Mozilla Foundation earning $30 million/year from Google?

Mark Pincus blog: Firefox = Foxy Cash Cow

i've been hearing rumors that firefox (from mozilla.org) is making over $30m annually off of its deal for the google search box. just saw they passed 64m downloads too. that would mean they're making $0.50 annually for every download, but actually if you lose 50% of the downloads to apathy, bugs and ignorance (hmm...the ABI dilution effect), that would imply more like $1.00 per user which is pretty amazing. it's kind of fitting that one of the few startups in silicon valley to immediately go cash positive is a non-profit; and continues to support my hypothesis that all startups are non-profits except google:)

$30 million/year seems incredible from the perspective of a a small software-development nonprofit building a web reference into its work.

But when you think of the popularity of Firefox, it's plausible.

I imagine all the details will eventually come out in the Mozilla Foundation's 501(c)3 filings.

Legally, they'll have to spend that money on further not-for-profit program activities... that revenue flow could become a giant engine of new free/open-source software development.

Technorati Tags: opensource, google, firefox, mozilla, nonprofit, markpincus

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