Mozilla to sell advertising in Firefox browser

[jsr]

http://www.techspot.com/news/55641-mozilla-to-sell-advertising-in-firefox-browser.html

Mozilla to sell advertising in Firefox browser
By Shawn Knight
On February 11, 2014, 4:45 PM

Mozilla has revealed plans to sell advertising within Firefox’s new tabs page. Yes, this is the same Mozilla that decided to block third-party cookies by default in Firefox 22 last year – a move that was described by the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s top lobbyist as a nuclear strike on the industry.

It’s a complete change of course for the foundation but naturally, Mozilla is putting a pleasant spin on it. Darren Herman, Mozilla’s VP of content services, said the Directory Tiles will suggest pre-packaged content for first-time users. 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 their mission, he said.

In case you weren’t already aware, sponsored content is simply a fancy term for advertising.

But why the sudden change of stance on advertising? Truth be told, it likely all comes down to money. Mozilla relies on Google for a large portion of its income thanks to a $300 million per year deal to use Google as the browser’s default search engine.

[greyl]

1. Sullen wow. nt

[2naSalit]

2. All the more reason

for me to decide that when this computer crashes and burns, I'll be offline.

[Warren DeMontague]

4. That's it, I'm never buying Firefox again!

Ever!




....

[steve2470]

5. years ago Opera browser company forced you to pay

Back then it was actually worth $7 with lifetime free updates. Now, not so much. It's Google Chrome with the Opera UI on top. I guess I've gotten my $7 worth by now

[Warren DeMontague]

6. No doubt. Anyway, firefox makes it pretty easy to turn off all the -other- ads.

I'm just not feeling the panic, on this one.

[steve2470]

8. same here nt

[bemildred]

7. That's fine as long as I can turn it off. nt

[toddwv]

9. Doesn't seem like a big deal.

They are putting default tiles on the new tabs page. Unless these tiles are static, they can be changed with websites that you use most frequently. It's really no different than the default homepage and the default set of bookmarks that most browsers come with.

Assuming that they can be removed and replaced like the normal tiles, of course.