• XLE@piefed.social
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    19 days ago

    It’s not Firefox’s job to change how Google search works.

    Mozilla chose to make it their job to block ads on iOS. The browser is a user agent. It should not give preferential treatment to any website

    And this conflicts with their own principles: “Individuals must have the ability to shape the internet and their own experiences on it.”

    • BigDiction@lemmy.world
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      19 days ago

      Okay well Google’s search priority is reportedly 85% of Mozilla’s revenue. How do you think that influenced the product development conversation?

      I imagine that ads rendered directly in HTML were off limits from the beginning.

      • XLE@piefed.social
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        19 days ago

        It’s not just Google who gets preferential treatment. They also promise to provide special exceptions to:

        Ads shown on search engine results pages, including Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo and other search providers

        These under-the-table deals obviously contribute far, far less (15%÷4 is much smaller than 85%, and that’s assuming they provide all the remaining revenue).

        How do you think [Google money] influenced the product development conversation?

        Well… There’s definitely a nonzero chance that Google is capable of manipulating the development of Firefox behind the scenes, and I consider that possibility to be disconcerting. That suggests Firefox is controlled opposition, either in practice or in effect .