Mozilla's San Francisco office. Image: IDGNS
Mozilla, the developer of Firefox, has warned that it may be forced to exit the browser market if it is no longer allowed to receive payments from Google for offering its search engine.
According to Mozilla, a ban on these payments could lead the company and other independent browser developers to withdraw from the market. This would mean the disappearance of an important distributor of search services. Mozilla argues that users would thereby lose a browser that pays a great deal of attention to privacy and security, while large technology companies would in fact gain more power over the Internet.
Mozilla sets this out in an amicus curiae brief that was filed in recent days with the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia.
The case dates back to 2020. The US Department of Justice and a group of states accused Google at the time of having violated competition law by making arrangements that made Google the default search engine in, among other things, Apple’s Safari, Mozilla’s Firefox and Android.
In 2024, after a trial, Judge Amit Mehta of the federal court in Washington ruled that Google had unlawfully maintained its monopoly in two markets: general search services and text ads linked to search queries.
In September 2025, Mehta imposed measures that, for six years, prohibit Google from entering into exclusive distribution agreements for Google Search, Chrome, Google Assistant and the Gemini app. However, the ruling does allow Google to continue paying Apple, Mozilla and other distributors of search engines.
According to Mehta, a ban on those payments would have major consequences for these companies and for the markets in which they operate.
He stated that such a ban could lead distributors to continue offering Google as the default search engine without receiving any income for it. Another possibility would be to conclude agreements with what he considers lower-quality search engines, so that they still receive payments.
US federal and state competition authorities recently asked the court of appeals to overturn the part of Mehta’s ruling that permits these payments.
Mozilla counters that Mehta’s decision on the payments is supported by the available evidence. Among other things, the company refers to its own research, which suggests that Mozilla’s revenues would fall sharply if it had to replace Google with Bing as the default search engine in Firefox.
Mozilla stresses that with its brief it is not supporting either party in the broader lawsuit. The company is therefore not taking a position on other important issues that are at stake in the appeal.
Google is expected to submit new arguments to the court of appeals next month.
Emerce