Relationship with Google

The Mozilla Corporation's relationship with Google has been noted in the media, with regard to their paid referral agreement. The release of the anti-phishing protection in Firefox 2 in particular raised considerable controversy: anti-phishing protection enabled by default is based on a list updated by twice-hourly downloads to the user's computer from Google's server. user cannot change the data provider within the GUI, and is not informed who the default data provider is. The browser also sends Google's cookie with each update request. An additional, explicitly opt-in security feature has been added to recent builds by the Mozilla Foundation. This anti-phishing feature provides live protection by checking each visited URL with Google. Some Internet privacy advocacy groups have expressed concerns surrounding Google's possible uses of this data, especially that Firefox's privacy policy states that Google may share information gathered with "safebrowsing" service with third parties, including business partners. also promoted Mozilla Firefox through YouTube until the release of Google Chrome.

In 2005, the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation had a combined revenue of US$52.9 million, with approximately 95 percent derived from search engine royalties. In 2006, the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation had a combined revenue of US$66.9 million, with approximately 90 percent derived from search engine royalties. 2007, the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation had a combined revenue of US$75 million, with 88 percent of this sum (US$66 million) from Google. Foundation is being audited by the IRS and some believe its non-profit status may be called into question.