Steve Woods

It was announced a few days ago that future versions of the open source Firefox browser could show advertising in freshly opened browser tabs (posts passim). To date these have shown up to nine thumbnails of frequently visited websites. However, on a newly installed browser these so-called ’tiles’ are blank and only fill up over time and with use. Heise writes that Mozilla Foundation boss Mitchell Baker has now justified the plans in a blog post.

In the past, Mozilla developers have always declined to display content with no previous user activity. Baker writes: ” This made sense at first when the web was so young. But over the years many people have come to expect and want their software to do things on their behalf, to take note of what one has done before and do something useful with it.”

She continues: “So we look at the Tiles and wonder if we can do more for people. We think we can. I’ve heard some people say they still don’t want any content offered. They want their experience to be new, to be the same as it was the day they installed the browser, the same as anyone else might experience. I understand this view, and think it’s not the default most people are choosing. We think we can offer people useful content in the Tiles.”

Baker promises that the advertisements shown in the tiles will definitely have no tracking functions. It’s ultimately a matter of gaining revenue for the Mozilla Foundation. The Foundation has so far survived mostly on funding from search engine companies like Google and other web companies. In 2012 these revenues amounted to more than $300 mn.

Today’s Le Monde Informatique reports that the Mozilla Foundation, the organisation behind Firefox, is going to include advertising in the browser with sponsored links as a means of increasing the income of the Foundation, which is currently heavily dependent on funding from Google.

According to the Le Monde Informatique, the inclusion of advertising in the Firefox browser represents a small revolution for the Mozilla Foundation. In concrete terms, Firefox will display sponsored links in some of the 9 tiles the user sees when a new browser tab is opened, Darren Herman, Mozilla’s Service Content Vice-President, explains in a blog post. The other tiles will continue to show thumbnails frequently or recently visited sites.

When the browser is first used, these tiles are blank and Mozilla’s Directory Tiles project is planning to include pre-packaged content with them. Herman makes reassuring noises about this change, stating: “Some of these tile placements will be from the Mozilla ecosystem, some will be popular websites in a given geographic location, and some will be sponsored content from hand-picked partners to help support Mozilla’s pursuit of our mission. The sponsored tiles will be clearly labeled as such, while still leading to content we think users will enjoy.”

Limiting dependency on Google

Including advertising in Firefox allegedly meets Mozilla need to diversify its sources of revenue, according to a Foundation spokesman. “The majority of Mozilla’s income comes for a single search partner and we would like to increase our resources to cope with changes on the web,” he explained. The Service Content Division has therefore worked on finding additional income sources.

He added that Mozilla’s relationship on search with Google was still beneficial for both parties. Google provides the majority of Mozilla’s revenues and Google is the default search engine in Firefox.

As a loyal Firefox user who doesn’t like advertising, I view these changes with concern and will be switching to either the Opera or Chromium browser after Mozilla implements this change.