Mozilla Challenges Federal Ruling on Google Search Deal Exclusivity

Mozilla is pushing back against a federal appeals court ruling that Google's search deal with the browser maker was 'exclusive'.

In a friend-of-the-court brief, Mozilla argues that U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta wrongly concluded its agreement with Google was exclusive.

The company claims it never included any express or implicit exclusivity requirements in its contract and selected Google as the default search engine based on product quality and user preference.

Mozilla also points to its past deal with Yahoo, which saw the search engine installed as the default for Firefox from 2014 to 2017. Mozilla notes that despite being the default, users shifted away from Yahoo due to a poor experience.