Mozilla Suggests Dropping Google for Bing

Earlier this week, I linked to one of the rare news stories that burns me up on the inside. It featured the CEO of Google, Eric Schmidt, and an asinine comment, where he essentially stated that if you’re looking for privacy, you’re probably doing something wrong. Hopefully it’s not too hard to understand why this comment is a little foolish. People should be entitled to their privacy, regardless of what they’re doing.

I wasn’t the only one rubbed the wrong way with the comment, as backlash across the Internet spread fast. Even Mozilla’s Director of Community Development, Asa Dotzler, is getting in on the action, by actually suggesting that Firefox users to begin using Microsoft’s Bing search engine, rather than Google, which ironically, has been the default search engine for Firefox for as long as I can remember.

Of course, a comment like this is also going to raise a lot of comments, and even hatred, because while there are some out there who thrive on Google and can’t get enough of it, many also use the same passion to discredit Bing, and it’s uses. Personally, I’ve been using Bing since it launched, and I honestly have to say it’s been a breath of fresh air. Most of the reasons I like it are some reasons people hate it. I like the look, the design, and how it works.

A common complaint is “it won’t give me the results I’m looking for”… but that would assume that every-single time you search for something in Google, it gives you exactly what you’re looking for the first time around. That’s pretty unreasonable to believe, especially if you use a search engine a lot. I’ll admit that Google is still superb for intricate technical data, but for general searches, Bing hasn’t let me down.

If Mozilla is so gung-ho on Bing, why not drop Google as the default? That’s much easier said than done. Because of the deals Mozilla has worked out with Google, it’s just not possible to switch. Google at one point was responsible for about 97% of Mozilla’s total revenue, and if that doesn’t explain the reason, I’m not sure what will.

One of the reasons for this is that the larger majority of Mozilla’s revenue has always come from Google (about 97 percent). In November 2009, we noted that most of Mozilla’s revenue was still being generated through search deals with Google and other popular website operators (one of the reasons why Dotzler can’t simply push for Bing becoming the default search engine in Firefox). Google recently committed to extending its contract with Mozilla until 2011.