Yahoo sues Mozilla over breach of agreement

Yahoo and Mozilla were already in a legal battle since few days and just recently, Yahoo has sued Mozilla for violating the agreement between them.

Around three years ago, Mozilla and Yahoo declared a partnership that decided Yahoo would be the default search engine on Firefox in the US. However, not long ago when Mozilla launched Firefox Quantum browser, it ended the partnership by making Google as its default browser. This resulted in Oath (Verizon), Yahoo’s parent company, suing Mozilla for breaking the agreement.

According to Oath, Mozilla ‘terminated a long-term strategic agreement with Yahoo’ on November 10. Before filing the suit, Yahoo claimed that it ‘demanded that Mozilla take immediate steps to cure its breaches and rescind its termination notice’. The lawsuit demands unspecified money damages and interest from Mozilla, reported Ars Technica.

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However, Mozilla justified its move for terminating the contract in a cross-complaint against Yahoo/Oath saying that they implemented their contractual right to end the agreement due to few factors, one of them being that they ought to do what’s best for their brand. It maintained that immediately after Yahoo’s acquisition, they talked to Yahoo but when it became clear that using Yahoo as the default search engine would have a negative effect on users, they used their right to terminate the agreement.

Mozilla also stated that Yahoo failed to sustain search quality standards that it promised to uphold while signing the agreement initially back in 2014. Mozilla asserted that Yahoo just focused on short-term monetization and special events like Olympics or the elections instead of advancing its search product quality.

Engadget reported that as the original contract states, Mozilla required Yahoo to continue making its annual payments even though it’s no longer Firefox’s default search browser. However, Yahoo claims that it shouldn’t have to Mozilla is not being fair. Also, the contract was made by Yahoo’s former CEO and isn’t necessarily indicative of the firm’s present-day vision.