Mozilla can live without Google's money, Baker says

Computerworld - Mozilla Corp. will walk away from Google Inc. and the millions it collects from the search company each year, if that's what it takes to stay independent, the open-source developer's CEO promised yesterday.

"We've spent a lot of time and energy making sure that Google understands that it cannot turn us into an arm of Google," said Mitchell Baker, CEO of Mozilla and chairwoman of the Mozilla Foundation. "The things that make Mozilla and Firefox a success [are] the product, and the community that cares about it."

First and foremost, we would protect those things," Baker said. "If the protection of those things would come into conflict with Google, or any of our search partners, we would opt for the community who built Firefox and love Firefox."

If it came down to that choice, Baker was optimistic that Mozilla could do without Google's largess. "There are other ways to make money from a browser," she said. "We could have a more diverse revenue stream. The key is to find business models, or I should say revenue models, that help get things done. Search is a great example, but it's not the only example. Necessity is the mother of invention, and I'm quite confident there are or will be other ways to find revenue that our users are comfortable with."

Tuesday, Baker released the company's 2006 tax return and audited financial statement, which showed that Mozilla's revenues had grown 26%, to $66.8 million from $52.9 million, over the previous year. The bulk of 2006's revenues, the statement said -- 85% to be precise -- came from Google. Mozilla and Google signed a two-year contract last year that pays the former for assigning the latter as the browser's default search engine, and for click-throughs on ads placed on the ensuing search results pages.

The tight ties between Mozilla and Google have come under criticism, such as when Google paid part of some Mozilla employees' salaries, or because of the dependence of Mozilla on search payments for its income. After seeing the 2006 numbers, for instance, Frank Watson, a blogger on SearchEngineWatch.com, said Mozilla should take a new name: Googzilla or GoogleFox.

Baker said those critics missed the point. "We always keep in mind that the contract [with Google] is not forever," she said. "We have a rainy day fund just for that reason. With that, we feel we can pay the mortgage for some period of time if we had to walk away."

According to the financial statement and tax return, what Baker called a "rainy day fund" amounts to $50.8 million in investments and $13.2 million in cash. Those savings have accumulated because of the dramatic difference between Mozilla's income and expenses. While 2006 revenues totaled $66.8 million, expenses were a relatively small $19.8 million.