahoo Inc. struck a five-year deal with Mozilla Corp. to become the default search engine on its Firefox browser in the U.S., ending the nonprofit’s long-standing relationship with Google Inc.

Firefox users in the U.S. typing a search into its browser will be soon be directed to a page of Yahoo search results unless they specify otherwise, the companies said Wednesday, reports Wall Street Journal.

The deal is a victory for Marissa Mayer , who, more than two years into her tenure as chief executive of Yahoo, has failed to grow its core ad business. Firefox could help send millions of new users to Yahoo’s search engine, where it shows ads and directs them to other Yahoo pages.

Yahoo’s search results are actually generated by Microsoft Corp. ’s Bing search engine, through a 2009 partnership between the companies. But Yahoo still controls the look of its search engine and sells ads that appear near search results.

Revenue from search, excluding commissions paid to partners, accounted for $450 million in the third quarter, or 39% of Yahoo’s total revenue.

Outside the U.S., Yandex will be the default search for Firefox users in Russia, and Baidu the default for users in China, said Denelle Dixon-Thayer, Mozilla’s senior vice president of business and legal affairs. In other countries, Google will remain the default, she said.

Ms. Mayer has emphasized search as part of her turnaround effort, saying she plans to make it more personalized to users.Yahoo is set to unveil a new version of its search engine that will be available first to Firefox users in the U.S. next month, and then to others early next year.

Mozilla has long relied on Google to power the search box inside Firefox, but the rivalry between the two companies has grown. Google’s Chrome displaced Firefox as the leading browser on personal computers, with 51.3% of the global market, according to researcher StatCounter. Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is second, with 21.3% share, followed by Firefox with 18.8%.

Meanwhile, Mozilla is jumping into Google’s backyard, offering its own smartphone-operating system, Firefox OS, to compete with Google’s Android.

The U.S. search deal is Mozilla’s primary source of revenue, funding most of the nonprofit’s activities. The previous deal with Google brought Mozilla almost $300 million a year for the past three years. It isn’t clear how much Yahoo is paying Mozilla as part of the new deal.

In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mozilla’s chief technology officer, Andreas Gal, criticized Google, saying the company’s dominance of the mobile sectors through its Android operating system was stunting innovation.

A Google spokesman declined to comment.

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