Yahoo and Mozilla in Legal Scuffle After Firefox Switches to Google as Default Search Engine
Yahoo and Mozilla filed complaints against each other after the latter switched its web browser's default search engine to Google.
Last month, Mozilla unveiled its new web browser called the Firefox Quantum, along with the announcement that it would use Google as its default search engine in the United States and Canada. This prompted a new company called Oath to file a complaint against Mozilla that accused the latter of a breach of contract" and a "breach of covenant of good faith and fair dealing."
Oath is a company formed this year composed of Yahoo and AOL, which were both acquired by Verizon.
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In late 2016, just months before finalizing Verizon's acquisition of Yahoo, the news about the Yahoo hacking that compromised over one billion user accounts broke. However, the deal pushed through last June while Marissa Mayer stepped down as CEO.
Apart from having to deal with the major hacking incident, Verizon's Oath was now faced with the consequences of the deal that the Mayer-era Yahoo signed in 2016, which was first reported by Recode.
Mayer reportedly agreed to the addition of a clause that would allow Mozilla to ditch the contract and still be compensated by Yahoo until the agreement expires in 2019 if the latter was acquired by another corporation. The report added that Yahoo agreed to pay $375 million every year.
Meanwhile, most of Oath's complaint was redacted due to confidentiality, but the publicly available copy of the court document revealed that Mozilla had informed Yahoo of the change in Firefox's default search engine days before the Firefox Quantum was launched.
Yahoo said Mozilla sent them a letter titled "Notice of Termination of the Strategic Agreement" on Nov. 10 that showed the intention to end their "Strategic Agreement . . . effective immediately."
A few days later, Mozilla filed a cross-complaint on Dec. 5 that said: "The sale to Verizon triggered the change of control provisions under the Strategic Agreement."
Mozilla also addressed the public amid the legal battle. The company shared in a blog post: "We recently exercised our contractual right to terminate our agreement with Yahoo based on a number of factors including doing what's best for our brand, our effort to provide quality web search, and the broader content experience for our users."
On the other hand, Oath has yet to issue a public statement on the matter.
