In what I can describe as an interesting turn-out of events, Firefox's director of community development Asa Dolzler has been reported to suggest Google users to ditch the search engine for Microsoft's Bing, saying that the latter has superior security features. This was published in Dolzler's official blog.
The comment came in after Google CEO Eric Schmidt had an interview with CNBC and shared his thoughts about customer privacy. According to Schmidt, it is only natural for them to take hold of necessary information for some time to comply with laws like the Patriot Act. This caught the ire of Dolzler, causing him to tell users about a Firefox add-on that uses Bing instead of Google in the Firefox search.
We don't know how much will this affect the relationship between Google and Firefox, which has been shaky for some time now after the introduction of Google Chrome in the market. What's interesting to note about this is that most of Firefox's income is taken from Google, which pays the former to become its default search engine. This puts to light the real score between the two Web companies and their marriage.
People has always put Google in good light, thinking that it is everybody's bestf riend. But from the dialogue described above, we can already see that Google may just be like another company, ruthless CEOs and all. It's sad that someone in the company is actually thinking that way, but I had always thought that it's because of financial concerns. For most people before, Google served like everyone's Internet best friend.
And the big winner of this news? Microsoft Bing, of course. It has received free media mileage because of the statements and even an endorsement from one of Firefox's top officials. The shaky relationship between Google and Firefox also gives space for Bing to move into the market in the foreseeable future. Indeed, the demise of others is somebody else's gain. This time, it's Bing's who's making the gain at the expense of Google.
