Google to pay Mozilla almost $300 million per year in search deal to outdo Microsoft and Yahoo

AllThingsD has reported that Google will be on track to pay an impressive $300 million per year to Mozilla, for when Google and Mozilla renewed their search royalty deal, earlier this week. This exorbitant amount of money will allow Google to be the default search engine in Mozilla's Firefox web browser. The deal has apparently climbed to this figure, from previous deals, due to Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing search engine, which have provided ample competition, until now.

Microsoft's Bing search engine was Google's primary rival in this deal, and the the company's long-living Internet Explorer is still the top Internet browser on the web, by user count, although Google Chrome is ever so climbing nearer and nearer to take the spot away, potentially in the near future. Yahoo was apparently in the bidding competition as well, but prices were too high for the company, who has its own internal troubles to deal with at the very moment.

Last year, Google paid over $100 million to Mozilla for a deal in providing the default search engine for Firefox, which expired at the end of November. Though even with the new deal with Google, Mozilla still retains current partnerships with other search providers, including Bing, Yahoo, Yandex, Amazon and eBay. We can say one thing for certain; Google's hoping for their own sake that Mozilla's extravagant sum is worth it.

[via AllThingsD]